This is a really important thread. The primary dysfunction in US politics these days is not any individual like Trump or Alexander or Susan Collins, it's the GOP as an institution. This also includes its wholly-owned media subsidiaries like Fox, Breitbart, etc.
This is why I don't think the minutiae of what the Senate does today or tomorrow matters all that much. They're going to acquit, despite this being an open and shut case. That's the dysfunction, and it should be seen for what it is, as starkly as possible.
We could have seen this coming with the Laffer curve. He was just given a medal at the White House. Ten years ago it was hard to find a single economist, left or right, who thought his theory held any water. It's still GOP tax dogma. nytimes.com/2019/06/25/opi…
We could have seen it with climate change. In the late 90's opinion about climate change was not all that different between D's and R's. And then the R's decided to go all in on anti-science climate denial, and that transformed the thinking of their base. grist.org/article/climat…
We could have seen it coming in 2014 when GOP heavy hitter Eric Cantor was defeated by a relatively unknown challenger in the primary based on one issue--mercilessly demagoging and race-baiting around immigration. thisamericanlife.org/615/the-beginn…
We can see this institutional failure on a daily basis on any number of county and state-level, official GOP Facebook pages. Here are some gems from just one, Trumpy county in central PA where I happened to have grown up.
We could have seen it in 2010 when Glenn Beck brought John Bircher conspiracy nuttery back into the center of American political life in the form of the Tea Party.
