The Fat Lady Sings

 

Tr*mp the Opera approaches the finale faster than I anticipated, with a climax somewhat more surprising than it should have been.  I wonder what they were saying from the pulpits of the megachurches this morning.

While impeachment at this point seems like a long shot, it would be worth the effort if it can deprive Tr*mp of his post-presidential retirement benefits, including a million bucks a year in travel expenses (and half-a-million more for Melania), lifetime Secret Service protection, and a pension equal to the salary of a Cabinet official.  Fittingly, he won't get lifetime health insurance, which only kicks in after five years of Federal employment.  I can't object if he's signed up for Medicare.

Meanwhile, it looks like the Republican Party is fracturing, which is not necessarily good news for progressives.  If there is "bipartisan cooperation" between Republican and Democratic "moderates," the Senate may as well elect Joe Manchin the new Majority Leader.  Granted, even that would be better than having McConnell in charge.

As for Tr*mp's "base," it will survive, albeit somewhat diminished.  Just how diminished remains to be seen: those who get their "news" from One America Network, Parler, and 4chan, or who live in communities where Romney is seen as a liberal, can cling to their alternative realities for a long time.  (FOX will follow the eyeballs and the ad revenue.)

Needless to say, Biden's FBI will have to pay a lot more attention to domestic terrorism.

The Romney Vote

It wasn't Mitt Romney, Republican Senator, who voted to find Tr*mp guilty of abuse of power yesterday: it was Mitt Romney, Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Romney is serious about his role as a Mormon leader, and felt duty-bound to make a moral decision.  While "situation ethics" overwhelmed American Evangelicals as they transformed their religious movement into a political force, Mormons seem more inclined to stick with first principles.

Clearly, the LDS Church is conservative, despite some of the "socialistic" aspects of its theology; and has been reliably Republican at least since Ezra Taft Benson served in the Eisenhower administration. Nevertheless, Mormons remember their long history as outsiders in America, forced to flee from the East Coast to the Midwest to the deserts of Utah and Nevada.  Other politically conservative Christian denominations still refuse to accept them as "real" Christians – so their integration into the American mainstream remains incomplete.  Mormons remain a "minority group" in the USofA.

While Romney's vote to impeach may do him some political damage in Utah, it's hard to imagine Mormon Utah failing to re-elect him to the Senate in 2023.  Still – despite the fact that his political peril is far less than what other prodigal Republican would have encountered – his decision to vote for impeachment was courageous and worthy of admiration.

About that impeachment...

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Quick takes

• I can't help thinking that if the Inspector General investigated ten random FISA applications, he'd probably find the number of problems he found in the Carter Page application is about average.  The problem is that the FISA court is secret, so FBI agents can cut corners without much chance of getting caught.  Most of the fruits of FISA warrants remain secret, even after they're executed; and secrecy always invites abuse.

• The impeachment proceeding is just the latest manifestation of an epistemological crisis: apparently, Pat Moynihan was wrong, and you can have your own facts.  For godfather of the current crisis, I nominate Rupert Murdoch, who brought the spirit of British tabloid journalism to American television.  It's hard to stay involved in the ongoing "drama" in Congress when everybody's already guessed the ending.

• I'm curious to see how the Liberal Democrats fare in tomorrow's British election, with their straightforward, unequivocal support for remaining in the EU.  It wasn't that long ago that the LibDems propped up a Conservative minority government.  Might they do the same for Labour?

Quick take

Many were amused when Lindsey Graham suggested that the Tr*mp administration is just too incompetent to hatch a plan which would force Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.  Well, Tr*mp & Co. certainly were too incompetent to get it right.  Sondland's amateurism and Giuliani's dementia made sure of that: they got caught.

I think it's just as amusing tha their incompetence – and Tr*mp's – are now the basis of the Republican defense against impeachment.  "Ukraine got the money," they say.  "There weren't any investigations."  Right.  The plan didn't work.  They got caught.

Clearly, Jim Jordan was added to the intelligence committee to provide sound bites for Fox.  I can't help thinking his greatest qualification is that he, like Tr*mp, actually believes the conspiracy theories about Ukraine, rather than Russia, being responsible for the 2016 election interference; and that it was done to benefit Democrats.  The Red Hats, needless to say, happily will believe it as well.

Next?

Virtually all the talking heads are in agreement: Our President will be impeached by the House and acquitted in the Senate.  This is based on the irrefutable fact that Republicans are so deep in his sh*t all they can do is pretend they can't smell it.  That leaves them struggling to agree on a strategy to defend him; and at the moment, it looks like all they have are Giuliani's conspiracy theories.

Our President, it appears, sincerely believes in those conspiracy theories, so you can be sure he regards "believing" them as a test of loyalty.  Needless to say, the conservative media (and the Russians) are doing a pretty good job of selling them to the loyal Republican base.  The Nazi "big lie" stratagem still works — and social media helps it work even better.

Just for entertainment value, I'd love to see public testimony from Rudy Giuliani.  (I know I'm not supposed to laugh at the handicapped, but in Rudy's case, I'll make an exception.)

Saving the Republican Party

As I'm sure you've noticed, Our President is batshit crazy — and he's been getting worse.  As impeachment pressures grow, his general demeanor is deteriorating and his rants and rage-tweets are increasingly bizarre.  Up to this point, Republican efforts to rationalize Tr*mp's irrationality have been strained, but effective enough to mollify his base.  The Zelensky phone call opened some cracks in GOP unity– even at Fox News – but none large enough to do real damage.

The Erdogan phone call, however, is different.  Tr*mp's base may not understand much, but they understand treachery and betrayal; they recognize a stab in the back when they see it.  After years being told of the bravery and loyalty of the Syrian Kurds – consistent "good guys" in all the media – Tr*mp's abandonment of America's allies against ISIS has to feel like a gut-punch to his admirers.  Real damage has been done, and none of the President's arguments for American self-interest or realpolitik is likely to reverse it.

In other words, Tr*mp's chance at a second term took a serious hit over the past few days; and since a narrow win in the Electoral College looked like his best  path to victory, the situation is dire.  A serious drubbing by Democrats in 2020 will endanger Republican control of the Senate as well.  What's a Bible-thumping stooge of the plutocracy to do?

Here's an idea: sidestep that embarrassing impeachment inquiry and invoke the 25th Amendment. With all due sympathy for his "illness," dump Tr*mp and give the presidency to Pence.  Our Vice-President has kept a low enough profile over the past three years to maintain his undeserved reputation for moral probity.  He could win.

It won't happen, of course.  Pence doesn't have the chutzpah to start the ball rolling, and the sycophants, enablers, and co-conspirators in the Cabinet would be too terrified to follow through.  Still, should you happen to run into Charles Koch any time soon, pass the idea along: he just might like it.

Продовжуйте поширювати шмальц

You don't have to read Ukrainian to figure out Volodymyr Zelensky's basic approach to dealing with Our President.  The "reconstructed transcript" of their telephone conversation omits any mention of the incomparable sexiness of America's First Daughter, but nobody will be too surprised if it shows up in a later edition.  The joint press appearance at the UN offered more of the same: Did Zelensky feel "pressured" by Tr*mp?  Of course not!

In the meanwhile, it's hard to argue that Biden won't be hurt by his son's lucrative employment by an Ukrainian oligarch.  Hunter's sinecure may have had no impact on America's foreign policy whatsoever, but the optics are terrible.  The "electability" argument for Biden's nomination has suffered a severe hit.

It will be a mistake if Democrats ignore Tr*mp's numerous other abuses of power to zero in on the Ukraine affair.  Those other abuses, including the numerous instances presented in the Mueller Report, demand greater scrutiny over the course of the impeachment inquiry: ignoring them is tantamount to endorsing them.

On the lighter side, congressional testimony on Ukraine by Rudy Giuliani promises to rank among the funniest absurdist comedies in TV history, and may require creating a new category for the Emmy Awards.  Granted, one shouldn't be laughing a senile dementia – but as a (Medicare) card-carrying geezer, I'll claim special dispensation to LMAO.

Catching up...

The Mueller Report

As Leon Festinger, father of cognitive dissonance theory, could have predicted, Mueller's report didn't change anybody's mind about anything.  When people make a public commitment to a belief, they are not likely to change their minds just because of a little evidence — and the current level of polarization in the USofA has encouraged a lot of public commitment  That leaves the choice of our next president to the people who haven't been paying attention.  Democracy: ya' gotta love it.

Biden
One thing every old person has plenty of is history, some of which one just as soon would forget.  Although I like the way Joe Biden led off by characterizing the 2020 election as a battle for America's soul, it's hard to go into battle carrying 50 years of baggage.  Maybe he's a "decent" guy, but if he did win the presidency, Biden would fill the White House with the same old gang of neoliberal Clintonistas.   I don't know about you, but I've had more than enough of the 1990s.

Impeachment
Elizabeth Warren is right: if there is enough evidence to justify impeachment, the House is morally obliged to open an impeachment hearing. That means House Democrats have to decide between morality and politics — and, so far, politics is winning.

The Democratic Primaries
Did you know Tulsi Gabbard is a Hindu?  Did you even know she's running for president? The major media really have been focusing nearly all their attention on the white male candidates: Kamala Harris got a brief spurt of publicity when she announced, but that lasted about two days — and Beto's tabletop antics get more media attention than Warren's detailed policy proposals.  The unwieldy, overloaded "debates" scheduled for the end of June can't do much to change the situation.  Will the media change their ways?  Don't bet on it.