Standing For What Matters

What happens if McConnell never agrees to a real trial with witnesses and documents and Schumer doesn’t cave? Then Trump will have been found guilty by the House of conduct “grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law,” with NO exoneration. He won’t love that.

— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) December 16, 2019

I decided this was really a new post, so I'm peeling off a bit of the old post and re-using it here.

I think McConnell's just afraid of what witnesses will say; especially Rudy.  And, of course, what he's explicitly saying is:  "We don't need a fair trial!"

BREAKING: Mitch McConnell just said that the Senate will dismiss impeachment after opening arguments.

Take that, Dems.

— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) December 17, 2019

"Although it would take only four members to force McConnell to do the right thing, they live in abject terror of Trump’s rage and McConnell’s money and power. They could force a real trial, and bring Trump to heel, but they won’t." https://t.co/1XTHhHzOIp

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) December 17, 2019

But I agree with Amanda Marcotte:  Susan Collins may be afraid, but Mitch McConnell and virtually every Republican who spoke in House hearing on impeachment is not afraid.  They are loving this:

No, the darker truth is that Republican voters, like Republican politicians, see clearly what Trump did — use the power of his office in an overt attempt to cheat in the 2020 election — and they love it. Like their leaders, Republican voters are feeling done with democracy and eager to follow Trump into a new world, where the majority of Americans who vote for Democrats are kept out of power, by any means necessary.

Just note the difference in today's news:

Horn represents Oklahoma's 5th congressional district, which is R+10 and went for Trump in 2016 by more than 14 points 53% to less than 40% for Clinton https://t.co/kfjbxYQJiX

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 17, 2019

Wow: Another Dem from a Trump district voting yes >>> https://t.co/oTUrr7J0fU

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) December 17, 2019

There are only 6 House Democrats who represent districts that Trump won in 2016 who have yet to publicly state their position on impeachment, according to the latest Washington Post whip count.https://t.co/FPVCpX76WPhttps://t.co/3xhI9lVWNR

— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) December 17, 2019

Those are not Democrats standing up for the Constitution no matter what, so much as politicians who understand what their constituents want them to do.  Then again, Louie Gohmert and Jim Jordan and Lindsay Graham are probably likely to get re-elected, too.

"Project Lincoln" (the SuperPac formed and announced by George Conway, Rick Wilson, and others) may imagine it is going to save the Republican party from itself, but its aim is what I applaud, not its philosophy.  The GOP is Trump's party now because the shackles are off and the beast is running free.  I also think it is even more of a minority (in numbers, not ethnic makeup) party than it has ever been in my lifetime, and I remember when the GOP was the acknowledged minority party of the country.  The truth is, there is no GOP to save.  There is only a country to save from the destruction the GOP is determined to wreak on it, and our Constitution.

  

And the correct response is to make them pay in the only coin they understand:  votes at the ballot box.  On that Project Lincoln and I agree; after that, I think the only hope for the country is to destroy the GOP, burn the ashes, and salt the ground it stood on so nothing like it can ever grow up in this country again.

Well, at least not for a generation or two.  It's taken 3 generations to eradicate the memory of how much we all hated Nazism and anti-semitism, and equally as long to begin to despise racism.  The fourth generation seems determined not to learn those lessons, which fault is on us for being such poor teachers.  Isolationism is also returning, the geopolitical lesson burned into the nation's flesh by World War II (along with the hatred of Nazism and anti-semitism).  The GOP extant now is the failure of those lessons to be taught long enough and convincingly enough.

We who are left and remember, have a lot of work to do before we go.  I'll be damned if I'm going to leave a nation to my daughter built in the image of Donald Trump.