QUISLINGS

For those unfamiliar with the word, this has two definitions but comes to a point given Wednesday’s events in the US Senate.

The first is one of a historical reference. The namesake of this definition comes from the Norwegian politician and military officer Vidkun Quisling. During World War II, he was installed in 1940 as the puppet Prime Minister of Norway during Nazi Germany’s occupation of said country. Upon the end of the European theater of World War II in May 1945, newly liberated Norway began its moment of cleansing itself and sought justice by placing those on trial who aided and collaborated with their Nazi oppressors.

Quisling was found guilty of several charges that included embezzlement, murder, and high treason against Norway. His sentence: death by firing squad on 24 October 1945.

This was also the fate for others who followed Quisling’s path. One of his cabinet ministers, Ragnar Sigvald Skancke, was also executed by firing squad in August 1948. He is the last person to be sentenced to death in Norway and the country abolished the use of the death penalty in 1979.

Uttering the word quisling in Norway is equivalent to calling someone a Benedict Arnold in the United States.

The other is from a work of fiction.

In “World War Z” (highly recommend the audiobook), the phrase is used to describe humans who begin to act like zombies as a way of compensating for the shock that came with the onset of the zombie apocalypse.

Quislings in this usage did a lot of damage in the efforts to eradicate the zombie scourge. Observers believed that zombies were attacking each other but it was zombies attacking quislings since they could tell the difference. Also aiding in the chaos was Phalanx, a vaccine that was supposedly effective against zombification, but didn’t work. Neighborhood patrols and the military had difficulties in discerning the difference between zombies and quislings because they acted so similar that in many instances led to fatal consequences. Because quislings were so mentally lost, there was little effort to rehabilitate them back into society.

On Wednesday, 52 Senators became Quislings in agreeing that Trump should not be removed from office for abuse of power and congressional obstruction due to withholding military aid to Ukraine and in exchange for that aid Ukraine would launch an investigation into Hunter Biden’s activities into that country in an effort to damage former vice-president Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

Much like Quisling, these 52 agreed that it was acceptable for a president to welcome foreign influence into the political system and if caught, that it is acceptable for a president to block, stonewall, and intimidate witnesses into not providing the information necessary to enter the public record.

And as long as the president’s party controls at least one chamber of Congress, the president can get away with it and claim acquittal while the senate leader runs enough interference to prevent the calling of witnesses and testimony to the president’s misbehavior.

All of the 52 could fill the role of Quisling but one specifically comes to mind: Senator Mitch McConnell. Throughout the 2010s, McConnell as the Republican Senate leader in both roles as minority and majority leader has sought to undermine the Constitution in a quest for power. As minority leader, he vowed to make Barack Obama a one-term president. That backfired spectacularly when Obama was re-elected in 2012.

Still, McConnell did everything he could to gum up the works in the senate to allow several federal judicial positions to remain vacant as well efforts to abuse the filibuster to block meaningful legislation.

McConnell was delayed in becoming the senate majority leader across two election cycles; the first being in 2010 due to Republicans nominating dangerously underqualified candidates in Delaware, Nevada, and Colorado and 2012 was highlighted by candidates in Indiana and Missouri who expressed abhorrent views concerning rape.

The magnum opus of McConnell’s conversion into Quisling was in 2016 when the senator refused to allow Merrick Garland, Obama’s selection for the Supreme Court vacated due to the death of Antoni Scalia, to go through the confirmation process due to citing some never heard of precedent about it being an election year. Where was that precedent when McConnell pushed the confirmation of Brent Kavanaugh through in 2018, also an election year? McConnell as well as House Speaker Paul Ryan refused to join with President Obama in condemning potential Russian interference in the 2016 election putting their party’s electoral chances ahead of the national security of the country.

If only 20 Republican senators had the courage to break ranks to find Trump guilty on at least one of the impeachment charges. Only one did: Utah Senator Mitt Romney, who voted on Article I.

But quisling - the World War Z definition - also applies to McConnell and his other conspirators in that they are more afraid of Trump, his enablers and apologists in the media, and most importantly, Trump supporters. These quislings believe that if they go along with supporting Trump it will keep him and his supporters from turning their ire towards them. But by appeasing and even at times, sounding like Trump, it has resulted in those who are well outside of the bubble to turn their ire and disgust towards them resulting in them losing their House majority as well as several statewide offices and state legislative seats in 2018.

Being these quislings in following Trump to retain their hold on power could lead to Republicans repeating the fate of 2018 this coming November as well as losing their Senate majority with the electoral defeat of Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Martha McSally of Arizona, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and the two Senators in Georgia: David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.

Most importantly, it could lead to Trump receiving an eviction notice from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The main difference between Quisling and quisling is that Quisling realized he was a tool after partaking in the Nazi led coup of his country and that his government was nothing more than a front for his masters. It was only a matter of time before Quisling and his ministers would be held accountable for their actions which they were when World War II ended in Europe. The quislings who imitated the zombies had no epiphany on that their actions would lead to their inevitable demise whether by the zombies they sought to imitate in their hopes to survive or by the humans who were fighting the zombies in hopes of reclaiming their livelihoods.

I wonder which ones Republicans realize they are.