In blocking witnesses yesterday, it strikes me that Trump and the Republicans are making a high stakes’ bet, but then again they were faced with a Hobson’s choice, that is, no good alternative. If they lose in November, it could set in train a bleak future for them, as political and demographic changes work against them.
The certain exoneration of Trump in the Senate, despite overwhelmingly evidence to remove him from office, creates immediate dangers to the integrity and fairness of the coming elections. Who knows what he might do to secure his reelection.
At the same time, the obvious manipulation of the trial by Senate Republicans renders the president’s “victory” duplicitous and illegitimate for a majority of Americans. Unlike the Mueller investigation, the impeachment process didn’t take place behind closed doors. Nor will it easily be spun as Mueller’s finding were by the likes of Trump, Barr, and all to a once burned public.
In fact, the fixed trial, despite the heroic efforts of Democrats, makes it certain that the investigations into Trump’s flagrant wrongdoing and criminality will continue. The genie isn’t going to go back into the bottle. Indeed, millions of patriotic and democratic minded Americans expect to hear more.
What is more, the light shed on the lengths that Trump will go to destroy an opponent and rip up “our” constitution in order to secure his re-election will lend new energy and determination to the massive, diverse, and growing coalition to defeat Trump and the corrupted Republican Party in the coming elections.
It’s a dark day for the country, but rays of light are piercing through the darkness.
Trump’s version of personalized white nationalist authoritarian rule hasn’t yet infected every political institution nor the thinking of the majority of the American people. But his certain acquittal by the Senate turns the November elections into the remaining barrier to prevent the full consolidation of this form of rule. In the face of this existential threat to everything we hold dear, the watchword across the diverse democratic coalition and Democratic Party should be a no brainer — UNITY.
Trump’s lawyers in the Senate trial are vessels of lying, deception and deflection. They consider truth a contagion to be avoided at all costs.
Watched House member Barbara Lee (CA) on Morning Joe today. Before the interview, they showed her speaking on the House floor nearly 20 years ago where she opposed the resolution giving the Bush administration broad and sweeping war making powers. She was alone in her dissent, an opposition of one. What a profile in courage, what a brilliant example of piercing through the fog and hysteria of war. Over the years since then, her commitment to progressive values and policies — to a Beloved Community — has few peers in the Congress or elsewhere for that matter.
That same resolution is still in effect. And Lee (and others) are once again calling for its repeal.
