House Republicans ditch their day jobs to stand with Trump, while legislating languishes

Leaving Washington behind, prominent far-right House Republicans who have pushed this Congress into chaos showed up at Donald Trump’s hush money trial. They stood outside Trump Tower filming their support for the indicted former president. They filed into the Manhattan courthouse “standing back and standing by,” as Rep. Matt Gaetz put it, invoking Trump’s call to the extremist Proud Boys. And they commandeered the spotlight to rant against what they called the “kangaroo court” and the “political persecution” of Trump. The scene provided a vivid example of how Republicans have tossed aside the tasks of governing in favor of the engineered spectacle of grievance, performance and outrage that powers Trump-era American politics.