WHAT PRICE WILL ANTI-TRUMP REPUBLICANS EVENTUALLY PAY?

 

                    …The Republican Congressman of Winnebego County, Illinois

 

10 House Republicans had voted to impeach President Donald Trump

 

I’m going to tell you a true story about a real person that believes in a quote from the 2001 WW II movie “Band of Brothers”.  It is a quote from the movie in which an officer dresses down a soldier who had hid from going into battle.  The quote is, “The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead.”

This story is about a 42 year old man that, for most of his early life, he thought of himself as a loser.  And a month after the attacks on the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, he signed up to join the Air National Guard.

He had seen the “Band of Brothers” movie when it aired in early 2001.  Sometime later, he also heard his brother give a speech to a church group, highlighting the advice of that on-screen officer that gave that frightened lieutenant the quote about “Accepting the fact that you’re already dead.”

After he had signed up for the Air National Guard, he became a pilot and he was eventually sent to fly planes in Iraq.  He completed two tours in Iraq.  This pilot flew planes that transported troops who were tasked with killing or capturing known terrorists.  He also often took on mortar attacks along the ways. “There were a few heightened moments,” he said. “But I didn’t have any fear. It was just my belief that, we’re here for a moment like this.’ ”

This man’s name is Adam Kinzinger.  Back at age 20, he had run for a seat on his county’s board. “Somebody jokingly told me I should, and I thought they were serious,” he says. He conducted his campaign almost exclusively via telephone, worried that if he showed up in person, voters would see how young he looked and laugh him off his front porch. But he went on to win the race.

Today, Adam Kinzinger is a two-term, Republican Illinois Congressman.  And he is one of the 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach President Donald Trump after the Capitol riot.

As a representative, Adam Kinzinger has been more proactive than many Republicans in raising the alarm about QAnon.  This is a pro-Trump extremist ideology that renders the president’s political opponents as evil Satanists.

Now, as the Senate prepares for Trump’s impeachment trial, Kinzinger finds himself prepared to learn what his outspoken criticism of the former president will cost him.

“Those 10 Republican colleagues who voted to impeach all have to know there’s a decent chance they will lose their jobs next year,” says Joe Walsh, a former Illinois congressman who challenged Trump in last year’s presidential primary.  “Illinois can be a tough state for Republicans,” says Walsh.

When the Capitol’s emergency alert system had sounded on Jan. 6, Kinzinger felt a chill run through his body.

He had been worried about violence in the District for weeks.  Kinzinger had tracked conspiracy theories on online chatter and he grew concerned about the rhetoric at Trump’s post-election rallies.  He told his staff to work remotely the day of the certification vote and advised his wife, a communications staffer for Vice President Mike Pence, whom he married last year, to stay home.  Kinzinger has a permit to carry a concealed weapon in the District, but almost never brings his gun to the Capitol. That day, he did.

When order was restored and Congress continued with the certification, Kinzinger listened as members of his caucus gave speeches questioning the validity of Trump’s loss in certain states.

In the end, 147 Republicans voted to overturn the election results.  A week later, 197 voted against impeaching Trump for inciting the riot. 

Kinzinger thinks many of his caucus did so because they fear losing their seats, and others because they fear losing their lives to Trump’s crazed supporters.

The line between political peril and actual bodily danger has been seriously blurred. “Many of us are altering our routines, working to get body armor, which is a reimbursable purchase that we can make,” Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.), who also backed impeachment. “Our expectation is that someone may try to kill us.”

Kinzinger says he has received multiple menacing messages since calling for Trump’s removal. “The ones I worry about are not the ones that type out a threat,” he says. “It’s the ones who just go and do it.”  In any case, he’s still confident he can handle himself.

Illinois’s congressional districts are likely to be redrawn in the next year, making it possible that Kinzinger will already have a harder time holding onto the Republican nomination for his current seat. And local Republicans say his votes against Trump won’t help.

“There were a lot of people who were disappointed with Adam’s remarks,” says Eli Nicolosi, chairman of the Republican Party in Adam’s Winnebego County, Ill. “I think Adam knows that his opinion is his opinion alone and it doesn’t necessarily represent other Republicans.  Here in Winnebego County there are a lot of people who aren’t happy with that.”

A Republican challenger has already filed paperwork to run against him in next year’s primary. The challenger named his campaign committee “Impeach Adam Kinzinger 2022.”

Kinzinger hopes that the end of the Trump presidency will bring about an epiphany among his colleagues, that they’ll realize governing on the basis of fear and lies can hurt them more than it helps them. “Leaders have got to start telling the truth,” he says.

But he’s realistic, too. “I think we’re going to have an epic battle in the next six months for the definition of this party,” he says.

So he’ll stay and fight, he will function the way a soldier is expected to function.

In the end, it could cost him a lot.  But a man who already knows he’s dead doesn’t think too much about what he’s got to lose.

Copyright G. Ater 2021