The Complicit GOP, the Conversation No One Is Having
It’s May 2019, and the GOP has come within a whisker of turning this nation into one party rule. Yet there seems to be little to no discussion on the remarkable fact that in the face of the Mueller report, the increasing lack of ability of Trump to make any statement, much less any tweet, that is coherent, his utter lack of decorum, his intense drive to start a conflict with someone, anyone and his relentless golfing schedule, at taxpayer expense; not to mention all the other less than legal dealings he is being investigated for; that in spite of all this there has been only one voice of Republican disagreement. Only one solitary current GOP member whose willing to point out the rapidly disintegrating political situation and the utter disregard for the rule of law.
One.
Now, when Obama took office, the GOP spoke with one voice, they declared that he would only be a one term president because they would stop his entire political agenda and destroy him. Yet there was no hint of any inapproporiateness in Obama’s past (other than the birth certificate idiocy) and his entire eight year term was remarkably free of scandal. Unless you count the horrible gaffe of a tan suit, or saluting with a coffee cup in hand or Michelle wearing a sleeeveless dress. As we all know fashion gaffes should be condemnned immediately and with much vigor (as an aside, have you seen how bad Trump’s suits actually fit him?)
Now, even though the idea of some sort of universal health care system is popular within the electorate, the GOP spent years on the collective fainting couch, speaking of such fearsome things as death panels (which we already have , please see private insurers denying people medical care) or out of control premiums (which private insurers have been doing for years anyway) and shaking their fists over the idea of increased medical spending and the holy sacredness of the tax dollar (which Trump has no issues spending on golfing at Mar A Lago).
They stormed the heavens and obstructed their little heads off over the mere concept of saving American lives through better healthcare.
So one would think that these performances during Obama’s and the surity of their pursuit of justice regarding Bill Clinton lying under oath would then translate into that same moral and ethical vigor in pursuing justice regarding a man whose entire campaign team has been indicted, plead guilty or is still under investigation for not only lying under oath to the FBI or Congress, but has multiple links to an enemy country.
Yet we are met with resounding silence. Which leaves two questions.
- Why? Why is the entire GOP party willing to go along with Trump’s multiple offenses after setting the hounds of justice on Clinton for lying about sex? What does Trump, Putin or McConnell (or perhaps a shadowy figure) have on literally hundreds of politicans that makes them so fearful of dissenting.
2. Why is no one in the press investigating? One would think this could be the story of the century, yet nary a peep.
As far as #1, there are an abundance of ideas, craven love of power, cowardice, multiple levels of financial corruption which Mueller and the rest of the investigations was beginning to uncover, which AG Barr etc has been trying so desperately to stop being made public. Simple greed?
There are multiple reasons people sell out their ideals, or maybe they’re not selling out their ideals at all, maybe all GOP politicians truly believe in one party rule, that they are all pining for a dictatorship with themselves at the helm. Maybe all the dissenting voices in the GOP party have slowly been winnowed away over the last 30–40 years. This is something that I feel needs to be brought into the light if sane Republicans and the country are to survive at all.
As far as #2. True, much of the press is owned by a few, mostly all conservative figures, however, there is plenty of independent press out there. I think the bigger issue is that no one wants to believe what they see right before their eyes. That the GOP speaking with one voice has become so normal that people do not question. It wasn’t always like this and the lack of competing ideas and values in fully one half of the elected officials is disconcerting.
Democracies are not about speaking with one voice, or they shouldn’t be. Yes, right and left will always have some core values that separate them, but the GOP’s willingness to pursue multiple avenues of invalidating or rigging elections, voter suppression, of the Senate Majority Leader declaring at the beginining of a Presidency that the duly elected President will only have one term, and you will make it so, and you will do all that is in your power to stop any of his agenda from passing is far beyond the pale.
Yet still, their devoted followers, people who continually call themselves patriots; although those that represent them are systematically destroying the systems of checks and balances our Founding Fathers created to stop abuses of power, still hang on their leaders’ every word with baited breath.
For many years, political observers on left and right have been sounding the alarms with regard to abuses of power, on both sides, as the Dems have pulled a few shady moves with regards to Senate rules here and there as well. For the most part, those alarms were ignored, as per usual. Now we are here, where multiple officials are refusing to answer subpoenas, where a President who has a long history of financial dealings with enemy foreign powers before and during his term of office is pulling out all the stops in trying to stop the Congress and DOJ from pursuing their lawful and Constitutional right of investigating these issues, and where those investigations may truly be useless as the entire GOP is willing to let this continue.
These behaviors need to be researched and investigated. We, as a country, need to fully understand how compromised our leaders have become, so we can do what we need to make sure we save what’s left of our democracy in the years to come.
