There\u2019s a great television ad on right now.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s about the idyllic town of \u201cDenial, Ohio\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0People live in nice suburban homes, eat in cute diner-style restaurants, and have kids that are \u201cabove average\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0And those kids would never, ever, use opiates.\u00a0\u00a0Parents don\u2019t need to worry, or talk to them about it.\u00a0\u00a0They live in \u201cDenial\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this week of overwhelming breaking news, maybe the one thing that is coming clear is that we all live in \u201cDenial\u201d. After another day of listening to the Impeachment hearings (we\u2019ve seen them so much they\u2019ve become either old friends, or old enemies) one side or the other is in total denial. The facts of the Democratic side seem undisputed. The determination of the Republicans seems unrelenting. They are two groups, talking past each other. No one is hearing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seems so simple. The President set up a \u201cside\u201d group to push Ukraine to stir up investigations of Biden and Crowd Strike. They had to disrupt the \u201cregular order\u201d to get it done, and fired the Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. Giuliani, and the \u201cthree Amigos\u201d of Perry, Sondland and Volker, made sure the message got through to Ukraine. Mulvaney made sure the money was stopped. And the President himself drove the point home, asking \u201c\u2026do us a favor, though\u2026\u201d in the July 25th<\/sup> phone call. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ukrainians knew the day of the phone call that the money was on hold. Vice President Pence and the \u201cthree amigos\u201d hammered the point home. The Ukrainian\u2019s scheduled an interview with Fareed Zakarias of CNN to announce the investigations. But the whistleblower\u2019s report surfaced, and the President was caught. Like any kid caught doing something wrong, he tried to cover it up, telling Sondland for the record there was no \u201cquid pro quo\u201d. But like most guilty kids, it didn\u2019t work, and the whole scheme fell apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Republicans on the committee refuse to accept ANY of those facts. Each point is in dispute, and the minority is willing to throw almost anyone under the bus to protect the President. Ask Gordon Sondland, or Alexander Vinland, or Maria Yovanovitch or Fiona Hill. They have all had their reputations trashed by the Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And in all of this, the President has gotten one of his wishes. Joe Biden\u2019s problems with his son, Hunter, are front and center for the entire nation to see. Making that happen was so important to the minority, that a Congressman, vulnerable with personal substance abuse issues of his own, put himself on the line. He called out Hunter Biden for drug abuse. Democrats reasonably noted \u201c\u2026the pot was calling the kettle black.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This morning they will continue the fight, but ultimately the Committee will approve the two Articles of Impeachment. The full House will debate and vote on it next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Democrats may be in \u201cDenial\u201d as well.\u00a0\u00a0There was other news yesterday, buried under the rhetoric of the Committee debate.\u00a0\u00a0In the United Kingdom, the Conservative Party under Prime Minister Boris Johnson won an overwhelming electoral victory.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cBrexit,\u201d the United Kingdom leaving the European Union, is now a \u201cdone deal,\u201d one way or another.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ramifications for the UK are historic. Scotland may determine to break away from the nation, going independently on its own to stay in the EU. Northern Ireland will be forced to find a way to \u201charden\u201d its border with the rest of Ireland, and concerns of a return of the \u201ctroubles\u201d are rising. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All of this is change, and it\u2019s scary.\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s the UK\u2019s problem.\u00a0\u00a0Here\u2019s what Americans might take from this.\u00a0\u00a0In June of 2016, the UK voted 52% to 48% to leave the European Union.\u00a0\u00a0It was a shocking outcome, and we later found that the forces of social media manipulation by the Russians and private companies like Cambridge Analytica, were deeply involved.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, after over three years of failed negotiations, the voters of the UK have made a clear statement: \u201cGet Brexit Done,\u201d the campaign slogan of the Conservative Party. The Labor Party, led by the polarizing figure of Jeremy Corbyn, was dramatically rejected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 2016 Brexit vote foreshadowed the 2016 Trump Presidential victory.\u00a0\u00a0There are lots of differences between the two countries and the two elections.\u00a0\u00a0But there was a shared overall theme in both:\u00a0\u00a0moving forward into a multi-cultural world, or stepping back towards an insular, more homogenous, past.\u00a0\u00a0Both the UK and the US narrowly determined to step back .<\/p>\n\n\n\n In December 2019, the voters of the United Kingdom \u201cdoubled down\u201d on that choice. Despite all of the failures of the Trump Administration, is the United States preparing to do the same in 2020? Are the Democrats, like the Labor Party, fooling themselves?<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are alternate theories.\u00a0\u00a0Analysts point to Corbyn as being too polarizing, too \u201cleft\u201d for the UK electorate.\u00a0\u00a0They warn that the Democratic Party has candidates just like that, far to the left of American voters. Some warn that nominating those candidates could produce the same rejection.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s hard to \u201ctest\u201d the veracity of that hypothesis, but one thing is sure.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n We need to make sure we\u2019re not just living in \u201cDenial\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deny the Conspiracy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Brexit<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Tell the Future<\/h3>\n\n\n\n