The GOP's Impeachment shame

 

Forget Trump. 

As widely expected, his Second Impeachment "trial" - in reality, no more than a bunch of finger pointing and name calling - was short and ended with him being "cleared".  Which is to stay the Democrats were unable to convince enough Repiublicans to agree with their contention that Trump is a serial liar, a bully, incompetent, and a dangerously unstable megalomaniac who appeals to a cerain ill-educated and weak minded section of the American population in a way that is frightening and puts the entire country at risk.  It also means that he has not been barred from holding public office, and is thus free to run again in 2024 - the complete bollocks he's made of the job the first time round has been ignored so far.

The verdict was made despite the Democrats making a pretty convincing case.  Anyone who saw the pictures of the storming of the Capitol Buildings at the beginning of January will have been as shocked and dismayed as I was - and I'm an Englishman for whom politics (whether Britiish, European or American) is of great interest but who was not going to be directly impacted by the events.  For any rational American (for which read, not a Trump follower) it must have been terrifying and heartbreaking, the very foundations of their democracy under siege.  The presentations made by the Impeachment Managers went further and showed many pictures from security cameras that showed how close the rioters actually came to the lawmakers and staff in hiding, made clear the bloodlust that had been planted by Trump's words in the weeks leading up to the riot, and showed clearly how those words had been taken as gospel by rioters brazenly stating they "had been invited....by the President of the USA" as they broke through security cordons, trashed the offices inside the buildings and made off with souvenirs like Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi's laptop (that was subsequently offered to Russian agents apparently...).  In a court of law, it would have been an open and shut case, a slam-dunk, despite the loss of lives, reference to which seemed to be lost along the way.  No matter what his apologists say, their blood is on his hands.

But in this case, the jury was composed not of 12 people good and true, considering the evidence and coming to a decision.  No, the jury was composed of 100 lawmakers, both Democrat and Republican (plus a couple of Independents) and a two-thirds majority was needed for the 67 votes that would give a "guilty" verdict.  This meant that 17 Republicans would need to vote against their own President.  That was never going to happen.

Not because the case was not well made.  In years past, when politicians of all stripes had integrity and conscience, there would have been no issues crossing the aisle and voting to do the right thing and convict.  But today's Republican Party is clearly NOT the Grand Ole Party of Abe Lincoln.  It's not even Ronald Reagan's GOP.  Or that of Bush One or Two.  

These events have shown it to be Trump's Republican Party.   Which is to say it's packed with selfish, money-grabbing, conservatives with an interest only in their own advancement with no real thought for their electorate - the American people.  They have tied themselves to Trump's malodourous coat-tails with no thought except to remain in power - no matter what it takes.

Separate Mexican kids from their parents at the border and lock them in cages?  Sure - the rapists and drug dealers shouldn't have come here in the first place and dragging their brats with them was stupid.  We'll build a big, beasutiful Wall and Mexico can pay for it.  Withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords?  Damn' right - it's costing American jobs and damaging our great clean coal industry.  Trade war with China?  Oh, yeah - they're stealing our ideas AND our jobs.  NATO?  Why the hell should WE pay to defend Europe from Russia - Putin's a good guy.  Climate change?  Fake news - it's all a plot by the Chinese to break the great American economy.  COVID?  Fake news!  It's just the sniffles, take an aspirin.  Inject bleach, it kills it in like 15 minutes or something!

And while Trump was spouting this shit over the last four years, apparently intelligent men like Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and others (over 170 of them) sat back and quietly agreed, because that way they would keep their seats.  A few - a very few! - men and women of principle like Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse and Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins stood up and said hang on a minute, this President is wrong, he is dangerous, he needs to be stopped. I suspect they will be out of Congress come the mid-terms in a year or two as their reward.  Another Republican shame.....

It was to be expected that McConnell would behave like this - the charlatan has built a career in the Senate since 1985 on doing anything and everything possible to obstruct and make it difficult for Democrats to do anything.  He has always put himself first and takes whatever path seems to serve him first, the Party second, his Kentucky constituents third and the rest of the country nowhere (outside the US doesn't exist)  That's why he was House Leader.  His crass comments at the close of the trial, all mealy mouthed platitudes, admitting finally that Trump was wrong, and should be held accountable in a court of a law are all very well - but if he really believed them why the hell didn't he say them much much earlier?  Simple: because he doesn't believe them - but they might play well to his gallery.

But Ted Cruz baffles me completely!  In the primaries, when the Republicans were choosing their candidate back in 2016, Trump destroyed Cruz's bid single handed in one debate.  He called Cruz a horrible person, a liar, incompetent, and "everyone knows his old man was with Lee Harvey Oswald" before the Kennedy assassination.  All lies, but Cruz was incapable of coming back and dropped out.  Now to me, a normal man of means (Ted Cruz is like most Republican senators, and especially Harvard graduates and practicing attorneys, not short of a bob or two) would slap as many law suits on Trump as possible, call him out and (legally) destroy him.  At the very least he would have nothing more to do with him, and most certainly would never support him in House or Congress.  He would certainly NOT become Trump's biggest cheer leader and supporter, kow-towing to his every whim and defending even the most obscene and ridiculous policy statements.  As an example of the venal, self serving toe-rag Cruz is without peer: I assume the reason he's grown that shabby beard is because he can't stand looking at himself in the shaving mirror any more.

These men seem to be representative of today's GOP, however, and all the time they hold sway there is the possibility that Trump may be able to make a comeback, no matter how distasteful and dangerous that may be.  And Trump knows it.  So does his unwashed redneck voter base, and no matter how abhorrent that may be there are enough of them around still to allow the comeback we all dread.  For that reason alone, moderate Republican politicians should be ashamed of themselves for allowing a bunch of unprincipled demagogues take over their party.

How to put it right is the big question.  

The GOP, it seems to me, needs to take a long hard look at itself, and re-define what it wants to be, what are its core values and beliefs, what is its agenda.  Should it have a global view, like the old days, or merely local, like Trump's?   Right now, it's Trump's plaything, and that doesn't seem to me a good place to be.  Trump is not really a Republican: the GOP has never been anything more than a vehicle to achieve power and follow his own agenda.  There is an interview around somewhere on line in which Trump was asked, some thirty odd years ago, if he had political ambitions.  His answer was along the lines of, "No. not now. But if that changes I'll go Republican because they're stupid and I'll be able to do what the hell I want."  How true that was - and another big reason why Republicans should be ashamed.

Having re-defined itself (if that's even possible) then that should be its electoral platform and the party hierarchy must stand up to Trump and bring him into line - or else expel him, and let him form his own party to deliver his own political agenda.  The danger for the GOP is that the conservative, right wing vote will in this way be split, thus making it harder to regain office - especially if the Democrats are making their agenda a reality.  Over the next few years the white vote will be in the minority as population demographics show the Black, Hispanic and Asian American sectors growing faster - and voting patterns show these groups more likely to vote Democrat while the Republicans appeal more to white and older voters.  

The GOP has to get it right now, or it could find itself out of power for a long term.  But if that is the price of lancing the Trump boil, then it has to pay the price or risk a repeat of the past shambolic four years from 2024, and potentially paving the way for a Trump Dynasty - Don Jr, Ivanka and maybe her husband Jared Kushner are allegedly interested in carrying the torch forward after the old man.  

An interesting few years lie ahead, that's for sure.