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Forgive me if I am not celebrating the courage of all these South Carolina Republicans who are now shocked shocked! by President Chaos after spending years enabling him. With the stunning exception of Myrtle Beachs Tom Rice, you dont suddenly become a hero because you refuse to stand by the guy who inspired the worst attack on Americas Capitol since the British torched it in 1814.

Lindsey Graham, Mick Mulvaney, Nikki Haley, Nancy Mace all these profiles in courage who were more than happy to ride along on the Trump train are jumping off right on cue. It has been a hell of a journey as Graham put it, but enough is enough.

Going after the Mexicans and the Muslims was one thing. Sure, Charlottesville was a bit awkward, even for (some) Republicans, and those kids in cages at the border, too. But when the barbarians show up at the gate of your own house, the Peoples House, with zip ties, and they start breaking out gas masks on the Senate floor, then that is really infringing on your personal freedom. Besides, the base doesnt like masks.

They could have blown the building up, Graham said with all the outrage he usually reserves in defense of The Boss. They could have killed us all!

It was always going to end like this, or something like it. Trump didnt change; Trump will never change, and that is exactly what the MAGA faithful love about him. Its not like Graham didnt know. In the 2016 presidential campaign, he famously told us the truth: Trump was a kook, crazy, unfit for office.

And then Trump was elected, and Graham eventually became Sycophant One in Congress, on the golf course, on Air Force One. But he was hardly alone. Trump was Nikki Haleys ticket to the United Nations and Henry McMasters to the governors office. Mick Mulvaney went from tea party nobody to Trumps budget director and then spent a long year as the hands-off acting chief of staff letting Trump be Trump.

They were all cheerleaders and apologists for the worst president in American history. Trump lied, divided and played on racial animus. He leaves office with a virus killing 4,000 Americans a day, the economy in tatters, particularly for those at the bottom, and a nation more divided than any time since the Civil War.

To my Trump friends, I say this: Whatever you thought you got from the guy, it wasnt worth it. The price was too high.

And yet, after we knew exactly who he was, Graham, Mulvaney and the others wanted to put this narcissistic madman back in the White House for another four years. Over the past two months, as Trump relentlessly pressed his Big Lie, that the election was stolen from him, they were silent or worse. They fueled the fire.

The South Carolina Five Republican Congressmen Jeff Duncan, Ralph Norman, Tom Rice, William Timmons and Joe Wilson shamefully voted to overturn the election. Lindsey Graham could not acknowledge Joe Biden won until he was scared silly by the Trump terrorists.

Our governor who liked to brag he was the nations first statewide elected official to endorse Trump wrote off the attack on the Capitol as a bad day at the office. Alan Wilson, our Republican attorney general, wants you to believe he was as surprised as anyone about those robo calls from his partys association of attorneys general summoning patriots to Washington.

The one South Carolina Republican who actually put his career in jeopardy was Rice, who out of nowhere voted to impeach Trump on Wednesday. It was a gutsy move in the bright red 7th Congressional District and virtually guarantees him a primary challenge in two years. It is called political courage, not something you see too often these days.

For four years, too many Republicans have been willing partners, complicit in the unraveling of our institutions and the trust that binds us together.

You cant pretend that all that came before the past two weeks was just a bad dream. The road to redemption isnt that easy. It requires a fidelity to the truth and facts that is sorely lacking in our society today.

Donald Trump didnt just happen. He had a lot of help, and his helpers need to own what they broke.

Steve Baileycan be reached at sjbailey1060@yahoo.com. Follow on Twitter @sjbailey1960.

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Bailey: Trump's South Carolina enablers need to own what they helped break - Charleston Post Courier