Like Trump, they seemingly believe they can abandon the duty of providing oversight of the executive branch and suffer no consequence. On the campaign trail, we should expect them to follow the President's lead, spouting gibberish to avoid accountability. They'll likely do it with confidence after checking the recent Gallup poll that finds him at a new high of 49% approval.
The reality we face now is one in which Trump's extreme brand of political leadership, one based on tribalism and impunity, is mainstream. He told us this was coming when, during the 2016 campaign, he declared, "I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose voters."
This was not so much a metaphor as a declaration of a paradigm shift that he helped to create through a lifetime of norm busting that paved the way for his political takeover.
The Trump whom America got to know in the 1980s was a conspicuous narcissist who gleefully embodied the greed-is-good mantra of the Reagan years. Next came the sex scandal and family breakup that Trump -- of the 1990s -- turned into tabloid entertainment. Finally, we got "The Apprentice" Trump of the 2000s who humiliated contestants one by one until the last person standing got the questionable reward of a one-year job working for Trump.
In each iteration of his personality, Trump turned an ugly trait into a powerful tool and grew his following of fans, who were thrilled by his extremism. Sure, as a rich and famous guy, Trump had the means to make himself exempt from the norms that governed the rest of us. And if you liked him, you could revel in the sight of him breaking all the rules.
It would be unfair to blame Trump alone for the way that the extreme became acceptable. We can also thank those on Wall Street who made rapacious capitalism the norm and televangelists who demonstrated that nothing -- not marriage, not faith, not the Ten Commandments -- is sacred anymore. In politics, Bill Clinton's personal weakness was joined by the partisan opportunism of House Republicans to give us an impeachment process that was more scandalous than wrongdoing -- lying about an affair -- that it was supposed to punish.
The Clinton impeachment signaled that the rancorous politics-as-war practiced by the then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was here to stay. Gingrich, we should remember, admitted to being an unfaithful husband and seemingly believed he could get away with hypocritically driving Clinton from office because of his moral failing. He almost did it.
After Gingrich, came George W. Bush's political adviser Karl Rove, who saw that some Americans were uncomfortable with granting their gay neighbors equal rights and weaponized this anxiety to benefit Bush.
Rove didn't invent the culture war brand of politics, but he cleverly helped get anti-equality measures onto state ballots in order to drive his target voters to the polls.
More recently, current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell demonstrated his disrespect for his colleagues and the office of the President by simply refusing to take up then-President Barack Obama's nomination of the eminently qualified Merrick Garland for a seat on the Supreme Court. McConnell held the spot open so that Trump could fill it, proving his power and shamelessness.
McConnell, evangelists, stock pumpers and the rest who prioritized winning over decency had roles, too, in setting the stage for presidential candidate Trump. As President, Trump has followed through with a crudely devised and morally repugnant ban on visitors from a number of countries, most of which have a majority Muslim demographic, and by picking fights with athletes who had the temerity to demonstrate their concern for minority rights by quietly kneeling during the National Anthem.
Time and again, the main point of Trump's actions and rhetoric has seemed to be more about the creation of a cult of personality than addressing the nation's needs. At home, he has wasted time and money chasing a phantom voter fraud problem while failing to devote proper attention to the real threat of foreign election interference which Russia employed in an attempt to help Trump gain office in 2016.
Abroad, he has insulted the allies upon whom America depends, and he befriended tyrants. The point, at every turn, was not about policy but about asserting power.
The greater the outrage, the more some act caused pain and sorrow, the more the escape from accountability has added to Trump's power. Remember the asylum-seeking children in "cages," as they were described? The few who grew sick and died in federal custody? How about the neo-Nazis whom Trump called "very fine people"? With each awful demonstration of cruelty, he has still held onto his base of support.
At the impeachment trial, Senate Republicans heard how Trump had abused his office by conditioning war aid to Ukraine on a promise to announce an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. (Trump has denied any quid pro quo.) They heard, too, about the President's stonewalling every effort Congress made to learn what happens inside his administration.
In refusing to hand over documents and preventing officials from testifying, he obstructed Congress and defied its rightful role as a coequal branch of government. Just as McConnell previously disrespected the executive branch, Trump has disrespected the legislative one.
The legal version of Trump's get-away-with-anything method came with the hall of mirrors defense raised by the President's team of lawyers. During the proceedings they abandoned the idea that the call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was, as Trump claimed "perfect," instead saying that even if misconduct occurred it was OK because he believes his reelection is in the national interest.
Finally, came the assertion that Congress should not investigate a stonewalling president without going to court first. On the very day this defense was raised in the Senate, the administration argued the opposite in a nearby courtroom.
There, a different set of administration lawyers said Congress should not seek evidence by going to court but via impeachment. After hearing about the hypocrisy in the arguments, people in both the Senate and the courthouse guffawed, but the lawyers continued with their arguments.
At the impeachment trial, the absurdity of Trump's defenses was exceeded by the way GOP senators seized on them to justify refusing to hear witnesses and evidence. The damage they have done to themselves is exceeded by the cynicism they have sewn in a country where trust is already dangerously scarce.
Trump's escape from accountability, enabled by Senate Republicans, is made all the more awful by the fact that it adds proof to the argument that sincerity is for suckers. The danger in this, of course, is in the anger that can follow when people realize they have been had.
The President's terrible brilliance lies in the fact that he brought us to this moment with a campaign in which he complained about how the "system is rigged." Three years later, the Senate joined him in demonstrating that indeed it is. Now it's up to the voters, and the voters alone, to show that it isn't.
"Opinion" - Google News
February 06, 2020 at 11:39AM
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Donald Trump was right. The system is rigged. - CNN
"Opinion" - Google News
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