Impeachment 2.0 same as 1.0, should be, but isn’t actually about convicting donald trump. I’m sorry, I wish it was. So why do it? Because the entire Republican Party is on trial here. Americans favor conviction by a wide margin. When the GOP won’t vote to convict, it will be on record. State legislators are at this moment mangling voting laws in favor of Republicans, who can’t win without voter suppression. They admit this. We can’t rest until we have removed these traitors from office. We have to punish them at the ballot box by drumming it into the voters’ minds the terror of January 6th and the Republicans complicity in it.
147 House members voted not to ratify the election immediately after the riot on January 6th. On Tuesday 44 Rep. Senators voted that the impeachment is unconstitutional, despite the fact that the Constitution says it is. Only six Republicans voted with the Democrats, and that’s more than was predicted. Also- Mitch McConnell is a rat-faced liar. But let’s dispatch with a few nagging fears we all have about trump.
First please stop wringing your hands about donald trump’s comeback. He’s done. I do not believe that upon exoneration trump is gonna hop on the first plane out of Palm Beach to go barn storming the country churning up violent mobs. Maybe, but I dunno.
Trump Inc. is hemorrhaging money and under investigation. Trump, Eric, Ivanka, Jared, and Don Jr are all implicated. Deutsche Bank is going to call on their loans. And Putin isn’t his daddy any more since don’s left D.C. (plus has his own insurrection to worry about). On Monday Georgia filed an investigation into phone calls trump made to Raffensberger to ‘find 11,780 votes’. New York Attorney General, Leticia James’ case against trump’s corporation is coming. I believe there will be more. Our dream of seeing the trump clan in orange, jumpsuits not spray tans, may never materialize, but lawsuits are expensive and he can only spend money as fast as he can wring it out of his lunatic supporters. Sheldon Adelson is dead and many corporate donors and PACs as well as club members have skedaddled. Stranded without his a bully pulpit, Twitter, & Facebook to keep stoking outrage, his currency will fade. Every day is another 24 hours between him and the future. Meanwhile Dominion and Smartmatic USA’s multi-billion dollar lawsuits have hobbled OAN, Newsmax and Fox’s desire to spew nonstop BIG LIES for trump. Private corporations did what elected Republicans refuse to do.
If you have qualms about trump’s legal future watch his defense lawyers, Bruce Castor and David Schoen, who are perfect reminders that you get what you pay for and take it for a test drive first. They laid out a case that went from incoherent to speed shouting entirely devoid of substance throughout to the point that it drew derision from, of all people, Alan Dershowitz, quoted on Newsmax as saying, “I have no idea what he’s talking about.” This is a nationally televised event, if this is the best team trump can get, it ain’t gettin’ any better.
By contrast the prosecution couldn’t have been more brilliantly executed by the House managers. The 13 minute video of the riot spliced with trump’s speech & tweets was riveting and horrifying. Mr. Cicillini’s speech was clear and constitutionally correct, and Raskin’s had me in pieces.
Secondly, no more comparing donald trump to Hitler. Adolph Hitler, was an astute politician and a fervent visionary. It was the one worst plans humanity has ever endured, but it was well thought out. He wrote speeches, books, one of which became quite famous, now what was it…. Mein something? Donald trump didn’t write his own term papers. He’s been out golfing since he waddled off the tarmac; as he did the past four years when he wasn’t tweeting or posing for photos. He has no plan. He’s a lazy fake successful businessman who got rich by accident of birth, stayed rich by cheating and laundering money. He surrounded himself with Roy Cohn, Jeff Epstein, Paul Manafort, Alan Weisselberg smart bad men who groomed him in gaming the system. If he hadn’t touched the raw nerve of racism that runs one micron deep in the skin of perpetually aggrieved white Americans since Barack Obama was president, he’d still be riding his gold escalator in search of a fresh grift.
Donald trump is toxic, but he’s not a leader, he’s an avatar. He gave lip service to some ideas while in office, but showed none of the grit to get anything done. Accomplishments (if you call it that) such as moving the Israeli embassy took zero effort by him. His sociopathic personality has a repulsive magnetism that attracts a certain type. I can’t explain it, because, well I can’t explain it. Given the chance his idolaters would lift him like a tidal wave back into office forever and he’d revel in it. But he has no personal compelling vision for the country.
On the other hand the Republican Treason Party’s craven ambition is very purpose driven. They do have a plan, thirty years in the making, to turn the USA into a White Christian one party Koch (plus a cabal of international criminals) owned state. Now thanks to donald trump they have 74 million rabid voters willing to put that in plan in place. If the GOP needs to use trump they will, but he’s not the real danger; they are.
I don’t think we should just write Trump off entirely. Maybe his brand, his family, and his legend will be crippled, or even annihilated—but there’s not a doubt that he has reinvigorated something in our country and that’s not going to be as easy to douse, nor is he going to be rendered inert anytime soon.
The genie is out of the bottle. We’re going to need more support from the caucus and they think Trump is their savior. As long as they’re interested in power than democracy, they’re going to keep grabbing at the lowest hanging fruit.
Comparing him to Hitler is also not entirely out of line either. Sure, Trump lacks intellectual prowess and astuteness, but his movement closely mimics Hitler’s Reich unfurled from the Reichswehr—from the “campaign rally”-styled beerhalls in 1919:
"Nevertheless, at this time and in this place, Hitler’s message did capture exactly the uncontainable sense of anger, fear, frustration, resentment, and pent-up aggression of the raucous gatherings in the Munich beerhalls. The compulsive manner of his speaking derived in turn much of its power of persuasion from the strength of conviction that combined with appealingly simple diagnoses of and recipes to Germany’s problems. Above all, what came naturally to Hitler was to stoke up the hatred of others by pouring out to them the hatred that was so deeply embedded in himself." — Hitler: A Biography / Ian Kershaw.—1st American ed.
We have plenty of work to do to clean up this mess, I wouldn’t sit back and wash our hands of Trump just yet—we have to treat him like a toothache.
Sad but true. Another well penned piece, Wendy. GOP spines appear to be checked at the door along with their cell phone & hand guns...