Thread by @jeffblack945

#RevThread #132
Impeach

1/ It’s time. The threats to our democracy are now overwhelming and occurring in plain view.

2/ I feel something of the exasperation Jesus expressed about the blindness of the religious leaders of his day: “...You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.” (Matt. 16:3)

3/ Here are some of the main threats to our democracy: A President who is immoral, stubbornly ignorant, and cheerfully criminal;

4/ A Republican Party that has become amoral while remaining functionally racist and is now completely engulfed by the evil of Trump;

5/ A Justice Department now led by an enemy of the rule of law; other departments led by grifters who have never been approved by the congress;

6/ Courts being staffed by angry, right-wing white males with virtually no vetting;

7/ A Senate moving in lockstep with the corrupt president, while a slim majority of the House struggles to begin some oversight of the amok Executive branch;

8/ News outlets, notably Fox, and digital magazines, dedicated to nationalism and racial hierarchies.

9/ And now, into this toxic brew, Mssrs. Trump, Mnuchin, Barr, Pence, and their various collaborators like Gaetz, Jordan, McConnell, Graham, McCarthy and other Republican leaders are brazenly defying the rule of law in two crucial ways:

10/ They treat congress itself as a non-entity, defying legal subpoenas and making absolutist claims of executive privilege;

11/ They invite the collaboration of foreign dictators who sit atop sham democracies to come to their aid with propaganda and money infiltrating the social media of our land with lies to prop up their depraved mafia-like governance.

12/ The business with the subpoenas is the most telling sign. If they are able to assert and sustain utter defiance of congressional oversight, then they have already achieved virtually absolute power.

13/ This gangster-style lawlessness is now coupled with a cheerful admission by the President that he welcomes the corruptions of our election.

14/ Given the gravity of the moment, impeachment is essential. Democracy is far more than some periodic easily corrupted vote for a leader. Several autocracies have this appearance of democracy, including Russia, the Philippines, and China.

15/ Democracy depends on a government complex enough to check the excesses of power of a malignant leader.

16/ Liberty is more than the freedom to decide what brand of beer to drink tonight.

17/ Real liberty, the thing our fathers and mothers sacrificed to give us, arises from the interplay of justice, law, and initiative -- the judicial, legislative and executive branches -- debating and checking one another and then cooperating.

18/ We have to impeach because this behavior of the President and his enablers is autocratic. They have made themselves into the enemies of our liberty. Stop worrying about the 2020 election. Our appearance of worried weakness will guarantee his election.

19/ Instead, stand strong for freedom and against this criminal attack on our constitution. Trust that if we are resolute and clear in defending America’s core values, we will win the election.

20/ Otherwise the sign of our time will be a dead eagle on the roadside of a choking planet.