I've written about this before, but I am haunted by the fact that Donald Trump occupied the same office as did George Washington, that this man with no scruples nor any value at all as human being was given the same responsibilities as one with such a code of honor.
And I feel the same way as I look at the Republicans in the US Senate and think that when one generation had its Hamiltons or Jeffersons or Madisons we have Hawley and Cruz and McConnell. The hopes and aspirations of the country are no less.
The challenges are if anything greater. And yet, our government is at risk as it has been seldom before in its history because it is so full of men and women of dubious character if they have any at all.
While we have good men and women too, and our current President and Vice President are at the forefront of any such lists, it is uncertain as of yet whether the decay we have seen over the past few years can be contained.
That, in the end, is what this impeachment is about, what the last election and the next will be about, what the work of the current Congress and its immediate successors will be about. We have great examples to admire from our past. But they seem at times very remote.
I wish every American would spend some time with our history, considering its lessons and our defects, how we succeeded from time to time and why we have faltered. Because we are still at a moment of great consequence and uncertainty.
We must be as resolved as we ever have been as a nation to recognize the threats among us and to defeat them fully and irrevocably. The work, in short, begun in these last two election cycles, has just begun and the shocking events of the past month...
...on the steps and in the halls of the Capitol on 1/6 & in the chamber of the Senate this week must outrage us, must be seen as intolerable, must be reversed by whatever legal possible or we will be betraying the legacy of those who have given so much and led so well before us.
This may seem overly dramatic to some of you. I wish it were. But I think it is not.
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When I wake up in an optimistic mood, despite yesterday's frustrating Senate outcome, I think that with each such exercise Trump is revealed more clearly, is pushed further into our past. We've had many Trump-free days since 1/20 & they are all better than the alternative.
No doubt he remains as do the malevolent fools who still do his bidding in the Senate, the House and elsewhere. But they have failed repeatedly politically, are ever-more tarnished, and are certain to be more so as the crimes of the past few years are revealed & prosecuted.
The mob remains, the threat remains and we must not be complacent about defeating it and every last vestige of it until it is gone. But with with the House Dem's victory in 2018, with Joe Biden & Kamala Harris' victory in Nov, with the small but growing GOP rejection of Trump...
Many commentators are saying that the House impeachment managers case is so compelling and that it lays out the truth so clearly, that it will become the defining legacy of the Trump presidency. And face it, a president orchestrating a deadly coup attempt is a big deal.
But is it a bigger deal than the half a million who died of COVID, hundreds of thousands of whom would have lived had Trump not put his political interests before the public health of the US? Bigger than the massive economic crisis that accompanied that public health catastrophe?
Is it bigger than the fact that Trump was a traitor who sold out the country to Russia? Bigger than the fact that he was impeached twice? Bigger than the fact he separated families and put babies in cages? Bigger than his corruption, and nepotism?
I've said this before, but it bears repeating, the "centrists" of the past four decades have primarily served Wall Street and corporate interests, bought into "trickle down-lite" economics and fueled inequality. Their influence among Dems is fading because they hurt millions.
The party and the country have moved on from 80s, post-inflation crisis, macro, bond-market driven formulations, hyper-concern about deficits, focus on top line GDP and stock mkt performance to metrics like wages, income growth, inequality, and equity.
It's not that we've abandoned the center. It's just that we realized the "centrists" were serving the few and that we needed to focus on the economy through the eyes of all Americans, notably those left behind or disadvantaged for the past forty years.
As a trained foreign policy professional who has worked at a fairly high level on these issues in DC for nearly three decades, I would like to give you my in-depth assessment of @POTUS' foreign policy speech: It was excellent.
I will not be writing an article about the speech because, well, I don't have much more to say than that. @JoeBiden brings more high level foreign policy experience to the Oval Office than any of his predecessors. By far. And it shows. Experience matters.
He is fluent in the issues. He is well advised by an exceptionally good team. And he has not only a clear vision for America's role in the world but he seeks to restore the best of American values to our international actions and policies.
Americans never heard Trump's call with Ukraine. Many don't know where Ukraine is or why it's relevant. But everyone saw Trump prepare his big lie, unleash his coup attempt, incite the crowd, do nothing when they attacked. His guilt & the seriousness of his crime are clear.
He incited an insurrection against the United States. About this history will have no doubt. The only question is whether the GOP has become so corrupt and negligent in their duty to the Constitution that they will fail to hold him accountable.
Actually, that's probably a bit naive. We know the truth. They are going to let him skate on this. And then they are going to double down on his lies and divisiveness. In other words, they are going to send a message that the coup attempt was ok and that in fact, it is on going.
Important, on the money piece by @ThePlumlineGS. McConnell has revealed himself to be who we knew he was. He will obstruct. Dems must, to begin with, break the current logjam with a move against his procedural filibuster. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
In related news, if Dems don't stand up to McConnell now, they will also reveal they are who we feared they were-undisciplined & unserious. If it takes Biden sitting down with Manchin & Sinema & reading them the riot act, then so be it. Otherwise the '22 election loss starts now.
Make no mistake, capitulation to McConnell now (and capitulations to DINOs like Manchin and Sinema) would be a disaster. If you thought it would take more than a week to get to the first genuine political crisis of the Biden presidency, you miscalculated.