By Sid Schwab / Herald columnist
It’s becoming impossible to know where to start, as Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, having nothing legitimate with which to attract voters, are increasingly turning to lying to defend the indefensible.
Unequal justice when it comes to Trump and Trumpists vs. President Biden and Democrats, for example. Last week, Republican National Committee chair Ronna Romney McDaniel stated, unblinking, on national TV, that Hillary Clinton had never been investigated. (cf: “How stupid do you think we are,” below.)
Not to be left in dissembling’s dust, Mike Pence attested, on “Meet The Press,” that no Black Lives Matter rioters were arrested during the George Floyd protests. They were, of course. Around 300, as a matter of what’s commonly known as fact. Amusingly, had they not been, it’d have been on Trump’s Department of Justice, not “deep-state commies.”
Then there’s the whole “weaponization of government” thing, pushed by every hat-ringed Republican and those in Congress. The same people screeching about President Biden’s imaginary weaponization cheered when Trump promised he’d appoint a special counsel to go after the Bidens. Former Trump Chief of Staff Gen. James Mattis says he repeatedly had to discourage Trump from ordering the DOJ, FBI and IRS to target his enemies. But he still did. Often successfully. And Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is promising to investigate universities whose professors are researching the hows, whys and whats of the spread of disinformation, without which Trumpism is empty-handed. If that’s not weaponizing, what is?
Those lies compare to Trump’s about the election and everything else as a runny nose to Niagara Falls. Predicated on the same understanding, though, they’re identical: They’ve sucked in the suckers so effectively that they’ll get no pushback. Even as their legislative work is limited to pre-failed articles of impeachment against truth-telling Democrats. Or censuring them.
Predictably, there’s outrage over Hunter Biden’s plea deal. How unfair, right? Well, first of all, the U.S. attorney conducting the investigation was appointed by Trump, and kept on by Biden AG Merrick Garland, rather than fired, as Trump did to several U.S. attorneys investigating him. Second, plea deals are far more common than trials, whatever the crime. They’re admissions of guilt, carrying penalties. It also implies, contra countless cunning congressional contentions, that that’s all the “there” there is.
Like, so far, the iffy insinuations of President Biden taking bribes. Would a Trump-picked attorney have given Hunter, as Kevin McCarthy called it, “a sweetheart deal”? If so, whose “deep state” is it? By comparison, Trump’s pal Roger Stone defrauded the government of $2 million in taxes; the DOJ treated it as a civil claim. Garland was, in fact, unusually hard on Hunter Biden (Daily Beast: tinyurl.com/tough4hunter)
But it’s a model for Trump and those saying President Biden should pardon him to save America the anguish of a trial: Cop a plea. Accept responsibility, get off lightly. If, as Trumpists believe, he loves America (he doesn’t), there’s something he could do for it: take a bit of gentlemanly jail time, accept home detention for five years or so, and agree never again to run for any office. No trial, no need to embarrass himself with under-oath testimony, like he did under no oath with Bret Baier on Fox News. No on-demand riots, no supporters going to prison. A mitzvah for America. He won’t, of course.
There’s too much MAGA lying, rigging elections, keeping people ignorant through book-banning and abrogation of speech, plus bankrolling phony third-party candidates to compress into a weekly column. To the attempt, there’s a yin and a yang. On the one hand, preaching to the choir; on the other, exhorting people as impervious to factual information as a brick wall to the wind. Last week a man canvassing for a political candidate rang my doorbell. After we exchanged names, he said, “OMG, I love your column!” Then, in a once-and-never event, he asked for a selfie. Well, I thought, maybe it’s worth it, after all.
Till the next day, when I received a typically Trumpic email, responding to last week’s column: eschewing the opportunity to address, much less refute the content; dismissing my references without reading them, with a question that answered itself: “CNN, HuffPost, NY Times … how dumb do you think we are?”
Per usual for such critics, he went on to repeat whole-swallowed Foxisms, such as “sexual deviance being promoted by schools.” Inferring that, like Trumpists everywhere, he hadn’t read the indictment or the Presidential Records Act, which were central to the column, I offered to respond further (by then, there’d been two exchanges) only if he read them and explained why the indictment was insignificant and how the PRA confirmed Trump’s claims about his right to the documents he stole.
Still waiting.
Which is why it’s getting harder to see value in these columns. The enlightened know, the blinded will never see. It’s micturating in the mistral. I feel a reassessive break coming on.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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