Power Corrupts

I know that Trump has been impeached forever. He will always be one of a few sitting presidents impeached.  Still, we desperately need to have him removed from office, along with his VP Pence. The more I read about what he is doing to our government and to the system of laws and regulations that protect ordinary Americans, the more concerned I become about his continuation in office.  Two areas, Education and the Environment are but the latest examples of how he is eliminating policies and programs that literally make America Great.  He personally has no clue what that catchphrase means, nor do his supporters.

In education, the public education system—public schools—are a main reason we have a literate middle class in this country, and the middle class is what made America great.  Trump and his know-nothing appointee Betsy Devos are trying hard to reduce that system to a shell of its former self, replaced by publicly funded private schools that operate with no standards.

In environmental issues, we have a global crisis facing us in the not too distant future, a crisis that Trump refuses to address, because he is too stupid and too selfish to understand its nature and the level of threat it represents. Instead, his appointees are eliminating the few regulatory protections we have to safeguard our water supplies and our natural geologic heritage.

What he is doing seems beyond dispute. But the fact that he is getting away with it, thanks to a do-nothing Senate is perhaps the more troublesome.  He is getting away with all his transgressions, as his current trial in the Senate is demonstrating. Yes, he will always have been impeached. But if the Senate refuses to accept the facts staring them in the face, and votes to acquit him, we may be finished as a civilized society.

And as clear as that seems to me, it apparently has escaped the attention of our republican friends. That truth has also evidently escaped the attention of millions of Americans who continue to support this poor benighted president.

It is interesting, listening to the opposing lawyers Trump has hired (and what a cast it is). The term pettifoggery popped out of nowhere in one of the TV shows we watch. And while I knew the word, sort of, I didn’t understand its actual definition:

Pettifogger – a lawyer whose methods are petty, underhanded or disreputable; shyster; one given to quibbling over trifles.

Hmmm, sounds like any/all of Trump’s lawyers.

But, and this is a big BUT, his republican Senate comrades-in-arms are still with him, giving him their full support.  This, to me, is the most troubling aspect of this entire trial charade.  What does this action tell us about our government and its political parties?  It says, I believe, that our government is now dysfunctional. That is, republicans in general are so captive to our president that they now refuse any longer to act in the public interest.  They are now actors within their own little sphere of influence, which does not admit of facts, or truth, or public interest, or even, any ethical or moral principles.

They apparently have cashed in their principles for power. The more cynical amongst us might conclude, “well, they never had any ethical or moral principles to begin with, so there really is no great surprise here”.  But I would submit that, at least some of them seemed to have some principles at various points in their political careers. But whether that is true, or not, it matters not at this point in time. Right now, the principles have all vanished from the stage of republicanism.

I have been asserting for some time now, partly with tongue in cheek, that the Republican Party is dead. That the likes of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and even Shrub would not recognize this party as the one to which they belonged.  Indeed, this party seems all about, and exclusively so, acquiring power.  We know, because he has told us, that Trump is all about acquiring total power. He believes he can and should continue to serve as president, even after his 8-year term is completed. Perhaps he actually sees himself as King Donald I of the Americas.  And that apparently fails to scare the bejesus out of them.  They seem not to care that Trump corrupts the Office of the Presidency every day he is in office.  The impeachment simply indicted him for a couple of known/verifiable offenses. He commits offenses on a daily basis (for example, the Emoluments clause), but, again, they seem not to care.

They seem to be focused on keeping Trump in power, because he will allow them to act without consequence for their own actions. In short, we seem headed for this soliciting of Absolute Power thing. They all seem to believe that he will give them absolute power, if only he can be kept in office. So, now, they must do anything, corrupt anything and everything in order to keep him in power, so that they will also remain in power. And so, we seem headed for this complete train wreck of a democracy. Our Nation’s very existence as a functioning democracy is now at risk. Partly the outcome is in the hands of republicans. After that, it lies within the hands of our voting public, always assuming the public is allowed to vote, and that Trump’s gunners (his KKK-NeoNazi gunners) allow people to actually vote.

We will see what happens, but I, in my 85 years of life here, have never seen a threat level even close to this, and that includes all of our wars combined since 1934.  I continue to hope, but that hope diminishes daily as I listen to the republicans drone on corruptly.

Remember folks,

POWER CORRUPTS

and

ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY.