Classic quotes of the Trump era never stop coming. There was Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts”. Donny’s, “My administration has done more for the Black community than any President since Abraham Lincoln” and (my gal) Marjorie Taylor Greene complaining how, “I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true … .” Truly immortal verbiage, each of them. But to those we now add Lindsey Graham reacting to the (Second) impeachment managers’ meticulous tick tock of the January 6 Trump mob riot by saying, “most Republicans found the presentation … offensive and absurd.”
The issue is not the chaos and violence of the attack mind you … but the presentation of the evidence of it. That’s what a Republican, 26-year veteran of Congress finds “offensive and absurd.”
Really, where do you go with something like that?
Prior to the start of this latest trial my attitude was, “Fine. Knock yourselves out. But we all know how this ends.” Impeachment deux was going to be another noble exercise in futility. There was — and is — no way 17 Republicans will ever vote to convict a life long con man turned reality TV star who is the most potent force in their party.
But after four days I’m here to say that the Democrats have significantly exceeded my expectations. While another acquittal is not in doubt, they have presented for the historical record a vivid, indelible, moment-by-moment, easily-accessible and indisputable chronicle of the highest crimes imaginable short of pulling out a gun and shooting an opposition candidate dead on live TV.
And the Republicans are no in a corner where they will go on record and vote to excuse it.
As W. might say, “Mission Accomplished.”
America’s beard-stroking class is full of punditry of … where do we go now? … when one of the only two viable political parties the country has has become so mired in fears of Trump, of Trump’s fevered and semi-literate base and the consequences of riling either of them to an intramural insurrection that they’ve acquiesced to a fantasy world. A world where for all intents and purposes Trump really did win “in a sacred landslide”, where “patriots” beat and kill cops, where stark visual/audio evidence is “offensive and absurd”, (or “crap” as Graham described it to Sean Hannity a few nights ago.)
Because I’ve come to believe the only plausible route out of this dungeon of grievance-stoked insanity is through a refortification of the so-called center-right, aka traditional country club Republicans, I’ve spent a lot of time lately listening to right-of-center podcasts like Charlie Sykes’ “The Bulwark.” (A former right-wing Wisconsin talk radio host turned mortified/horrified never-Trumper, Sykes has a polished, reassuring manner. He’s been good company as I’ve devoted a mid-winter cold spell to renovating the basement library/bedroom.)
Like other old school conservatives, Sykes and his guests are struggling to see a future for a party where a shameless nincompoop like Marjorie Taylor Greene exerts more influence on likely voters than Liz Cheney, the daughter of the goddam Voldemort of American Republicanism, Dick Cheney, for chrissakes. Facts are tough to ignore. And the fact is that Greene and the roughly 150 other GOP congesspeople like her are far … far… more reprentative of the zeistgeist of modern conservatism (or whatever you want to call it) than either Liz or Dick Cheney, or any Bush or any side show act like Mitt Romney.
Sykes and other former Republican bloviators and strategists correctly see a party overrun with post-policy grifters. People like Greene who clearly don’t have the faintest idea or interest in any form of legislation — save maybe gun rights and another round of tax cuts for their donors — but who have hit on an infallible grift. Namely, raging about any and every kind of hysterical nonsense that trends on social media … and encouraging people to write them a check to “fight for it.” (Greene is reported to have raised more than $1.5 million in the past couple months.)
A few old school Republicans gathered (on Zoom) a couple dsys ago to discuss the idea of creating … wait for it … a new party, and abandoning the “Republican” brand to the Greenes and Matt Gaetz’ and Louie Gohmerts and Oath Keepers of the world. But their central issue would also be money.
While fat corporate/tycoon dough would possibly follow a new party led by Ben Sasse, to pick a name, the Marjorie Greenes (like the Michelle Bachmanns before her) float on a sea of a handful of whack-a-doodle millionaires (Bachmann had Tim and Bevery LaHaye of the “Left Behind” novels fortune), but mainly they tap a fathomless sea of $25 and $100 checks from, well, from the likes of Hillary Clinton’s ‘”deplorables.” That sea will not be writing checks to Ben Sasse.
Historian Jon Meacham, one the more valuable of regular cable pundits, made an interesting point the other day when he said that while it’s true contemporary Republican senators fear Trump and his raging Borg-like base, what they fear is much is the full schism they’d create if they vote to convict Trump. Such a vote would very likely be the impetus for … Trump to create a new party. A Trump party based on nothing but Trump is a fear that is a stark, plain-to-be-seen possibility given the man’s cult-like appeal to seething mobs.
Almost any percentage of Republican voters who followed Trump away from the established party — and poll after poll shows an inviolable 32% who express a near religious attachment to him — translates to certain doom for any Republican caught in a three-way race with a Democrat and a Trumper.
Moreover, it then becomes a good question whether once reliably Republican corporate/tycoon cash continues to follow any Republican — old school or Trumper — into a campaign neither has a chance of winning. Far better, if you’re running the Home Depot political action account, to re-aim that money at “gettable” Democrats who’ll do big money bidding for the right price.
It’s a perilous predicament Reoublicans find themselves in. And if it weren’t for the fact they’ve built their careers on race-baiting, science-denying, economically-divisive “crap” that is truly “offensive and aburd” I might feel sorry for them.