It\u2019s Time<\/p>\n
I am tired.\u00a0 Tired of the betrayal of American values that is the Trump Administration.\u00a0 Tired of being told that \u201celections have consequences.\u201d\u00a0 Tired of pretending that the Trump election was legitimate, and that we should honor the results.<\/p>\n
There is a \u201crumor\u201d floating now, that Republicans will acquiesce in a Trump impeachment or resignation, \u201c\u2026as soon as Kavanaugh is confirmed, the midterms are over, and another tax cut is passed.\u201d\u00a0 They will get their agenda complete, then throw Trump to the wolves.\u00a0 What has become of the \u201chonor\u201d of the Republican Party?<\/p>\n
They made a \u201cdeal with the Devil\u201d in April of 2016, when the leaders, particularly Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, determined to allow the Trump candidacy to continue.\u00a0 They decided that it was more important to keep the \u201cTrump voter\u201d on the Republican side, then to worry about an actual Trump Presidency.\u00a0 They knew, then, that he was unfit to be the President of the United States.\u00a0 But they, like everyone else, presumed he would lose, and in losing, give the benefit of his voters to elect a Republican Congress.<\/p>\n
They continued the deal, even after the Access Hollywood tape.\u00a0 They fought the Obama Administration\u2019s attempts to warn the nation of Russian interference.\u00a0 They wanted their majority in Congress, and they were willing to do anything to get it. \u00a0They made sure that there was enough pressure on James Comey that he felt it necessary to interfere in the final days of the campaign. \u00a0What they didn\u2019t plan on, at least I hope, is the effectiveness of the Russian influence on the election.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t plan on the incredibly dangerous alliance between the \u201cpsycho-profiling\u201d of Cambridge Analytica, the divisiveness of the Russian social media campaign, and the still untold story of Russian hacking into the election system.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t know that Trump really \u201cwon,\u201d we weren\u2019t allowed to recount the votes in Detroit, and we aren\u2019t allowed to consider the possibility that other states were hacked.\u00a0 It has \u201cbeen determined\u201d that it didn\u2019t happen, yet drip-by-drip we hear of more digital incursions into voting systems.\u00a0 It was 77,744 votes out of 130,000,000 that determined the outcome \u2013 and we just don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
We do know that there is growing evidence of the influence of Russian intelligence on the Trump Campaign.\u00a0We do know that the President has \u201cbowed down\u201d to Putin, and has espoused a foreign policy that could have been written in the Kremlin.\u00a0 We saw that policy again yesterday, when National Security Advisor John Bolton attacked the World Court, denigrating their authority.\u00a0\u00a0 We know that the future of Syria is being decided without our involvement, even as our troops remain at risk.\u00a0 And we know that the Trump Presidency has done everything it can to weaken the Western Alliance.\u00a0 We suspect that we have a President who is somehow compromised (kompromat) by the Russians.<\/p>\n
Mark Hanna, the political boss of Republican Ohio in the 1890\u2019s and backer of President William McKinley made his \u201cdeal\u201d by putting Teddy Roosevelt on the ticket as Vice President in 1900.\u00a0 WhenMcKinley was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz in September of 1901, Roosevelt ascended to the Presidency.\u00a0 Hanna is famously quoted as saying, \u201cNow look!! That damned cowboy is President of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps Ryan and McConnell said something similar.\u00a0And perhaps they were hoping that, like Teddy Roosevelt, Donald Trump would surprise them and become a strong President.\u00a0 Or perhaps they thought they could surround him with \u201cadults in the room\u201d who would lift up his Presidency, or at least protect the United States from the excesses of his actions.\u00a0 It didn’t happen.<\/p>\n
They were the leaders of their party, and they didn\u2019t have the RIGHT to risk our nation on such an unsound bargain.\u00a0 They were supposed to be PATRIOTS and instead chose this dangerous path to get the partisan benefits.\u00a0 And WE are the ones now paying the price for their bargain.\u00a0 But they are not.<\/p>\n
I am tired of pretending that it\u2019s OK.\u00a0It\u2019s not, and out nation is suffering.\u00a0Paul Ryan, the \u201cHamlet-like\u201d figure in this drama, will leave the action and return to Janesville, Wisconsin (probably to increase his fortune through lobbying.)\u00a0 McConnell will continue in the Senate, though it wouldn\u2019t surprise me, should the Democrats gain a Senate majority, if he too left to increase his bank accounts. \u00a0They will \u201cdip out\u201d and take their money with them. \u00a0And we Americans are stuck with the mess.<\/p>\n
They, and the rest of the Republican Party, including the \u201cgood\u201d members who have acquiesced in their leadership decisions, are to blame (\u201cHear-Hear” for John Kasich!!) \u00a0They should stop lining their pockets with tax cuts.\u00a0 They should stop their long-term plan to distort America by turning the Supreme Court over to the Federalist Society.\u00a0 They should recognize their fault, and help clean up the mess. And if they don\u2019t, then the Republican Party needs to follow the historic path into oblivion of the Know-Nothings and the Whigs.\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s time.<\/p>\n
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