By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist
Second in line to the presidency per the Constitution that he and his constituents reject, House Speaker Mike Johnson called last week’s election interference verdict “a shameful day in American history … a purely political exercise, not a legal one.”
Godly Mr. Johnson doesn’t seem stupid, so peddling those disingenuous assertions is MAGA-typical political hackery. Unless he was referring, retroactively, to the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Every elected Republican said the same, most parroting Trump’s exact language (Huffington Post: tinyurl.com/shameless4u). They may as well be ventriloquist dummies with Trump’s hand up their access. Several Republican senators performatively pledged never again to cooperate with Democrats’ legislation. (As with the infrastructure act, they will, of course, take credit for whatever passes without them.) Acting to benefit the American people, or MAGAphilic vengeance: they made their choice.
Such orchestrated unanimity reveals their not-so-hidden agenda. Having successfully destroyed their voters’ confidence in elections, all that remained was doing the same to our Constitution. On the hypo-informed, hyper-Foxified, angry in the streets, it’s working.
Unanimously finding him guilty on all counts, the jury, one of whom said his main source of news is Trump’s Truth Social, considered the evidence, including handwritten notes detailing the precise plans to falsify records. To argue his defense, Trump had lawyers none of us could afford and any witnesses they chose to call. He lost. In America, a jury of citizens empaneled by both sides decides what’s true. That’s anathema to MAGA Republicans, for whom truth is execration.
Praising and excusing Trump, lifelongingly dishonest and now a convicted felon, today’s Republican Party — d.b.a. the party of law — has given itself over to authoritarianism. What if they win? Ask yourself: What legislation do Republicans propose and who benefits? Tax cuts for the wealthy. Ignoring climate change. Deregulating pollutants. Weakening public education. Banning honest history lessons. And books. Even vaccines (Salon: tinyurl.com/2banvax4u). Removing protection of minorities. Ending the Affordable Care Act, squeezing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; banning abortion and birth control while leaving the government-required born on their own.
When Republicans propose funding needed legislation it’s at the expense of programs that help the vulnerable: SNAP, the aforementioned healthcare programs, early childhood education, childcare for working moms. … Since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have been enriching the rich and ignoring the not.
Now they’re scheming to make it permanent: Elect Felonious Trump (YouTube: tinyurl.com/rhymes4u), who’ll facilitate his flock of favorite fellow felons in weaponizing the Department of Justice, FBI, IRS and Congress itself against dissent and dissenters, embedding forever their pipe-dream plutocracy (MSNBC: tinyurl.com/felons4u). It’s why they’ll never abandon him. Conservatism is dead to them. Lust for unrestrained power killed it.
Voters, then, must decide whether they’re more worried about Democrats forcing their kids to switch genders, and about immigration, bipartisan plans to address which Trump sabotaged; or about losing the benefits of Constitutional governance that have made America great. That’s the choice. It’s not hyperbole. It’s the inescapable inference from the obvious.
When godly Mike Johnson lies without shame about the Trump trial; when Lara Trump, head of the Republican National Committee, smirks, “What will happen to the jurors” and when a Newsmax host orders people to “search them out,” there can be no doubt about what’s afoot (NBC News: tinyurl.com/2doxjury).
No matter how much one believes Joe Biden is both senile and the mastermind behind prosecuting Trump’s crimes, this isn’t difficult. One party produces legislation that makes lives better and the future healthier; the other caters to wealthy, white, Christians (only those who reject the teachings of Jesus) and promises totalitarian rule.
Trump, who’s never taken responsibility for his failures, who’s used the American legal system he decries to enrich himself and intimidate others, bombasted his way through this case, hurling conspiracies and truthless accusations while raising tons of money. With no evidence, a convicted felon has convinced millions of people that American jurisprudence is corrupt; that this trial, the election, the sexual assault verdict, the Georgia charges, the documents case are all “rigged.” How? We await proof.
Immediately after the verdict, a host of the self-described “most patriotic channel” in Russia, said, “They wronged our Donald Trump!” “Our.” (Raw Story: tinyurl.com/ruTV4u) Dictators love dictators. Trumpublicans are OK with it.
Far more damaging to the U.S. and even more clear cut, the stolen documents case would have gone first, if not for Trump’s accessory judge, Aileen Cannon. Notwithstanding his lies, the Presidential Records Act gave him no right to the documents. He refused requests to return them, hid them, ignored a legally binding subpoena, lied about returning them all. Reportedly, he showed them to people unauthorized to see them. It ought to take a jury five minutes to convict; and, because it borders on treason, it could well lead to incarceration, which the current conviction won’t.
That’s why Trump, convicted felon, is desperate to finagle his way back into office by whatever means. From there, as he had Attorney General Bill Barr do last time, he’d fire all the prosecutors charging him. And skate.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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