Tea Swiller Joe Walsh: Trump Should Be ‘Ashamed’ For Ignoring Russian Hack (TWEETS, VIDEO)

By
Darrell Lucus
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It’s becoming more and more apparent that Donald Trump’s obstinate refusal to acknowledge that Russian hackers tried to influence the election has left him on an island. Any doubt that the Donald is almost completely alone should have been erased on Monday morning. A former tea party congressman who was a staunch Trump supporter turned on him violently, calling for the president-elect to get his head out of the sand and understand just how serious this is.

Joe Walsh parlayed a single term as one of the loudest members of the tea party-heavy Republican freshman class of 2010 into a stint as one of the louder voices on conservative talk radio. He was a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, even going as far as to vow to get his musket ready if Hillary Clinton won. However, in recent months, Walsh has blown apart most of the stereotypes we’ve formed about the true believers in the tea party. For instance, he loudly condemned the FBI’s decision to tell Congress about potentially relevant emails in the Hillary email saga as partisan hackery.

But that was nothing compared to an epic tweetstorm he unleashed on Sunday afternoon, when it was apparent that Trump wasn’t willing to acknowledge that the election may have been tainted by massive Kremlin interference.

Walsh was still ripping on Monday, when he appeared on the late afternoon edition of “CNN Newsroom.” Watch here.

Walsh told host Brooke Baldwin that he was “outraged at the lack of outrage” from his fellow Republicans over these revelations. He couldn’t believe that the country was so divided that it couldn’t come together long enough to realize that the Kremlin had launched a direct attack on our democracy. He believed “that should piss everybody off,” but especially Republicans.

To Walsh’s mind, the deafening silence from many GOP quarters about this hack was “so wrong,” given that there was “no debate” about what happened. While he voted for Trump, he believes the president-elect “ought to be ashamed of himself” for not taking this more seriously. When Baldwin asked Walsh why he thought Trump was being so pigheaded about it, Walsh mused that Trump was “acting like a third-grader” or “maybe a fourth-grader.”

That seems pretty apt. After all, one of Trump’s most senior foreign policy advisers, John Bolton, thinks that the hack may have been a false flag. Only someone with the maturity of a third-grader or a fourth-grader would buy that.

Walsh wasn’t done yet. He tore into Trump for attacking the CIA’s assessment of the hack, saying that it was “almost treasonous” to suggest that the CIA shouldn’t be trusted because it claimed there were WMDs in Iraq. Rather than attack the CIA, Walsh believed that Trump ought to be the one calling for an investigation “to bring the country together” against an indisputable threat from the Kremlin.

I don’t blame Walsh for being frustrated. Since Trump clearly lost the popular vote, it is particularly incumbent upon him to unite the country. Instead, he seems to be listening to advice that sounds more like something you’d see on a conspiracy theory or fake news site.

Walsh wasn’t done yet. He kept blasting away at his fellow Republicans milquetoast response to the hack on Monday.

I never thought I’d see the day I’d be agreeing with a full-on tea partier. But Walsh is dead right. If some foreign actor hacked into our computers to help Hillary, I’d be screaming for an investigation as loudly as Walsh is now. After all, I am a Christian, an American, a liberal, and a Democrat–in that order.

We should not be reacting to this apparent attack on the very foundation of our democracy as Democrats or Republicans, or as liberals and conservatives. We should be reacting as Americans. And as Americans, we should demand that everyone–and that means EVERYONE–responsible for this be held to account.

(featured image courtesy Walsh’s Facebook)

Darrell Lucus
Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.

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