You know that song, right? The Star Spangled Banner? It’s sung at the beginning of almost every sports event in the United States. Yeah, that song. It looks like we’re going to have to change the lyrics. There are four verses to the song, though folks generally only sing the first verse. But each of those verses ends with a variation of the same line.

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Turns out the answer to that question is a firm “Nope.” Doesn’t matter if the banner is waving or not, because the US is no longer the land of the free or the home of the brave. Evidence? I got your evidence right here. Vanity Fair just published an article with the title

“They’re scared shitless”: The Threat or Political Violence Informing Trump’s Grip on Congress.

Over the last month we’ve seen Republicans in Congress cower before Trump, confirming Cabinet members they know…they fucking know…are unfit and unqualified. We’ve got a drunk misogynist wife-beater who mismanaged a couple of charities for veterans in charge of the Department of Defense. Pete Hegseth wouldn’t be considered qualified to drive a goddamn school bus. We’ve got a Director of National Intelligence who is a Russian apologist, an ongoing distributor of Russian disinformation, and who has refused to acknowledge that the Syrian dictator Assad used chemical weapons against his own citizens. We’ve got a Secretary of Health and Human Services who has a 14-year history of heroin abuse, who is an anti-vaccine nut, who is a Covid conspiracy nut, who claimed in a divorce proceeding that “a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died” which accounted for his…ah, fuck, you get the idea. RFK Jr. is a quack. These are NOT serious Cabinet candidates.

So why have Republicans in Congress supported them? Because, as reported by Vanity Fair (and others), they’re fucking cowards. They’re afraid for 1) their careers and 2) their safety.

Look, I’ve been legit afraid for my life and safety. I understand what it feels like when you’ve been told if you do X, then Y will happen to you. I was threatened several times during my years as a criminal defense investigator. I’ve been threatened by a burglary gang; I’ve been threatened by the guy who actually committed the bow and arrow murder my client was accused of (this was a guy who’d already done time for murdering another person by stabbing him multiple times with a bayonet); I’ve even been threatened by the police for outing an officer who’d slept with a witness. It’s scary to know that there are people out there who seriously want to harm you and are capable of following through with it.

But you know what? I still did my job, because it was important. Because there were principles involved. Because civil liberties matter. Don’t get me wrong; I was scared and I took every precaution I could. There were situations I avoided because I was so fucking nervous. But I did my job.

MAGA Republicans are right to be scared. There are a LOT of MAGA lunatics out there eager to prove their loyalty to Trump by engaging in violence. Many of the Republicans in Congress were potential victims in the January 6th Insurrection. They know what Trump supporters are capable of doing. What they’re willing to do.

But they have a job to do. And they’re…not doing it. Their job is a LOT more important than my job was. There’s a LOT more riding on their job than there was on mine. And they’re too afraid to do it. Oh, a few of them may actually agree with Trump, but many/most of them know better. They’re just too scared to stand up.

Home of the free? Land of the Brave? I’m not convinced the US has ever truly been the land of the free, though I like to think there have been periods in which we’ve tried to be. But we have, in the past, been the land of the brave. When fascism threatened Europe in the 1930s and 40s, the US…okay, we dodged around as much as we could, but eventually we stood up and fought to support Europe. We haven’t always been consistent in opposing totalitarian regimes, but we’ve always at least voiced the notion of freedom and representative democracy.

Now? Not so much. Now we have a POTUS who is openly pro-totalitarian. We have a POTUS who openly spreads Russian lies and disinformation, who openly undermines the very foundations of representative democracy, who is openly corrupt, who openly dismisses the legitimacy of the Constitution.

The Republican Party is fully aware of what he’s doing. And they’re unwilling to oppose him. Because they’re afraid. They’re willing to allow democracy to die in the US because they can’t find the courage to say ‘no’. Hell, they’re not just willing to let it die; they’ll volunteer to help bury the body.