WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The following is Tuesday night’s status check of developments in the U.S. that can influence economic, health and political outcomes.
· As often noted about the U.S. Congress, months, even years can go by without much getting done but every once in a while there’s an explosion of activity. After the financial crisis, when the pandemic hit and now, after the barbarians got inside the gates. President Trump exited his Marine One chopper at 7:30p ET and entered the White House without further comment to the ropeliners. He had favored them with now rare comments on the way to Texas, at the White House ropeline and at Joint Base Andrews, saying enough to erase any notion he was apologetic or chastened by last Wednesday’s events. He was soon to learn that not only were a few Republicans in the House saying they would vote Wednesday for impeachment but according to The New York Times, on the eve of the vote, Senate Republican Leader – at least for another week – Mitch McConnell made known impeachment could be a positive force freeing the party from Trump. By late in the evening he had issued any denial though perhaps he will. The report nevertheless might be something for the chief executive to think about – for the next eight days. Maybe the 25th Amendment will turn out to have been the better alternative to having say Sen. Lindsey Graham tell him on Jan. 19, as they take off for Mar a Lago, that the Senate is about to convict him and, with a simple majority vote, deny him the privilege of ever running for office again. Sen. Graham, after all, accompanied Trump to Alamo, Texas, during the day for a speech that turned out not to be the grand swan song address the camera crews were hoping for. Might he then resign to avoid a guilty verdict? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi named the nine impeachment managers to act as prosecutors. Trump’s defenders might cite his comment during the day that his remarks to the crowd last Wednesday were “totally appropriate.” Even without Republicans, the votes for impeach are already assured. Again, conviction in the Senate is something McConnell will determine. President-elect Joe Biden spoke to McConnell during the day about his idea of bifurcating the Senate schedule, half the time devoted to the trial of Trump, half the day devoted to confirmation hearings for his nominees.
· In a long delayed briefing that also proved to be somewhat underwhelming, an FBI official and acting U.S. attorney invited Capitol invaders to turn themselves in before that knock on the door. Preliminary charges federal charges against the first among those arrested are just the beginning, they said. FBI Director Chris Wray was nowhere to be seen, perhaps figuring the better part of valor was to lay low rather than become the last person Trump fires.
· It is possible the confusion in distinguishing between the paralysis of political opposition and the existential threat to the American experiment is beginning to give way to clarity among members of Congress. Those cynics may be proven wrong who are saying the United States of America is an exhausted democracy, a net debtor on the international stage, a low productivity colossus riven by internal fractures, unable to effectively fight the pandemic that can’t muster the energy to save itself.
· Yet the debate during the day in the House Rules Committee saw some Republicans refuse, even now, to definitively rebut the guiding statement of the president, before, during and after Wednesday’s Capitol outrage: “We had an election that was stolen from us.”
· The awakening seemingly under way since last Wednesday has stripped away the lazy assumptions of a spontaneous uprising, an organic protest by would-be patriots. But the awakening is still slow, incomplete and tentative among Republicans. Planned, coordinated across state lines, funded by anonymous donors and emboldened by a successful breach of what’s been called the Cathedral of Democracy, the movement egged on by Trump now, the FBI has warned, even threatens statehouses with “armed” uprisings in every single state. The fortress the Capitol has become, ringed by tall fence and soon thousands of armed guards, won’t make much of a target on Inauguration Day. But there will be many days after that before the guards disperse and members of Congress feel safe again.
· The yearning for a strong leader who smashes the opposition runs deep among many. Donald Trump sensed a vulnerability of the civil structure and only narrowly missed the chance to cement control. He said during the day he does not ever want violence. Some of his followers have tasted its fruits and apparently aren’t discouraged. The rest of this slice of history is being written in the next days and weeks and months ahead.
· Meanwhile believers in law and order who have society’s mandate to track down people who feel they have a license to be marauders are working night and day, matching cellphone signatures with travel data, piercing the anonymity of social media posts, using facial recognition and a hundred thousand tips to round up those who ransacked the Capitol and, the FBI said, any planners and underwriters who may have stayed away. Some of those who are already arrested are proud to be martyrs to their cause. Some others are having second thoughts, particularly as the FBI explained, 20-year sentences are possible.
· The core of Donald Trump’s followers will find new leaders even if Donald Trump fades. The coalition he attracted of white nationalists and supremacists, anti-Semites, QAnon, the Proud Boys and other far right conspiracists is real. It’s bigger than politics, something many Republican politicians still seem to find hard to acknowledge. Some want to “move on.” Which in this context means what?
· On Fox News Tuesday night, anchor Laura Ingraham was musing about “racial justice warriors” – aka Democrats – who want to “deprogram” Republicans. She promoted a book about the antifa collective, taken off the shelves of one bookstore that, she said, still sells copies of Mein Kampf. The author, Andy Ngo, talked about riots in Portland he said did not draw Democratic denunciations. “People are taking advantage of a horrendous scenario,” the Capitol riot, she said, to persecute Republicans. “It’s bad.” Another guest, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, conceded it was not antifa at the Capitol. “They were Trump people” and need to be condemned. But Trump, he said, did not tell them to riot. And Trump backers should not put up with “mushy middle” Republicans who don’t maintain their support of the president. And then there was a commercial from the Lincoln Project, adept at mocking Trump and advising Republicans, “Leave that loser behind.”
· And so the healing and unity are over the far horizon with the question to remain whether any of it is ever attainable. When the chief justice of the Supreme Court again presides over the now inevitable Senate trial of Donald Trump, having by then administered the oath of office to a new president, the future may be at stake and not just for Donald Trump.
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Contact this writer: denny@macenews.com
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