The House has voted to certify that Donald Trump will be the third President of the United Stated to be impeached. Now as we await the Senate trial that will just as surely acquit him, the big question is why? Why are we doing this if the end result will be nothing but a big zero? Why do this if the only result will be to give the criminal Trump an excuse to brag about how he beat the system?
Now that Nancy Pelosi has achieved a goal she never wanted but Trump forced upon her, she must deal with the next step. Does she simply turn it over to the Senate and watch as Mitch McConnell makes a joke of the whole useless process? If not that, what?
Well so far she hasn’t turned it over to Moscow Mitch and since congress has gone home for the holidays, nothing will happen until January 6th at the earliest. But what will happen then? Will she drag the process out until late summer or early fall as this writer suggested when it was about to start? Will she keep it open until she can get closure on the witnesses that Trump has, so far, kept from testifying? It would be incredibly informative to hear testimony by Mick Mulvaney, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and several others who could really nail Trump to the very cross that several Retrumplicans have blasphemously accused the Democrats of hanging him on?
And while we’re on those members of the administration that have been kept from testifying by Trump’s insistence on an immunity that has never existed, let’s look at just how that sits with most Americans. Up until the arrival of Trump, the American public looked at innocence and guilt through a lens of the defendant’s actions. Trying to block the testimony of witnesses, depending on how it was done, has often been considered a criminal activity and almost always an admission of guilt. It’s kind of like the 5th Amendment. You’re free to use it and you can’t officially be considered guilty when you do, but everybody knows that those who invoke it are certainly guilty of something, even if it’s not what they are currently being accused of. I mean you can’t prove it, you just know it.
The unfortunate news for the President is; in a Fox poll, that’s Fox News, as far right as one can get; 71% of Americans, including 54% of Republicans want Trump to release the witnesses to testify. It assumes that the only reason he doesn’t want them to testify is that he is guilty and knows that said witnesses would definitely prove it.
o in this case which is not a judicial trial, where you don’t have to proceed according to legal statutes, we are all free to assume that in keeping those witnesses from testifying, Trump is openly admitting his guilt. Why else would he be doing that? If he had nothing to hide the testimony of those listed above would only help him. But that’s obviously not the case, is it?
Trump has to assume that these guys will lie for him just as they have all done in the past, but none of them will be willing to perjure themselves, not for a bastard that will stab them in the back just because they didn’t grovel enough that day.
So waiting a while and keeping all Trump’s criminal behavior right in front of the public doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. The only real drawback would be the softening of the messages being expounded by the Democratic candidates. On the other hand it might soften up Moscow Mitch on the manner in which the Senate trial will be conducted. Who knows, it could even make him consider doing an honest job of it.
*****
I have never thought of myself as naïve. Most of my friends think of me as a cynic. I feel I’m optimistic but always with a sense that things can go horribly wrong. Maybe the one place I expect the best of people, while recognizing they have chosen a job category that often brings out the worst in us, is politics. Sure, politicians have a deservedly putrid reputation. They’ve certainly earned it. But I’ve always felt that in the end, in the ultimate circumstance, when the good of the country or the survival of democracy is at stake, they will rally to the Colors and eventually do the right thing. I continue to believe that Winston Churchill hit the nail on the head when he said; “Americans always do the right thing after they have exhausted every other possibility” at least until now.
Now we are faced with an entire political party that is simply refusing to do the right thing. I understand party unity. I understand the need for groups to band together to get stuff done, but when it gets in the way of everything we stand for, when it threatens our democracy, it’s time to call time out. The country needs to be run according to certain standards in order to function. When tat doesn’t happen, it’s time to stop and rethink onr approach to politics.
Right now we have a President and an administration that is completely corrupt. We have a group of men who care nothing for the constitution and even less about the need to keep our democracy functional. They care only for themselves and how they can promote their own selfish goals. The other night I watched as Rudy Giuliani, not even an elected official, admitted on the tube that he had smeared an American Ambassador and maneuvered her firing because she was trying to do the right thing while he and Trump were committing a criminal act involving another nation.
A few weeks ago the White House Chief of staff admitted, also on TV, that the President was doing exactly what he was being accused of in the impeachment hearings and that we should just, “get over it.” Fools like Mulvaney have unfortunately been joined by a Retrumplican Party made up of sycophants, ass kissers and terrified losers afraid to stand up to the criminal Trump.
Fortunately another group is emerging from the remnants of the GOP, led by Rick Wilson and Steve Sc,hmidt, former Republicans who are vigorously opposed to Trump and who recognize what a plague he is on all aspects of American life. These are the intelligent, functional Republicans who can become non-partisan in order to get things done, the functional ex-Republicans that look to benefit the people rather than staying partisan to help themselves. These are the guys who recognize Trump as the fetid disease that is killing our democracy and are primed to do something to stop it.
The will be assisted by Nancy Pelosi, who, after having heard what McConnell considered a fair trial, is demanding certain promises from his Moscowness including the calling of administration witnesses like Mulvaney, Bolton and certain others who, it appears, would have to either perjure themselves or give up our criminal leader.
Subsequently a new piece of news has entered the conversation. It seems that Trump’s absolute refusal to accept the fact that the Russians interfered with the 2016 election came directly from one Vladimir Putin. Every one of our intelligence operations swore, “The Russians did it!” But Trump refused to believe it because Putin told him they didn’t? Really?
So that means that our President is spreading lies and propaganda for the benefit of Russia. How does that work? Doesn’t that make Trump a Russian asset?
*******
I’ve watched a number of interviews by various groups and individuals involving voters, mostly from the Mid-West and New England and they all tell us the same story. Those who favor Trump, especially from the Mid-West are frighteningly uninformed. They talk about Trump’s great economic plan, they talk about how he’s lowered taxes for the middle class, they babble about his foreign policy, the one that doesn’t exist, and they fall back on the illegitimacy of the impeachment proceedings. None of their opinions are correct. None can be backed up by any factual information and all show a tendency to take the word of a President who lies whenever possible or media sources that lie for a living.
Every time I go over a bunch of these interviews I’m shocked by the universal ignorance of a significant segment of the voting public. That is not to say that only Trump voters are uninformed or brutally ignorant. Plenty of Democrats display the same propensity for believing only what they want to, and that’s just as appalling. It’s just that the Trump base seems to be so universally afflicted by this syndrome that it is frightening.
I’m pretty old and I’ve seen a lot, but never anything like the absolute refusal to accept factual evidence displayed by the Trump base. Sure, there have always been fanatics and nut cases that followed a leader to the sorrowful end. Look at Jim Jones and the mass Kool-Aid debacle, look at almost any religion. But never have I seen a political group of such size with such a stonewall inability to accept any facts that illustrate guilt in their leader. It could very well point to the end of a democracy in our country.
******
Every Republican who talks about the impeachment talks about getting it “over with” so they can get back to work. What work? What has the Republican Party, with complete control of the House, the Senate and the Presidency for the first two years of the Trump administration done for the country? Yes they passed a tax bill, but that only helped the rich and big corporations. Nothing has been done to help the vast majority of Americans, many of whom are too invested in Trump or to uninformed to realize that he has abandoned them. The GOP lauds the great economy. What great economy? Yes, the stock market is high and unemployment low, but most Americans don’t participate in the stock market simply because they don’t have any disposable income to use that way. Sure unemployment is low because, whereas a person could support a family of four with one job in the ‘50s it now takes three jobs to do that. So let’s not bullshit each other. Neither Trump nor the GOP has accomplished anything in three years in office. Trump has created chaos here and across the world by mismanagement and by trying at every turn to make a profit from his Presidency. He is a criminal, a serial liar and a misogynistic degenerate. He has displayed not one trait that stands him in good stead as President.
It’s bizarre. Even as I’m writing this I watched a fat guy with a huge mustache somewhere in the Mid-West say he thought Trump was a creep and a bad guy but that stuff was getting done so he would vote for him. Really? What the hell does this guy think is getting done and why does he think it?
Claire McCaskill announced on Meet the Press, that in the year she started in the Senate they voted on over 330 bills. Last year they voted on 30. That may look like getting stuff done to this guy but it sure looks like utter failure to me.