MUELLER - TRUMP WILL BE TRUMP

This Yuletide week saw a dramatic turn in the political landscape as Trump and his devotees, in the wake of the indictments and guilty pleas in the Russian investigation, escalated their efforts to destroy the institutions that ensure democracy and law and order. With the writing on the wall that at best the Republicans will lose the House of Representatives and at worst the Senate as well, there was an urgency to extricate the beleaguered President before a possible devastating expose was released by Mueller. In less than a year there would be a Congress which would be controlled by the Democrats who would be in a position to act on a Mueller report. There is little doubt that Trump and his echo chamber are expecting a highly negative result as why else would they be delegitimizing and politicizing the process as well as creating diversions? Put another way if the FBI probe outcome turns out to be positive for the POTUS the Democrats could argue, “What do you expect? The Trump camp admitted it was rigged from the start!”

THE DEMOCRATS SOUND THE ALARM

The opposition response to the frenetic Republican activity was epitomized by the normally laid back Democratic House Representative from Baltimore, Congressman Cummings, who has seen it all as a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement.  Cumming’s announcement was accompanied by a warning and a threat by the quite spoken Senator Warner who is the Democratic ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee that has a very active probe into the Russian intervention in the Presidential election. 

Cummings saw theTrump support as an attempt to threaten American democracy:

“This is a fight for the soul of the democracy. Nothing less. I am going to work hard to make sure we save the democracy until I die. We have seen over and over again how the very pillars of our democracy are being cut down. People’s right to vote. You know that. Freedom of the Press. You know that. CIA and FBI criticized. Over and over and over again.”

Warner was even less subtle and outright instructed the President not to impede the investigation under penalty of dire consequences:

“I believe that it is up to every member of this institution, Republican or Democrat, to make a clear and unambiguous statement that any attempt by the President to remove  Special Counsel Mueller from his position or pardon any key witnesses in an effort to shield them from accountability would be a gross abuse of power. These are red lines and we simply can’t allow them to be crossed”.  

THE ATTEMPT AT SUBVERTING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

This is not the first time in recent American history that a demagogue has attempted to use all the trappings of democracy in an attempt to destroy it’s very essence. Charles Lindbergh the charismatic flying American icon, attracted to Nazism, claimed that the survival of the white race was more important than Europe, Joseph McCarthy played on the country’s fears of the scourge of post war Communism and Governor Wallace connected with the Southern dread of change and loss of privilege, represent just three of the failed attempts. 

Truth be told the charismatic icon Donald Trump is the first President to exploit the freedom mechanisms to attack freedom itself. His message was to hone in on the disgust the body politic had developed towards its politicians and the promise to turn back the clock to an industrial mining pure white world. As a result of his remarkable salesmanship he is now the representative of one of three independent branches of Government and is hellbent on neutering the other two. He shamelessly attacks the independent judiciary, even with racist slurs, and chastises his own Supreme Court pick for disloyalty. He outright attacks his Attorney General for recusing himself in an investigation that involves his Presidency - he freely admits that had he known this he would not have appointed him as if the Justice Department solely exists to do his bidding. 

He finally fired the head of the FBI who refused to pledge loyalty to him and because of the “Russia Investigation”. He has demanded that the Republicans in Congress “Do Something” about the Mueller investigation and enjoined them to finish their enquiries and or rather to investigate Hillary Clinton and or Barak Obama. He has systematically attacked those who could corroborate an Obstruction of Justice Case against him…. 

THE TRUMP GAME PLAN 

One way or another Trump is not going to allow Mueller or anyone else to derail his Presidency or challenge his nearest and dearest without a fight. His task really has to be done politically as he has no intention of standing around waiting to be cleared by the conventional due processes provided by the American Constitution.

 He thus can go one of two ways stop the probe - fire Mueller or get him fired or maintain that Mueller and the FBI are part of a conspiracy to, in the words of Fox News, effect a coup. In both of these endeavors he needs to win the battle politically as no mechanism exists whereby he can effect these objectives lawfully. Put another way there are no other legal agencies that he can call upon to objectively probe the institutions that society has put in place to enforce the Constitution.  In short Trump will precipitate a Constitutional crisis maintaining that the mechanisms the American Democracy have instituted are corrupt and unable to fulfill their constitutional roles. He will seize total control and would presumably call upon the military to back him up. Presumably he will further take Fox News advice and arrest the leaders of the FBI. To take this argument to its logical conclusion some major figures have to be behind this coup that need to be arrested and at last Hillary fits the bill and maybe Barack too. 

You think Jay H. Ell has gone to far and Mueller can just be axed and Trump can then continue like nothing has happene? Let us examine that option.

MUELLER IS AXED SO WHAT?

There are several variables to this scenario but if we let Trump be Trump he would axe Muller as soon as possible and declare the Russian probe dead. Trump would reckon that, like with the tax bill, he will persuade the faithful that this is for the best. He would gamble on the fact that the Republican leadership would fold and just would hang in there. His allies would move into a full court press that he had saved the nation and begun cleaning the institutions that were corrupt and “in tatters”.

His hope has to be that after the initial outcry there will be acceptance. There are the diversions of the Clinton “Uranium deal”, ( e - mails  and Benghazi are apparently forgotten), Representative Nunes investigation into the bias of the FBI probe and all those FBI, CIA conspirators to focus on as well. 

Besides the media going ballistic the public reaction will be on a scale that will dwarf the Vietnam protests of the sixties. This is not a guess, massive countrywide outpourings into the streets have already been organized in the event of Mueller being axed. Remember these protests are open-ended there is no cut off date and they will go on and on. Their will be town hall meetings and all this is bound to have a lowering impact on Trump’s ratings. Trump’s approval ratings are in the low thirty percentiles and are getting close to unsustainable levels. Once they get into the twenties he is in Nixon territory. All this has to have an impact on the Congress.

WHAT CONGRESS WILL FACE

Besides the public pressure Congress has to face realities and cannot wish it all away. The biggest problem is that this is to far gone just to carry on as usual. There are already two indictments of no lesser figures than Trump’s campaign manager and his deputy. He needs the recused Sessons to axe these law suits or he has to issue pardons. His national security advisor has turned State’s Witness and presumably has spilled the beans. There are grand juries that have heard a ton of evidence. There are probes in several jurisdictions some of which are State probes over which Trump has no control. More than likely Mueller has his tax returns and has investigated all those bank connections and Donald Junior’s proud boast of their enormous Russian business. 

There will be FBI and Justice Department resignations. The gloves are off. The Washington Post and the New York Times alone have hundreds of reporters with even more contacts - and the evidence will be all over the place. Trump has to replace those resigned and those that he will fire. Sessons will have to go. The POTUS has already been told by the Republican Senate they won’t vote for a replacement if he axes him as they consider Sessons one of their own. 

Trump has thrown this into the political arena and his achilles heel is the Senate where there is now a slim Republican majority of two. The latter body faced the full weight of their constituencies over ObamaCare and folded. They rushed the Tax Reform Bill through without one town hall meeting but this they cannot wish away and while Trump may be right that McConnell will not move there are potentially at least ten Republican Senate members who have “agendas” including a few that are ready to run against Trump in the Primaries in 2020. 

So while the House may remain supportive the Senate will not be able to withstand the pressure to either expand their own investigation or even appoint Mueller to continue. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

The Democrats just have to wait till November next year and they will then be in control. Republican congress representatives have to start thinking of their own survival. What do they owe the abusive Trump? It is reasonable to assume that in the Senate, at least, Senator Warner had assurances from some Republicans that they would back him if Trump axed Mueller.

Trump is keeping the pressure up by upping the anti even further claiming that the FBI are tools of Hillary Clinton, having used her paid for fake news Russian dossier to launch an investigation into him. Fox News’s response was to congratulate the POTUS for putting Xmas back into Xmas.

Unless Trump backs off he is heading for disaster and a scenario where even he can’t win. He should follow the hypocritical McConnell who spent two terms in the Senate refusing to work with the Obama Democrats and to date has shunned any Democratic involvement. The beleaguered McConnell claims that from now on they need to have a bipartisan approach as, “There is not much that can be done with a 51 - 49 majority”. He is not kidding. What has changed is not the loss of one member it is the electorate that that member from Alabama represents - the heart of the Republican South. The polls point to a decisive swing against the Republicans and their President who to put it kindly can be labelled as “unpopular”. Machiavelli McConnell must be desperate if he sees his only survival hope is to work with the Dems as he knows better than anyone that, “Trump will be Trump”.

THE GOP MORPHS INTO THE GRAND OLIGARCHY PARTY

The best guess as to who the Republican Party represent, is that it is a tiny elite group of oligarchs. Thus it is no coincidence that the ruling party’s top priority and only achievement this year is to enact “tax reform” that serves to meet their select constituency’s needs. The outcome is an even greater concentration of the country’s wealth into the hands of a very few. Already one percent of the population owns ninety percent of America's wealth. This perception is widespread throughout the electorate but the new Grand Oligarchy Party just don’t care - “Let them eat cake”.

There is thus a total disconnect between the constituencies that make up the GOP - the voters, legislators and the cadre of establishment supporters, fund raisers, officials and intelligentsia that used to be the Party engine. All in all their electoral support seems to have dwindled to less than about thirty -five percent. However well over eighty percent of this support appears more loyal to the cult of Trump rather than to “The Party”. The legislators, whose role ostensibly is to enact the traditional Republican principles of fiscal and social conservatism don’t represent that nor do they even further the promised Trump populism. Rather, they represent the afore mentioned small cadre of “donors” lead by the Koch Brothers, Richard Scaife and the Bradley and Olin families and of course, literally, their own interests to an extent previously unimagined. 

If all this wasn’t crystal clear before It is now as the legislators passed, the conceived in secret, eleven hundred page “Tax Reform” Act. The latter represents their manifesto of their unashamed concentrating of the country’s fortune into the oligarchs. Of course there are a few pathetic tidbits thrown to the serfs that have built their riches on. As Bill Kristal a former leading Republican conservative policy wonk maintained, in disgust, “It digs out the socialist in me’!

REPUBLICANS AND DEFICITS

On their first mean spirited attempt to eliminate Obamacare the Republicans were saved from themselves by the thin red line of McCain, Murzowski and Collins. (One of the reasons for the need to do away with Obamacare was that it would “save” over three hundred billion for the fat cats in the projected tax legislation. The “Tax Reform” Bill craftily attempts to grab that money anyway as one of its provisions puts Obamacare in the balance). The potential for Republican legislative opposition to the Tax Reform effort should be far greater but as the Bill’s soufflé of handouts reveals everyone was “bought off” - either personally or for a pet project. 

One of the more profound impacts of “Tax Reform” is the potential loss of healthcare for thirteen million Americans and the increase of premiums for the rest. 

Where are the nearly forty Freedom Fighters of the House? To jog their memories, the reason for their existence is they are the original Tea Party rebellion that formed in disgust to George W. Bush’s Medicare and Iraq extravagances that pushed up the deficit. They have stood guard since then - going ballistic when Barack Obama saved the economy when he bailed out the auto industry. They rose up at the potential increase of the deficit under Obama’s foreclosure relief program. There are not only silent to the probable two trillion dollars increase to the deficit in “Tax reform”, they are aiding and abetting this disgrace. Apparently if you are getting some of the spoils it is ok to run up the deficit.

THE REPUBLICAN LEGISLATORS AND TRUMP

Initially the Republic legislators were embarrassed and distressed by Trump but, with a few exceptions, they have thrown their lot in with him. In the beginning the legislators at least held their noses or weakly condemned Trump’s racism. They ignored his disgusting sexism, his embarrassing tweets, his dysfunctional administration, his treasonous behavior towards Russia and the fact that he had turned the leader of the free world into a laughing stock. The reason  given throughout this painfully long year, particularly as to Speaker Ryan’s thought processes - “We need him to sign tax reform”. 

Last week’s Alabama historic setback and it’s consequences could have been ameliorated had Trump not backed an accused child molestor putting the full weight of the Republican National Committee begins him. This result combined with Virginia and New Jersey elections, not to mention over fifty other local elections show at least a countrywide ten percent swing to the Democrats should have made the Republican legislators reflect for a second before holy bolus passing a bill which has only twenty - nine percent backing by the body politic. Instead there was joyful celebration at this major achievement of the Republican Congress at passing Trump’s “Tax Reform”

The President is beginning to enjoy his role as leader of the Party and campaigning is his best. He is ready as he was in Alabama to turn the 2018 midterms into a referendum on him and he still has enough support to fill a stadium - (Then so does Billy Joel!). The Republicans who have so embraced him now cannot say no to his “help”. He is their standard bearer. 

Potentially more dangerous for the country is that there is an increasing movement in Congress for the Republicans to politicize and delegitimize the Mueller investigation. So not only are they not full tilt investigating the interference of a foreign country into its Presidential election but they are backing Trump’s claim that the investigation is a sham. The allegation nightly on Fox News is that the FBI probe is a coup attempt is not being challenged. There is constant public speculation that Mueller/Rosenstein/Sessons may be fired with no response from the Republicans legislators. This is the slippery slope to totalitarianism. It appears that now that the President can sign “Tax Reform”, anything goes including the Constitution. Most significantly the last constituency of the Republican Party, the Legislators, who could have saved it from extinction have joined in the death dance. 

THE MOTHER OF ALL SWAMPS

This Bill represents the mother of all swamps. It is epitome of the bad all days when everything was traded and cooked up behind closed doors, because that is exactly what happened. Every Republican who had an objection, an interest a pet project was “looked after” and it contains a new provision that favors at least fifteen Senators financially including Senator Corker who changed his no vote to a yes vote. It is an open secret that lobbyists were heavily involved in the process. Fundamentally the Tax Reform favors business and the wealthy to an unprecedented degree . 

Rather than simplify the tax code it complicates it. The promise that taxes would be able to submitted on a postcard is unfulfilled. It has been forecast that even more taxpayers will need preparers now. An unnecessary spiteful provision is directed at the blue states by not allowing them to deduct their higher local and state taxes. The attitude seems to be they don’t vote for us so screw them.  

According to a report by 13 prominent tax accountants, issued by the University of New York, it provides even more opportunity than currently available for tax avoidance. It encourages corporate tax shelters and provides every possible stratagem to minimize taxes for the wealthy.  The Republicans just have no shame. Eleven hundred pages were produced late Friday to be voted on on Tuesday. Not one hearing was held in its production and now there is no time to explain its contents to the people so they can protest.

It was ably shepherded by perhaps the most cynical and manipulative leader the Senate has ever seen, Mitch McConnell and the self righteous House Speaker Paul Ryan. The latter has a religious belief that the rich should get richer and the poor poorer. Ryan has not disguised the fact that if deficits occur the way to pay for them will be cutting social security, medicaid and medicare. As for McConnell, who for a year refused to fill the Supreme Court with Obama’s nominee, there will be a special place in history under the rubric of followers of Machiavelli.  He has disdained parliamentary procedure in the Senate which has for generations been the glue that kept this unwieldy country with all its constituents together. The only good news is that there is an all out war between Trump’s uncouth Bannon and slippery McConnell. Trump’s Svengali has threatened McConnell and his supporters with Primaries and he means it. 

TRUMP AND THE BILL 

Trump is using the occasion to trot out all his lies. His central message is that this is a massive Xmas present to his beloved gullible working class. This in the teeth of the fact that what benefits, if any, his electorate will receive will cease in a few years so as not to run the deficit too high! In reassuring the faithful he claims future administrations will fix it up when the time comes. My heavens there is just no limit to the cant and the hypocrisy. 

 He screams it benefits him not a penny when the benefits to his real estate operation, personal tax and his heirs is staggering and estimated in the billions - “Believe me. This is going to cost me a fortune” has been his demagoguery until a day before it was released.  Incidentally another victim of Republican greed will be charitable contributions as the  byzantine bill will result in billions lost as tax credits will not be straight forward. This should not bother Trump as he has just closed his own “Charitable Foundation” with the revelations that it donated nothing to charity and was used illegally to pay off debts. Just for the record, Trump’s promise that he was going to stop companies from shifting capital oversea - a big applause line, has not only not happened, it is now easier. 

 He mouths the mantra that the increased investments the companies will make will create jobs thereby preventing the trillions deficit. He will claim that it is fake news that this is not going to happen. In fact CEO’s have been singularly unforthcoming. Companies that have just received this staggering windfall are, according to Bloomberg News, sitting on over two trillion dollars anyway and haven’t provided any stimulus.   

WHERE TO NOW?

One of the feeble excuses that the Republican swamp used in rushing this Bill through was that it had to have something to show the electorate for the 2018 midterm elections. The only constituency that this will resonate with is that of the oligarchs including Trump. It remains to see how this rhetoric will halt the forthcoming electoral onslaught.

Of course omnipotent Trump believes he can swing it. So far he is batting 0 for 2. At kindest he had no impact in Alabama, where he had exhibited his highest popularity. It is worth repeating that he initially supported Lucas Strange for the Republican nomination and he was defeated by Roy Moore. The POTUS went full tilt for Roy Moore making the understandable miscalculation that he just couldn’t lose and the result would strengthen his hold on the GOP, having finally backed a winner. Luckily a feature of sociopathy is that one never learns from one’s mistakes so, as he has promised, Trump will be backing hundreds of Republican candidates in the belief that it will make the difference - which it will! 

AT THE END OF THE DAY.

For those of you that are worried that America will become a banana republic, stop worrying, it is already is one.

The last line standing to defend democracy is the electorate itself. The oligarchs who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into ensuring total Republican control are not going to let go of their investment that easily and will double down. The money is probably all tax deductible under “Tax Reform”, anyway.

If Trump preemptively strikes North Korea before the Republican legislators hobble him they will have a lot more on their consciences than just feathering their own nests.

ALABAMA MIRACLE: WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Viewed from the perspective of the Trump thirty point victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential election in Alabama, the triumph of Democrat Doug Jones over Roy Moore in that state’s Senatorial election is nothing short of miraculous. For the first time in three decades the Democrats have elected a Senator in the deep South a region that even Obama ignored, calculating that he could win the Presidency without its electoral votes. The South’s tight tribal like loyalty to its tenets of fundamentalism and the status quo had made it an impenetrable challenge to the Democrats. This sector seemed to have closed ranks, even more, at the fear that the liberal Obama Presidency had threatened their way of life, and had enthusiastically voted for Trump, in response. 

The immediate reverberation at the Senate result was shrieks of disbelief and delight by the Democrats while the Republican legislators heaved an audible sigh of relief. Their nightmare that between now and 2018 they would have to drag the albatross of this flawed representative across the corridors of Congress, to every Press Briefing and town hall meeting had been eradicated. Notwithstanding the GOP legislators’ initial enthusiastic greeting of the stunning outcome which dealt a life threatening blow to the architect of the disaster, Stephen Bannon, they were left with a Party in tatters. Its leader President Trump’s approval rating was at its lowest, thirty two percent level. Several inexplicably responded by closing ranks behind the leader, “Who is never wrong”.

The groundswell celebration at the reprieve was witnessed across the country and the world. The insane order of Trumpism and Bannonism had finally been checked. The more orderly Western World having basked in the Progressivism of Barack Obama who they had regarded as the poster child of America’s march to fulfilling the intent of their constitution were finding it difficult to comprehend the atypical Trump regime.

All this has left the punditry looking for and putting forward explanations as to how this all came to be.

THE REASON - MOORE WAS A TERRIBLE CANDIDATE OR WAS IT TRUMP?

It can be argued that the controversial Moore was a terrible candidate and his own previous interstate electoral victories were far from convincing. However, President Donald Trump did all in his power to turn this election into a referendum on his Presidency and for the agenda of the Republican Party. He punctuated the debate with supportive tweets, held a rally twenty - five miles from a key metropolitan area, called the candidate and issued robocalls. He emphasized and re - emphasized that the Republican Senate couldn’t afford to lose the vote. He instructed the faithful to vote for Roy Moore. Whichever way this race can be sliced and diced the outcome for the rudderless Republican Party, is a train smash with President Trump and Steve Bannon in the  driver’s cabin.

On a more mundane level analysts are scrutinizing every possible variable as to how the centuries’ old tribalism associated with the segregationist, evangelical and fundamentalist South was breached. Added to the former potent mix was the reinforcement of isolationism anarchy and anti establishment that Bannon brought to the table. He and Trump had successfully exploited the paranoia of those who had been left out by the self serving elites and whose prosperity was being stolen by Latino immigrants who kept down their wages while Obama’s Muslim friends were risking their future. Moore epitomized it all cheerfully taking on the McConnell Republican Establishment as well as the Democrats. 

THE SEXUAL PREDATORY REVELATIONS THE CAUSE?

Uppermost as an explanation for the reversal and the penetration of the tribe were the forty year old allegations of Moore’s sexual predatory behavior on teens, as exposed by the Washington Post a month earlier. This shocking expose was laid bare in the context of a revolutionary change in the attitude to the exploitation of women. While this may have been one of the factors there is no evidence that it was the principle reason. Just looking at one statistic - Trump in the Presidential election garnered fifty two percent of the white woman vote and Moore chalked up over sixty percent in Alabama. The pundits supporting the predatory hypothesis said that the mothers split for Jones. However the “mothers” category included all races so there was no proof that the white mothers opted for Jones. In addition The Post article came out in November when sixty percent of the electorate had already made up their minds already favoring Jones. The twenty seven percent that decided after the article favored Moore. So Jay H. Ell believes that there is no hard evidence that this issue was anywhere near central for the thirty percent reversal. 

 Frank Luntz in focus groups of Moore voters canvassed the attitudes as to the Moore predatory behavior and the outcome was depressing. Whether it be hypocritical or not the  Moore voters believed even if the allegations were true, and most didn’t, the righteous Moore would have been forgiven long ago. “Why did these women wait thirty years and then tell the Washington Post just before the election”. Also they stated that in that period in Alabama history fourteen year olds were getting married. In general without verbalizing it explicitly they believed these young women had choice. Put another way they do not see them as victims by definition. While these were the attitudes of those that stuck with Moore these expressions do not back the theory the Moore sexual predatory allegations played the central role. They certainly had to have played a part in his downfall but like Trump a year previously he may well have survived them. Some pundits even argued that they helped Moore mobilize his moribund base.

MOORE’S OTHER POSITIONS

It is fair to argue that Moore represented the most extreme form of the tenets of the Deep South’s tribalism. He wore his unashamed bigotry as a badge of honor. He harkened back to the good old days of slavery and would get rid of the Constitutional Amendment that gave the woman the votes. He was twice removed from the bench for defying the Constitution. He was gung ho with Bannon’s lunacy. He was heavily supportive of the LGBT hate crowd and had scant respect for the Constitution which allied him with Trump. All in all this freak show was to be enshrined as the leader of the tribe not only within the State of Alabama but as its representative to the nation and the world.

A point that was hammered again and again by the Moore detractors both within and without the Republican Party was, “Was this the anachronistic bigot that they wanted to be recognized by?” Appeals such as those by the Senior Republican Alabama Senator, who appealed for principle over politics, Condi Rice, George W.’s Secretary of State who asked her native Alabamians to reject bigotry, sexism and intolerance and Republican Senator Jeff Flake who donated to the Jones campaign and who exhorted the electorate to decency, underlined what they felt the urgency of the situation was in relation to the country. 

So it is fair to say that much as Trump had hijacked the GOP Moore had done the same in Alabama and were the electorate going to fall for it again? Trump and Bannon had no doubt they would.

JONES THE MAN

Enter the “decent” man Doug Jones as much a product of the South as any of them. Many of his positions were an anathema to the tribe - the most important being  the Woman’s Right to Choose. Of all the tenets of the Evangelical South, opposition to abortion was central. That is why they had backed and forgave the sinner Trump and voted for him en masse. Jones was a middle of the road Democrat but Democratic he unmistakably was. The smear that he was weak on crime was patent nonsense as his career as a Prosecutor had shown. His landmark prosecution has been the conviction of members of the Klu Klux Klan who had been responsible for the murder of four black children.  Even though the trials were twenty -  five years after the event it was a gutsy move. 

Jones displayed incredible political and managerial skills in snatching this landmark victory. It stands to reason that the Democratic Party infrastructure was non existent in Alabama. He went from door to door, over a half a million times in all, held meeting after meeting while exhibiting unbelievable empathy and tact. He put together an enthusiastic band of volunteers. By mutual agreement the central DNC played a low key role. From the latter’s point of view they were on a roll and they weren’t going to nationalize an election that they had little to no chance to win. From the Jone’s world he understood that his people would resent the condescending uppity Washington crowd telling them that they were “hicks”. They would take it from one of their own, African American Charles Barkley who opined, “At some stage we have to stop looking like idiots to the nation", but they did not need to be made to feel anymore insecure and trashed.  So enough money was quietly provided to be able to meaningfully battle on and the rest is history. Obama and Biden contributed unannounced robocalls the night before the vote. 

But this does not tell the story as to how a thirty percent State Wide Trump margin turned into a two percent victory and how Jones thread the needle.

AFRICAN AMERICAN VOTERS

The single most important block of voters for Jones, thirty percent, was the Black vote. To say that there was some resentment amongst that group is putting it mildly as many believed that the only time they were courted was at election time. Historically as with all groups their involvement in special elections was diminished. Also voter restrictive laws were on the books that made it more difficult to pull the lever. Jones however was the real deal and unostentatiously commandeered them into their highest percentage of the electorate’s participation ever. The vote was almost solid, ninety - five percent for the Democrat. 

That alone could not be enough. Remember if the slogging Democrat did twenty five percentage points better than Hillary he would still lose. There had to be something else. How on earth were the tribe going to vote against one of their own, even though whacky Moore’s views were more extreme than theirs? At least he wasn’t in favor of abortion and would back Trump up in his Judge selection. 

WHY JONES WON IN THE END,

As has been argued the official public position of the Republicans showed very little signs of cracking. Alabama Senator Shelby offered them one way out namely a write in of a “decent” Republican candidate. One point seven percent of the electorate, twenty - three thousand voters, followed his example. That turned out to be more or less the majority Jones triumphed by in an election of over one million three hundred votes cast. That might have been the final cherry to put the Democrat over the top but what ultimately did it, in addition to the African American vote, was the stay at home of a large number of the faithful. The vote for the Democrat, generally, was slightly more than in a Presidential year while Jones could only pull in about half of the Republican Presidential vote. So the stay away vote of the Republican Alabamians that made the big difference. Put another way in every county in Alabama the Democrats made gains against the Republicans.

So it was a host of factors that resulted in the miracle - The African American vote, the lack of enthusiasm of the Republican tribe, the massive discrepancy between the resumes, managerial skills and integrity of the candidates as well as the growing disenchantment with the Trump/Bannon leadership of the party. Surveys showed that the younger, more educated, suburban as well as the women voters had made perceptible moves to wiggle away from the tribalism.

This result, as have all the other elections to date, has far reaching implications for the Republican Party but that is a story for another day.

THE ULTIMATE IRONY

Alabama which has been the poster child for segregation and discrimination for centuries witnessed payback to those who to this day are still putting roadblocks in front of universal franchise. Ironically, it was principally the African American vote that peacefully buried Judge Roy Moore. He “Moore” than anyone else epitomized Alabama’s centuries of bigotry.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Perhaps Alabama heralds the beginning of the end. There is a long long way to go and to say the least Trump is a survivor.

TRUMP AND THE PARTY OF LINCOLN

How many Republican legislators have stopped, for one moment, to reflect on what the Grand Old Party stands for today and how totally disconnected they are from the voters that elected them. The latter have already shown defection as reflected by the suburban and urban middle class voting in Virginia. The legislative representatives also have to bear the responsibility for their failure to act in their Party and Country’s interest. They have allowed the Party to become the purveyor of mendacious Donald Trump’s meaningless, anarchistic, illegal, racist, sexist and unpatriotic drivel, rather than represent their constituencies’ day to day needs. 

It is not an exaggeration to conclude that the Republican Party and what it represented two years ago is no longer. 

The recent “Tax Reform” Bill and the maneuverings surrounding it, the response to Bill Moore’s Senate candidacy in Alabama as well as their enablement of the psychotic - like behavior of President Trump, who is the mouthpiece of the Republican Party, is indicative of a Party that has lost its way. Unless they act the GOP will irreversibly become the party of Donald J. Trump - an illiterate amoral con man. What that in fact will represent is uncertain because thus far Trump has reneged on all his populist promises and changes his viewpoint in the blink of a tweet.

Other than their sycophants at Fox News, a few of the most outlandish talk show radio hosts and leaders of the alt right such as Steve Bannon and David Duke, formerly of the Klu Klux Klan, the current Republican Legislature and President are devoid of backing of any of the intellectuals and policy makers that have provided the cerebral and rational basis for the Party since its formation in the mid nineteenth century. Missing in action are op ed writers such as Charles Krauthammer, Bill Krystal and George Wills. Even pundits like Karl Rove who was George Bush’s brain and a prolific fund raiser is nowhere to be seen. Every TV Channel has former Republican pundits, operatives and intellects bemoaning the death of the Republican Party as they understood it to be.

It is thus an appropriate moment to reflect on the history of the Party of Lincoln, that fought a war to end slavery, and assess what Trump has done to its legacy.

ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE GRAND OLD PARTY

This once proud institution, which has been, at times, in the forefront of cultural, political and economic change in the country since the time of Lincoln, seemingly now only legislatively represents a group of immensely rich donors lead by the Koch Brothers. Historically, even when the GOP was not in the majority they were on the side of progress. For example, they, under the Leadership of Senator, Everett Dirksen, helped midwife the Civil Rights Legislation that enforced the Twenty - Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Without Dirksen and the Republican support Lyndon Johnson’s and Martin Luther King’s great Civil Rights revolution would have not have happened. The father of their conservative philosophy, Barry Goldwater, was in the three man Republican deputation that led to Nixon resigning. Ronald Reagan, whatever one may think of his economic philosophy, at least had a coherent one. 

Besides Lincoln there were other Republican Presidents who looked after the “little man” notably Theodore Roosevelt who was the “Square Deal” POTUS. He smashed the trusts and monopolies and regulated railroads, food and drugs. He was a conservationist and can be considered the father of National Parks. (Incidentally it was Nixon who founded the Environment Protection Society, (EPA), that Trump is willfully, maliciously and with malice of forethought smashing). Then there was Eisenhower who consolidated the post war boom by massive infrastructure spending, provided graduate education for the troops, increased taxes on the rich to the extent that the highest level was ninety percent, sent the army to Little Rock Arkansas to ensure desegregation of the schools and ominously warned that the military - industrial complex would take over America. 

This is some of the history of a Party that helped put into practice what is in the Constitution and its Amendments. 

WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OFFICIALLY STANDS FOR AND THEIR CONSTITUENCIES

The two bedrock policy pillars that the Republican Party supposedly stands for are being systematically trashed by their own Representatives - not to mention Trump. These are social and fiscal conservatism. Their constituencies of late have been the Christian Evangelicals who have all but ensured victory in the Southern States and the suburban upper and middle class, predominantly white, fiscally conservative voters. 

The Republican Party, who have been the self appointed arbiters of public morality, have all but ignored the allegations against Roy Moore, the GOP Senate candidate for Alabama. The accusations amount to child molestation. Initially there was ambivalence at backing the controversial ex judge but as the electoral date closes in there is at best silence. “Let the people of Alabama decide”, is the position of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. Needless to say the head of the GOP, Donald J. Trump, is openly supportive and has heartily endorsed the Republican candidate. Trump has been joined by the National Republican Party Committee. Apparently a seat in the Senate is worth more than the value system of the Party. All Moore needed was their tacit support as no Democrat has been elected to national office in Alabama in thirty years. This go ahead has seen a flurry of billboards across the state with messages such as, “Jesus was also falsely accused”.

Now for those that need reminding the POTUS himself is a self confessed sexual assaulter with a string of complainants. The selfsame Republican Party’s Legislative representatives impeached Bill Clinton in relation to a consensual sex affair where he allegedly committed treason and blasphemy since the behavior took place in the Oval Office. Sorry, Jay H. Ell forgets, the indictment had nothing to do with sex it was about lying. Now if the moral police believe that lying deserves impeachment Trump is accredited with seventeen hundred in the first three hundred and forty days in office - five big fat material lies a day.

So much for their adherence to social conservatism……

Their commitment to fiscal conservatism is a joke. The two parameters of fiscal conservatism being defined, mainly as, low taxes and low public expenditure especially on “welfare projects”. The measurement of success or failure in affecting the policy is whether the Government ends up spending more or less than it gets in, i.e. the deficit. The only debate about Trump’s and the GOP’s  “Tax Reform” legislation is whether it produces a trillion or a trillion and a half dollars deficit. It provides a massive tax cut for corporations and rich individuals and their heirs. Paul Ryan, the Republican Speaker of the House and third in succession to the Presidency has more than intimated that the shortfall can be made up at the cost of Social Security and Medicare. 

The good news is that there has to be an agreed Bill by the House and Senate which at present have marked differences. For example both chambers had different strategies to keep the deficit below one and a half trillion dollars. The House Republicans who are in more contact with their constituencies made no changes to Obamacare while the Senate made adjustments that released over three hundred billion dollars for tax cuts for the rich. 

So much for the commitment to fiscal conservatism……

The Republican Party have stood for much else. They believed in the three independent branches in Government, that all citizens had equal rights and were against bigotry and racialism just for starters. All this has also been forgotten.

WHAT TRUMP GOT ELECTED ON  - THE NEW REPUBLICAN POLICY

Trump never purported to be a fiscal conservative. He was given honorary social conservative status by the Evangelicals because he promised to appoint Judges that would reverse Roe versus Wade. Trump was an unashamed populist. He became the people’s candidate against the establishment. He claimed that as a self made fat cat he could understand the worker whose jobs had been outsourced by the wicked capitalists and the miner whose mines had been shut by the namby-pamby politically correct who thought that animals and trees were more important than people’s livelihood. He would protect their social security and give them better and more affordable health care. Besides opening the mines and raping the environment, he would embark on massive infrastructure programs to give them better paying employment. He would bring back all the jobs, at higher paying wages, that had been exported tra la la.

Then he added a racist, nativist and xenophobic dimension to it all. He would chuck out and keep out all “the other” and challenge the concept of America’s melting pot of peoples. By so doing he would make America Great Again, (code for white). The message resonated amongst those who perceived the identity of the real white American was being swallowed up. Trump went directly against Party policy by alienating the Latinos by heaping abuse on them and repeatedly promising to build a wall to keep them out. He would exclude entrance to the Muslims on the pretext of keeping the country safe. This went well with the fringes and mobilized them. It horrified the Republican Establishment that were revolted but at the end of the day did nothing about it, with the excuse that this demagogue was better than Hillary. 

So in effect the new Republican policy agenda included populism and racism. (Trump had carefully established his racist credentials for years previously with the insulting and degrading birther movement that claimed that Obama was not a true American and not entitled to be President). 

WHAT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY POLICY REALLY IS NOW

It didn’t take long for Trump to abandon his populist principles, including no support of social security and affordable health care, which policies were basically the reason he was elected by swinging seventy thousand voters in the American rustbelt to abandon the Democratic Party. Not included in the Tax Reform is money for all those infrastructure projects nor for the wall which was a center piece of his immigration policy.

Trump has generally applied his mind, such as it is, to undermining the very Government he heads and creating an oligarchy. He has worked hard at wrecking the infrastructure of the Federal Government by appointing Heads of Departments whose stated objectives are to sabotage their workings. Whether it be the EPA, whose Chairman is a former Attorney General that regularly sued the Environmental Agency in court or the Education Department whose leader is a life long opponent of public schools the overriding objective is the same - screw the little man and the environment. Ben Carson, who when offered the portfolio of Housing and Urban Development responded that he knew nothing about it, not appreciating that was the crucial credential for the position. The State Department has been denuded and the ineptitude of the Trump Administration’s Foreign Policy is proof of that. And so it goes. 

Trump has also strayed from traditional GOP principles in that he pointedly disagrees with the Separation of Powers as enshrined in the Constitution. In fact he has claimed that he cannot commit any crime as he is the President! He has illustrated his authoritarian approach again and again in response to the fact that he and his campaign are being investigated for collusion with an adversary Russia in the Presidential election. 

Where Trump and the elected Representatives are idem are on providing the Republican donors, Trump himself, and the corporations a massive tax break with the lame argument that it will increase growth so much that the populist agenda will miraculously happen.

So we are now left with a Republican Party whose core constituency is a few oligarchs with their think tanks and Political Action Committees, and of course up to time of going into print, the evangelicals and the lunatic right. The majority of their elected representatives have one further agenda item besides taxes - self preservation. As for policy there really is none other than trickle down economics in the hope that it may well work this time if the money is concentrated in fewer hands.

PAUSE FOR THOUGHT.

It ain’t over till Billy Joel sings “Piano Man”. So before the GOP legislators call it quits what is their response to Trump’s claim that he is above the law? What are they going to do when Mueller dumps the whole sorry mess in their laps? (Already in the public domain there is an unanswerable case of obstruction of justice and collusion with Russia). How will they respond if Trump ends the investigation? Will they defund the Mueller probe and help Trump’s coup d’etat of the country now that he has succeeded with the GOP? Watch this space and pray. Don’t hold your breath because thus far the guardians of the second branch of government have caved in nearly every time.

America is about to face a constitutional crisis but be reassured the “Tax Reform” is halfway there and the stock market is booming. 

Whichever way you look at it, the Republican Party is no longer.