The rise and fall of the Banana Republicans
Not since 1860 has so much hinged on the outcome of a presidential election. So scary is the impending crisis that it forced even vintage Banana Republican Bill Barr to stay on the pot and do his business.
"The real danger to the country – the real danger to democracy, as I say, is the progressive agenda," said the former attorney general last month. "And while … Trump may be playing Russian roulette, but a continuation of the Biden administration is national suicide, in my opinion."
Coined by my partner Loy Edge on our podcast, "Upstream with Cashill and Edge," the phrase "Banana Republican" (BR) nicely captures the essence of a plantation denizen like Barr.
In short, a Banana Republican is that member of the GOP who, for a mix of motives, would rather watch the nation devolve into the chaotic ooze of a banana republic than stand up and fight the obvious injustice around him.
Barr fits the profile perfectly. A native of Manhattan, he has been feeding out of the public trough for the last half century, including a six-year stint with the CIA while still in law school.
Photos show the young Bill Barr, trim and handsome, shaking hands with Ronald Reagan. Over time, of course, Barr developed the classic tell of a Banana Republican, the excess chin or two lapping over a too-tight shirt collar that should have been given to the blind a decade ago.
Barr proved his mettle as a Banana Republican when he told the AP on Dec. 1, 2020, "To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election."
Barr added that when "people don't like something they want the Department of Justice to come in and 'investigate.'" Barr was not about to do that. By publicly letting Trump drown, he kept himself afloat in the swamp. As the French say, "sauve qui peut."
If self-preservation is the primary motivator for a BR, profit comes in a close second. A year into Biden's presidency, with a book to peddle, Barr told NBC's Lester Holt, "I told [Trump] that all this stuff was bulls–t … about election fraud. And, you know, it was wrong to be shoveling it out the way his team was."
Don't be fooled. Barr's turn around in April does not represent so much a change of heart on his part as a cold-hearted calculation that Trump is going to win in November.
"Keep a clean nose," Bob Dylan once told us. "Watch the plain clothes. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
Most prominent Banana Republicans still have their fingers in the air. None have more bananas to protect than those that bear the much too appropriate last name "Bush."
By sitting out the 2020 election, George W. and Jeb "low energy" Bush gave permission for other Banana Republicans to do the same. This quiet subversion got Joe Biden "elected."
The high water mark for the BRs came on Jan. 6, 2021. Following the lead of the Democrats and the media – as they often do – they rushed to the mics to denounce the man they let drown.
Said U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, "What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the president of the United States."
On that same Jan. 6, before the OC gas had yet to settle at the Capitol, George Bush used the imprimatur of the "George W. Bush Presidential Center" to affirm his and wife Laura's membership in Club Banana.
"The violent assault on the Capitol – and disruption of a constitutionally-mandated meeting of Congress – was undertaken by people whose passions have been inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes," said Bush mindlessly.
Lest anyone be confused about where Bush stood, his remarks were headlined, "Statement by President George W. Bush on Insurrection at the Capitol."
On that day at least, Jan. 6 would seem to have vindicated the Banana Republican's passivity in the face of evil. The last three years, however, have been rough on the BRs' sense of self.
As the evidence has shown, Jan. 6 represented the first fully unarmed insurrection in world history. No officers were killed, none seriously injured. Those were all lies. The damage done to the Capitol was negligible. The only people killed that day were protesters.
The truth did not stop Biden from treating J6 protesters to the greatest mass injustice against American citizens since Japanese internment. More than 1,300 have been rounded up, including at least one great grandma.
If this injustice were not evil enough for the BRs to swallow, Biden's Hydra-headed lawfare attack on his leading political opponent makes Barr's "national suicide" warning seem all too imminent.
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality," so said either Dante or Yogi Berra or some other wise soul.
Whoever said it, 2024 would seem to be one of those times. No matter who wins, after November there will be no safe sidelines for the BRs to sit on.
Jack Cashill's new book, "Ashli: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6," will be out in June.
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