WHITHER THE GOP?

Another day, another impeachment of Donald Trump.

Ho-hum.

I’ll join my voice to the chorus of people saying there is little to no chance that 17 Republicans will stand on the morally & ethically correct side of History and vote to convict. I’ll also say the eventual verdict doesn’t matter any more than it did in the first Trump impeachment, when the chances for conviction were even smaller.

What does matter are two things:

1. As in the first impeachment, the process of holding a person accountable for wrongdoing HAS to be carried out, no matter what the odds on the outcome. Should the guiding principle of our justice system be: “If you don’t think the jury will convict, then don’t bother arresting the criminal”? There are enough brazen crooks out there already without encouraging that attitude. When it applies to the leader of our government, it’s even more crucial. In the same vein, the notion that we can’t impeach a President who is about to leave office, or we shouldn’t see the process through AFTER he leaves office, is ridiculous. Such a policy would permit any President, in his final days or weeks in office, to commit as many crimes as he might desire, knowing there won’t be enough time to complete his trial before he’s out the door. Especially if Congress happens to be controlled by the President’s Party.

2. Although Trump won’t be in the witness box - the coward has spent his adult life avoiding being put under oath - Republicans in Congress, in a sense, will. This should turn out to be a valuable means of holding THEM accountable for the future.

The battle for control of the Republican Party’s future direction is just heating up. I was going to say, “battle for the soul,” but that word just doesn’t seem to fit in the same sentence with “Republican Party.” The thing we would normally call a “soul” - that symbolic spiritual essence of a person or institution - was long ago burnt to a black crisp by the rogues who came to inherit Lincoln’s political affiliation. Their soul, if we can call it that, is owned by the megawealthy top crust of individuals and corporations; it is owned by the bloodsoaked military-industrial complex about which the last decent Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, warned us in vain; owned by the pathetic living ghosts of the Confederacy - the hate-driven racist sons of the South who jumped en masse to the GOP when Democrats JFK and LBJ pushed for desegregation in the 60s; owned by the simple-minded single-issue-voting Evangelicals who will ignore EVERY OTHER THING under the sun and vote for the Party that promises them anti-abortion judges.

That soul-impaired Party, as recently as five years ago, at least put on a facade of decency & civility; at least gave lip service to some form of democratic structure in government; at least on the surface agreed that laws should be followed and that an election counts, even when you lose it.

No more.

Election Day in November 2016 changed all that. When the race was called for Trump, the GOP as we knew and loathed it instantly sank to new depths of deplorability. Ted Cruz- who had called Trump an amoral bully and a pathological liar, Marco Rubio - who had called Trump a dangerous con man, Lindsay Graham - who had called him an unhinged kook - they all hopped on the Trump Train and started working on the 2017 version of the obligatory “Tax Cut For The Rich” that comes along every time a Republican is elected. Mitch McConnell started ramming through anti-abortion judges & justices. Everyone in the GOP was giddy with power again, and little details like a hundred lies a day coming out of the White House were readily ignored. As time went on, the lies, the deviousness, the downright buffoonery & incompetence of the Trump Administration grew more and more evident. But, having already soiled their shoes, the Repubs just kept stepping into Trump’s droppings without ever acknowledging the foul odor in the room. When the worst stuff came out, they just invented new moves to dance around the issues. Nothing slowed them down. Not Trump holding secret, unrecorded meetings with Putin. Not his bromance with Kim Jong-un. Not his “very fine people” description of neo-Nazis & the KKK. Not his refusal to disclose his tax returns. Not his refusal to comply with subpoenas in the Mueller probe. Not his description of US soldiers as suckers & losers. Not his clumsy but blatant attempt to extort Ukraine for dirt on a political rival. Not his use of the Department of Justice to reward his political henchmen by dropping charges against them. Not his pardons of men who lied under oath so as not to reveal his crimes.

“Hey, did you hear what Trump did last night?”

“Yeah, who cares. We’ve got 25 anti-abortion, anti-Union, pro-business judges to ram through today. Let’s get going.”

With only a miniscule number of exceptions, Congressional Republicans let Trump skate on every issue. Mitt Romney, who because of the unique voting base in Utah is immune to outside pressure, condemned Trump’s actions from time to time and cast the lone GOP conviction vote in Impeachment One. Young upstart Senator Ben Sasse showed a few moments of courage, as did Congressmen Justin Amash (who converted to Independent midterm) and Adam Kinzinger. The occasional retiring office-holder would utter a stern word about Trump as he slinked out of town, back to private life.

But on the whole, the Republican Party quickly & rather effortlessly morphed into a Cult of Personality that Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini would have been proud to call their own. The Republican National Committee did not even bother writing a new Party platform for the 2020 campaign. No need . . . because if Donald Trump were to be reelected, his word alone would be law, and his every wish would be their command.

Fortunately for those of us who actually enjoy living in a free, non-Fascist country, The Orange Idiot did not get reelected. Thanks to the cumulative effects of his own mendacity and stupidity and the widespread nervous exhaustion caused thereby, plus the months-long toll of a global pandemic, the American voters decided four years of that particular clown-show were enough. (Whether Covid was the real deciding factor is debate fodder for another day!)

The election loss was the first nail in the Trump coffin. But it was not enough to free the GOP from its orange shackles. Trump himself went whole hog on the idea he had been floating for months (if not years), that the only way he could lose the election would be if it was taken from him by illegal means. So, despite Joe Biden being declared the President-elect within a few days, and that fact being recognized by all SANE persons, Trump and most of the Repubs in DC simply carried on in their accustomed fashion as if nothing had changed. Trump continued lying, his lawyers got out on the airwaves and judicial circuits peddling fraudulent claims of fraud, and the GOPers on Capitol Hill just said, Well, he has a right to his day in court, so let’s sit back, watch & wait. The fact that 99.9% of Trump’s legal challenges were immediately laughed out of court should have been another nail in his coffin, but he and his looney lawyers just kept filing the lawsuits.

The real second nail in the coffin was the Democrats’ doubleheader win in the Georgia Senate runoffs, which essentially awarded them control of the Senate to go along with control of the House of Representatives and the Executive Branch. Suddenly, Mitch McConnell found himself on the outside looking in. He had been the real powerbroker behind the scenes: even Trump needed to play ball with Mitch to keep his four-year grift scheme rolling. But with Georgia lost - partly thanks to Trumpian stupidity leading up to the runoff - McConnell was a Grim Reaper without a Scythe. His allegiance to Trump and the Trump base took a nosedive.

Under normal circumstances, this would have been the point at which everyone would have certainly noticed - and gently acquiesced to - the “peaceful transfer of power.” It happened under Bill Clinton. It happened under George Bush and Barack Obama. The point at which the defeated Party tucks its tail between its legs and vamooses. Pays the check and goes home to sleep it off. Takes a good hard look in the mirror, assesses damage, rethinks strategy, and begins the task of preparing for an election down the road.

But not at Crazy House in TrumpWorld.

No, in this looney bin that is SUPPOSED to represent the brightest & best hope for the whole world, the head guy continued to claim that he won the election by a landslide and it was being stolen from him. He insinuated that his true believers, REAL Republicans, must do something about it. That individual states should throw out all votes for Biden and reassign them to Trump. That the Vice-President should refuse to count the electoral votes and simply declare that Trump was still President. That his “very special” followers (QAnon, Proud Boys, Neo-Nazis, and any other wingnuts on hand) should march to Capitol Hill to stop the steal, that they should “fight like hell” to save their country from Antifa and the Socialists.

And thus - once again, ironically, as a result of his own corruption & stupidity - the third nail was driven into Trump’s coffin. His submental yahoo followers stormed the Capitol, just as he & Don Junior & Rudy had encouraged them to do. We all know the story.

A violent physical assault on the halls of American government proved too much for a lot of Republicans to stomach. And by “a lot,” of course, I don’t mean 100% of them, which it should have been. I mean, a whopping dozen or so finally stood up and publicly said “No Mas.” Ten House Repubs voted to affirm Impeachment Two. A half dozen or so Senators indicated they had seen impeachable behavior committed.

Which brings us to today. Not just Impeachment Two, but the bubbling, boiling battle for control of the GOP.

On the one side are those “traditional” Republicans, the folks who have brought us tax cuts for the rich, loopholes for big business, military intrusiveness around the globe, and subtle racism at home for the past 40 years or so.

Liz Cheney is one of these. She comes with a top-notch pedigree – her father being the former Vice-President, a super-NeoCon who was arguably the power-behind-the-throne throughout George W. Bush’s eight years in the White House. Prior to the election of 2016, no Republican would dare mess with Liz Cheney.

But here, in GOP 2021, Liz Cheney finds herself under vicious assault by those on the other side of the Rightwing Divide.

And those are the Cult of Personality Trumpists - the Trumpers, the Trumpanzees. This faction can also be split into two distinct groups. One is populated by the common slobs who invaded Washington on January 6. They are the misguided mob who watch Fox News (or worse) for their political information and can be duped into believing the election was stolen, or even more extreme QAnon-type conspiracy theories. They are the dim bulbs who can live at just about sustenance level yet believe that a “wealth tax” on billionaires is somehow going to cause them economic harm. They live in fear that “liberal” politicians will force Socialism/Communism upon them and that the USA will be overrun by Blacks, Hispanics, and Transgender Vegans who will confiscate all the guns in the country. Donald Trump was the President of their dreams - because he was just as stupid as them, talked just like them, and had the nerve to say out loud all the dumb & crazy crap that previously had been frowned upon in public political discourse.

The other group on the Trumpist side of the GOP consists of elected officials who may not buy into the looney conspiracy theories but are pretending they do, for the sole purpose of securing the yahoo vote in their next election. These political prostitutes – and that’s probably an unfair comparison, given that prostitutes have to actually work for a living – sold themselves to Trump after his surprise victory in 2016 and engaged in the most singular example of collective amnesia the world has ever witnessed, forgetting (or conveniently ignoring?) every principle they ever espoused, in order to not upset the Trumpian apple cart. In the same way that Trump himself never admits error or defeat because it would wound his fragile and privileged ego, and so lies and cries “Fake news!” whenever he finds the slings & arrows of outrageous fortune aimed at him, his GOP enablers deflect and don blinders. See no evil, hear no evil. Don’t hurt the crybaby’s feelings, and more importantly, don’t lose the cult vote.

So the prime question here, which may be answered in the course of Impeachment Two, is: How many of the Trump prostitutes in Congress will stick with the cult, and how many will join Liz Cheney and the others who are now taking a pass on the Trump Kool-Aid and trying to restore the pre-2016 Republican Party? The combination of losing power in all branches of government, and witnessing up close & personally the unwashed MAGA faithful going on a violent binge inside the US Capitol, seems to have defined a “Come to Jesus” moment for some, but many more are not there yet.

In Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Wyoming, Michigan, Illinois, and South Carolina, state legislatures are censuring GOP Congressional members like Cheney who have spoken out against Trump’s actions, and trying to pass legislation that would allow Republican officials at state level to dismiss their citizens’ votes and give electoral votes to whomever they want.

On the other hand, as NBC News reports:

”In the weeks since the January riot at the Capitol, there has been a raft of stories about voters across the country leaving the Republican Party. Some of the numbers are eye-catching and suggest that the GOP may be shrinking before our eyes…”

As of this morning, 56% of Americans think the Senate SHOULD convict Trump, even though he’s no longer in office.

Will such examples of popular opinion turning away from Trump prod GOP Congressionals to do the same?

Things are not the same as they were just two or three months ago. The worm is turning. There are visible cracks in the facade of the united GOP front. Mitch McConnell dissed Trumpanzee wacko Marjorie Taylor Greene, and 11 of her fellow GOP Representatives voted with Dems to remove her from committee posts. In the vote taken among House Republicans on whether to remove Trump-truther Liz Cheney from her Conference chair position, only 61 voted Yes, while 145 voted No.

More clues about the future of the GOP will surely come out in the course of the Impeachment trial. Many, if not most, if not all, will make their decision based on where they think the political wind is blowing. Is it toward the lying lawlessness and imbecilic far-right authoritarianism of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Josh Hawley, and Matt Gaetz? Or is it toward the good old-fashioned hawkish, privileged conservatism of Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney?

And when the sides are all chosen up and comparative strengths are assessed, will they stay divided, or will one side cave in to the other and make them whole again, joining hands to combat the international Communist cabal that they think (or at least claim) is coming to destroy America?

Many people are wondering, too, what role Donald Trump will play - in 2021. . . 2022 . . . 2024.

Well, if’n ya ask me, he ain’t playing ANY role. Not now, not in 2024.

If a miracle happens and he is convicted in this second trial, the Senate would almost certainly vote to bar him from ever again holding office. And that would be that.

But even in eluding conviction, the Trump cause is basically lost. The third President in our entire history to ever be impeached. The first and only to be impeached twice. Loser of the popular vote in two consecutive elections. One of only 10 US Presidents to fail at a reelection bid. And the January 6 riot brands him forever as our first Insurrection President. He lost in November to a 78-year-old man who is decades past his prime, and quite a few years beyond his sell-by date. Trump was rejected in favor of a kindly old grandfather type who - even we Democrats must admit - seems constantly on the verge of stumbling, either physically or in his speech. Trump lost to that, because Americans preferred a sleepy old man to a raving lunatic criminal.

Trump is toast, my friends. He will never win another national election. I don’t believe he would even risk the blow to his ego of ANOTHER loss on the public stage. Plus, he may be in prison on multiple counts of financial fraud by 2024.

No, I’m certain the Republican Party will have to forge ahead without Donnie Dirty-Diapers. But will their next standard bearer be just another wannabe dictator, lying about his opponent’s birth certificate and proclaiming “I alone can fix this”?

My sense is that the answer is No, that a hard lesson has been learned. Outside of the 2017 Tax Cut For The Rich (which they could have passed with ANY Republican in the White House), and the far-right Justices (ditto, ANY Repub President), what did they get out of the Trump years? Seems like nothing but trouble and heartache. None of them have defended the Capitol riot, and only the true knucklehead Tea Partyers have attempted to absolve Trump of accountability for that event.

But as I’ve surely said somewhere already: I’m not about to start counting on Republicans in any large number to do the morally and ethically correct thing.

My truest wish would be for Trump and/or his close allies to go right ahead and start their own 3rd Party - The Patriot Party, or the MAGA Party, the Trump Party, or whatever. Let them siphon the dumbtard yahoo vote off the traditional Republican Party. Then the Right Wing, the Conservatives, will NEVER win another election. What a blessing that would be.