“Conservatives” love to bleat about “civility.” Even before the era of Trump, it was impossible to take them seriously. Newt Gingrich was perhaps the least civil member of Congress in our history, before the current crop of Republicans, and he helped make Trump possible.
The underlying problem in our politics now, since 1964, is the bloody minded refusal of the “white supremacist” base to reconcile themselves to the measure of equality for African Americans that came with the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. They don’t necessarily want to reinstitute slavery, but they do want African Americans mostly to remain silent. Especially African American women, since racism and sexism often travel together.
So, everyone’s favorite “white supremacist” du jour, Marjorie Taylor Greene, has introduced a resolution to expel Maxine Waters from the House of Representatives because of statements Waters made about the trial of Derek Chauvin.
Of course, Stacey Abrams, the woman who ran for governor of Georgia, losing in an obviously stolen election and working as a highly effective voting rights advocate, has long been a favorite target. Georgia governor Brian Kemp has blamed her for the economic fallout from the racist voter suppression bill he recently signed.
Historically, members of Congress have approached kabuki levels of performance in their displays of politesse towards one another. It turns out that civility only applies, for Republicans, anyway, to fellow white people, as House member Jim Jordan illustrated recently:
This is just rudeness, full stop. It serves the Republicans’ goal of perpetuating “white supremacy,” when a white man can just interrupt an African American member speaking. It also serves their goal of rendering government as inefficient as possible by wasting the time of members of Congress, as Marjorie Taylor Greene has recently perfected, to the point of annoying even some Republican members.
Of course, Donald Trump was the king (!) of unprofessional rudeness throughout his foray in running for office, and in serving, insofar as he did so at all. Republicans whining about Representative Waters forget, conveniently, about a tweet Trump uttered about Representative Schiff, a House impeachment manager, that Schiff and several other members of the House saw as a threat to Representative Schiff.
And, of course, as one would expect, Trump engaged in typically “white supremacist” criticism of Representative Waters, who is a favorite target because she is a very outspoken person, the type of African American women “white supremacists” most detest.
Anyone who votes for or identifies as a Republican adopts the noxious mantle of “white supremacy.”