February 13, 2021 will go down in infamy as the Republican Senate failed to convict Donald Trump. It will be coupled with January 6, 2021 which will be mourned as the second major terrorist attack on America in the twenty - first century. First there was 9/11 an external terrorist attack and 1/6 the internal terrorist attack which was an attack on American democracy by Americans. Trump is the acknowledged “mastermind” and perpetrator of 1/6. Even the majority of forty - three Senate Republicans who voted against conviction used constitutional or procedural excuses to do so. Not to be dramatic but he will be associated with 1/6 in the same way Osama Bin Laden is associated with 9/11. If you don’t believe Jay H. Ell listen to what McConnell implIed even after he voted not to convict him - his actions required judicial investigation.
The outcome will throw the GOP into chaos with Trump still not conceding he lost the Presidential election and still the most powerful member of the Party.
TRUMP THE LOSER
As a background to Trump’s Senate trial it was painfully obvious that Trump while still the strongest force amongst the Republican Party base had been witnessing the erosion of his power both nationally, in the Presidential election, and on a State level in the Georgian senate contests. Nearly sixty percent of the electorate were in favor of Trump being impeached following the January the Sixth insurrection. The number of Republican leaders who have condemned him for his attempt of overthrow of democracy are legion, including Mitch McConnell, Republican Leader in the Senate and his counterpart in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy. Nikki Haley a strong contender for the Republican Presidential election had argued that there was no room for Trump in the GOP. Liz Cheney the number three Republican in the House had clearly defined the guilt of the President in a statement supporting his impeachment. Cheney’s declaration covered the extent of the perfidy of Trump:
“The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this what have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States and his oath to the Constitution.”
The Democratic House managers in the Senate, eruditely and eloquently lead by Jamie Raskin, during Trump’s prosecution filled in every detail in astonishing clarity of Cheney’s assertion in attempting to convict Trump of inciting an insurrection. The facts were never in doubt only their interpretation and their constitutionality. The debate as to whether they should have called witnesses is an exercise in futility and would not have impacted the outcome and should not detract from their dramatic and persuasive performance.
However the question is where does the Republican Party stand at the moment?
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TODAY
Whichever way the situation is viewed Trump is still the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. It was with this in mind that only ten of the two hundred and seven GOP members in the House voted for his impeachment and forty - three out of fifty Republican Senators voted not to convict him on instigating the insurrection. However Trump’s actions on January 6 has seen tens of thousands of Republicans resign from the Party. Recently near a hundred and fifty influential Republicans were on a call to discuss the concept of forming a new Party. Translating this into electoral terms means the GOP are in a worse position in 2012 when they came to the conclusion that they could never win another Presidential election again unless they were more inclusive of minorities. Trump produced a black swan moment and was elected on the basis of white supremacy. Now he could never win another election again - the demographics have worsened, white Republican women suburbanites and men in lesser numbers have deserted them forever. In addition they stand to lose the support of the Evangelicals who hold Mike Pence in the highest regard.
What also supports Trump’s position in the Republican party is the fact that it has shrunk by an estimated twenty percent and those that remain are loyal to him. His nominees control the Republican National Committee. Put another way although he has cost the GOP a loss of membership the remainder support him by even a greater percentage of the party. Senator Lindsey Graham announced that he was going to have discussions with Trump next week to discuss the Party’s future! Kevin McCarthy in spite of his fury at Trump’s role in the January insurrection went off to see Trump and worship at the throne and kiss and make up. So whichever way you look at it the Republican Party is split into two factions - the anti Trump faction and the far more powerful Trump faction.
MITCH MCCONNELL
Mitch McConnell now the Republican Minority leader of the Senate was more than mindful of the politics of the Republican Party when he voted not to convict Trump. McConnell who has the morals of an alley cat has added another notch to his notoriety. What can one expect from someone who flagrantly went back on his word when it came to electing Supreme Court Judges. His duplicitous behavior deserves a special place in history. He licked Trump’s boots for four years, backed him in the Mueller investigation not to mention supporting him to the hilt through out his term and manipulating the Senate in the First Impeachment trial not to give the effort a chance. Even in this latest episode it took him five weeks to acknowledge Biden’s victory.
The minority Senate Republican leader maintained that Trump up until December 16, 2020 was entitled to do whatever he liked to challenge the election results. Ostensibly he was alluding to Trump’s sixty frivolous court challenges. At the same time Trump was spreading the “lies” which McConnell so strongly condemned on January 6, 2021 and then again on February 13 after voting not to convict him. He closed down the Senate till January 18 and then used this as his argument that Trump could not be found guilty as he was now a private citizen. If his object was to show America and the world that democracy had returned he would have rated the importance of the process important enough to call the Senate back and proceed while Trump was still President. Instead he invited the one constitutional expert in America who interpreted the Constitution the way he did to address the Republican caucus.
Had he decided for any reason to maintain why Republicans should vote to convict he would easily brought another ten with him. He could have argued let’s not throw Mike Pence under the bus for example. If there would have been any constitutional objection he could have quoted any one of the most conservative jurists who poured out of everywhere to state that the trial was constitutionally sound.
McConnell’s motives were transparent. He could stay in with the base by voting not to convict Trump and satisfy the Republican donors who won’t give the party a penny while Trump is still around. Well there is news for McConnell thanks to him he is still around. The irony is McConnell misread that Trump’s influence was on the way out anyway. He was part of a phenomenon that has hit this country at least three times in the past hundred years - the rise and then waning of power of a destructive populist totalitarian demagogue.
AMERICA’S EXPERIENCE WITHIN A CENTURY OF TOTALITARIAN SOCIOPATHIC DEMAGOGUES
America, besides having never fully resolved the issues that precipitated the Civil war, has seen demagogues, aka populists, dominate and stultify society with monotonous regularity. In less than a century three immediately come to mind, Charles Lindberg, Joseph McCarthy and Donald Trump. All three were involved, in the creation of devastating divisions in American politics, However it was Trump who faced the racial superiority issue head on by opting for directly and obliquely that the definition of an American was his or her white skin. Lindberg who was a national icon by virtue of his exploits as a pioneer of aviation had a spell binding impact on a large section of the American population with his anti war and pro Nazi leanings. He believed in the superiority of the White Race and coined the term “America First”. He earned the ire of FDR and as his political influence started to wane it was finally terminated by Pearl Harbour.
Joe McCarthy and Donald Trump have often been compared as their sociopathic personalities and charisma are their central defining characteristics. Ironically they were connected by the same unscrupulous lawyer Roy Cohn who welded their approaches into creating false realities and forever going on the attack. They both were skillful manipulators of mobs, at attaining publicity, mobilizing the discontents and claiming a monopoly on patriotism. Joe McCarthy sought, in the fragile post war cold war period, to create a specter of Communism having infiltrated the portals of power and entertainment. Trump similarly claimed that there was a deep state, the swamp, controlling the lives of Americans. McCarthy ruined many a life by smear and innuendo. In many ways he was more influential than Trump reaching an approval rating of over fifty - four percent while Trump languished in the very low forties. Truman and then Eisenhower were powerless to counter him. Republicans were more reliant on him than they are on Trump not to be primaried. However it all came crashing down after about four years when he took on the armed forces implying that they too had been infiltrated.
Donald Trump received a major shock to his invincibility when he lost the Presidential election in 2020. This sent him into a spiral of weaving a new reality that he had won in a landslide and that there had been wide scale fraud in the electoral process and its counting. He went through every possible avenue to support his contention. His repetition was so pervasive and his back up stories so many and varied that he spun a web of lies that were easily refutable and some of which have resulted in litigation for vast sums of money. There was at least one where he attempted to bully local elected state officials to alter the election count to make him the winner and several where he outright demanded that he just be declared the winner by fiat.
The ultimate salvo was an attempt at insurrection where he assembled and incited an armed mob to tackle the Capitol so as to prevent the certification of the election results.(Incidentally the District of Columbia are investigating whether to prosecute Trump on the crime of incitement). His desperate effort resulted in his impeachment and the Senate trial. His current approval rating was thirty - four percent prior to the outcome in the trial in the Senate.
Trump like Lindberg and McCarthy had run out their time and influence. McConnell et al have given him a boost by making him seem omnipotent much like head of the Gambino family in New York, John Gotti, was viewed when in trial after trial he was found not guilty. He. like Trump will, ran out of luck and died in prison.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
As a result of the non conviction of Trump the Republican Party is in even a bigger mess than they would have been then had they convicted him. There are two clearcut components in the Republican Party which devolve around Trump - you are either for him or against him. There is no chance in this environment to build a set of policies for the twenty - first century. Most importantly they have angered the three most important components of their party - the urban and suburban women, the movers and shakers and intellectuals that were still left and by throwing the Evangelical hero, Mike Pence, under the bus - the Evangelicals. Trump still will have to face the music for sacrificing his troops to the wolves arguing that they need the full weight of the law to punish them.
Biden can now without the Trump distraction carry on with his policies. However he should be warned about Mitch McConnell who like Trump has as his priority power.
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