"Law and Order," Trump's Mob, and Republican Cowardice

From the University of Pennsylvania's Dick Polman this morning:

The Senate GOP’s Coward Caucus is infested with abetters [sic!] of home-grown fascism and is poised to exonerate the goon most responsible for the rabble violence that occurred on the day that will live in infamy. But you’d think they’d at least open their ears to the protracted screams of D.C. cop Daniel Hodges.

As captured on video yesterday, during day two of the Senate impeachment trial, Hodges was doing his duty to defend the Capitol when the MAGA mob crushed him in a doorway. His screams reverberated through the Senate chamber as a number of Republican “jurors” looked away, busied themselves with busywork or doodled on legal pads.

And this is the party that purportedly champions “law and order.”

Officer Hodges’ screams highlighted the toxic hypocrisy of a GOP still in thrall to (or living in fear of) the nation’s top domestic terrorist. As we know, most Republican senators are willing to abide his most flagrant desecration of democracy – but weren’t they all on board with loving law enforcement and touting the slogan that Blue Lives Matter?

(Read the entire article here.)

Watching the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump yesterday was a surreal experience. Years ago I never could have imagined my country devolving into such cartoonish bedlam. But this was no cartoon. It was the painfully detailed documentation of a republic in its death throes … and of elected "leaders" who, frankly, could not give a toss. Imagine a future leader with Trump's thuggish, authoritarian ambitions, but with more intelligence and without his ham-fisted, transparent buffoonery. Kiss our democracy good-bye.

Three things are abundantly clear from yesterday's proceedings. First, the mob that attacked the Capitol, threatened the well-being of the United States Congress and Vice President Mike Pence―make no mistake, the chants of "Hang Mike Pence" make it clear they took Trump's rhetoric both seriously and literally―that killed officer Brian Sicknick and injured 140 others, were barbarians worthy of Polman's referring to them as "Visigoths." And, like the epithet implies, a central component of their barbarism is a shockingly invincible ignorance. This ignorance, and ignorance's handmaiden, gullibility, made them ripe for Trump's Big Lie of a stolen election, the victims of which, in Trump's words, included them as well as him. Alarmingly, 76 per cent of self-identified Republicans believe this myth of a stolen election. No amount of evidence is apparently enough to dislodge this fantasy from their brains, and G.O.P. officeholders who acknowledge reality are increasingly paying a political price. Of late it has been common to read or hear the late New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's quip that "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." True, but people who get their "news" from propaganda outlets like Fox, Newsmax, and OAN are conditioned to confuse the former for the latter.

Second, though 56 per cent of Republican voters believe Trump bears no responsibility for the attacks on the Capitol, the House Impeachment Managers yesterday destroyed any possible defense of such naivete (see, inter alia, here and here). If it were not already blindingly obvious, it is now undeniable that Donald Trump is guilty as charged, and that he must be convicted and barred from holding any future office.  After yesterday's powerful presentation, any attempt to assert otherwise is, frankly, motivated nonsense.

Which leads to the third point of clarity: Senate Republicans who refuse to acknowledge this are embodiments of what (with apologies to JFK) could be called "Profiles in Cowardice." Their deflections and obfuscations are both shameless and shameful … and, to be blunt, pathetic. One thinks of Josh Hawley and what Brian Williams referred to as his "nihilistic performance art" yesterday in the Senate gallery. One thinks of the weaselly Lindsay Graham's performance last night on Sean Hannity's show on Fox (never has a man's reputation and significance withered as much as has Graham's, following the death of the estimable John McCain, who gave him whatever significance he ever seemed to have). No one, least of all me, expects Senate Republicans to grow both consciences and the courage to convict Trump. Lord knows, if they did so, they might be voted out in a primary challenge when re-election comes up! But what galls more than the cowardice is the hypocrisy. "Law and order" for thee, but not for me (and my tribe), indeed.

One more thing: The closest analog to what is happening today came during the summer of 1974, that marvelous time between my high school graduation and enrollment in college. I'm speaking, of course, of the demise of Richard Nixon because of his involvement in the Watergate scandal. Let's be clear. Nixon was guilty of impeachable offenses. And the evidence that would have convicted him wasn't simply compelling eyewitness testimony (as in Trump's first impeachment). He was caught on tape. Yet, guilty as he was, what he did pales in comparison to the malignant treachery of Donald Trump. And he was forced to resign because he was informed that the Republicans in Congress would not support him. Alas, there are not many such principled Republicans in Congress today.

More to the point: my father was a Republican loyalist who voted for Nixon both in 1968 and 1972. Yet the facts of Nixon's criminality, exposed by the media and in the thorough congressional hearings, convinced him that Nixon, as sanguine as he was toward his politics, had to be removed from office. You see, my dad was a Christian, who believed in something called truth. He was a Christian, and thus believed wholeheartedly in justice. Truth could not be spun in such a way to avoid it. Justice, to be justice, must be impartial. He believed that, as do I. What bothers me is that today I don't see many so-called "evangelicals," in thrall to Trump as they inexplicably are, who appear to agree. Is it possible that many of them will come to their senses and repent of their foolishness for the sake of the gospel? Certainly. The New Testament teaches that God can (and does) grant repentance (2 Timothy 2:25). But I will not hold my breath.