By Denny Gulino
THE WHITE HOUSE (MaceNews) – Look closely at the tree limbs and there are already forming the buds that will soon herald spring in Washington and almost everywhere there is a whiff of new beginnings – arguably with one notable exception, the White House.
In fact, if there is a dominant media meme it can easily be discovered by Googling “impeachment revenge.” Eleven major outlets have already done their story versions at this writing and by the evening there will doubtless be more. For Trump the same old beginnings seem to be working just fine.
Although Trump broke his string of nine skips to approach the ropeline Friday morning and address reporters, upon his return in the afternoon from Charlotte, N.C., he reverted to a regime of no comment as reporters shouted questions like, “What’s next for impeachment retaliation?” In his Charlotte speech, though, were some of those familiar barbs, though dialed back from earlier in the week.. Friday night he is speaking to Republican governors.
So far no writer has gone to the “peak revenge” references, say the Game of Throne’s “Red Wedding” and the “Lannisters send their regards” quote. So opportunity knocks. Of course exaggeration, the faithful tool of columnists burned out by reaching for new ways to describe often outlandish developments in the nation’s capital, is often the only way to lure readers to plough through still another pro- or anti-Trump screed.
In reality, zapping Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman didn’t involve anything more than sending him back to the Pentagon where he’ll likely feel a lot more comfortable than in the National Security Council. Trump asked reporters at the morning ropeline, “Do you think I’m supposed to be happy with him? I’m not.” Vindman was escorted out of his office in the afternoon.
Vindman had testified, summoned by subpoena at one point, “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing” in Trump’s telephone call with the Ukrainian prime minister. Still getting his military paycheck, he is safely established as a bonafide hero among Trump’s opponents.
There was his Purple Heart earned in Iraq, his backstory of how he and his twin brother made their way out of Ukraine after losing their mother at age three, the Harvard MBA and how he climbed to the post of NSC Director for European Affairs. His twin, also at the NSC but who did not testify or otherewise get involved with the impeachment, was also escorted out.
Next, Friday evening, another impeachment witness on two different occasions, Portland, Ore., businessman Gordon Sondland, got the axe and departed with a gracious thanks “for the opportunity to serve.”
Sondland is a real estate and hotel magnate who contributed $1 million to the Trump inauguration, declaring there was a “quid pro quo” involved in the Ukraine call and saying several top administration officials were in the loop. He was the ambassador to the European Union and a key intermediary with Ukraine.
Jennifer Williams, the State Department detailee who works for the vice president, initiated her run for the exit about a week ago. At last report Mike Pence has not yet let her return to the welcoming hallways of the State Department. Her testimony, in defiance of the White House ban on testimony, found that call to Ukraine’s head of state “unusual.”
She is not to be confused, incidentally, with the Jennifer Williams who was a producer for one of Trump’s favorite shows, Fox & Friends, and who has just been hired by Facebook to work on its news feed.
Will White House invites be withheld from apostate Republicans? At least two of them will likely find out. Sen. Mitt Romney is doubling down on his sole Republican vote for a guilty verdict as Twitter rains down vituperation from those who disagree.
And it seems few noticed, but that Fox News stalwart commentator, Judge Andrew Napolitano, wrote a column published Thursday by the conservative Washington Times newspaper and then foxnews.com doubling down on his view Trump was guilty as charged and should have been removed.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has become a routine target in every Trump post-impeachment public appearance so far, has interpreted some of the president’s statements as “threats.” She said she was “stunned” by Vindman’s firing.
Asked Friday morning if he could still work with Pelosi and Democrats, he answered, “I do work with Democrats, I work with everybody. But that group is – you know, they say ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ – they’ve got it. They’ve got a bad case of it.”
He added, “That was on display the other night when she ripped up the (SOTU) speech. That was terrible, so disrespectful to our country and actually very illegal, what she did.”
Trump’s Gallup poll numbers reached a new high, 49%, in the week just past, while in another poll of polls, the fivethirtyeight.com tracker, 47.7% of all Americans wanted him removed from office. Democrats alone, more than 84%.
So does a week move the national polarization over the presidency, a week that has had higher Trump approval ratings and “total acquittal,” a “sad” Iowa Caucus Democratic vote-counting debacle, more stock market records, a diminution of Joe Biden’s status as presidential campaigner and a doubling down on divisiveness at all levels?
It is evident after a National Prayer Breakfast Wednesday repurposed by the president then to be followed by an acquittal “celebration” described by some news media outlets as “vindictive and vulgar,” or a “tirade of invective,” that the president is not changing, has not in any way been chastened. His tweet targets will remain daily fodder.
The other side becomes ever more committed to his defeat in November. The divide becomes more embedded.
Trump’s cheering rally crowds, with almost every appearance venue chosen for its rally potential, or cheering Republicans from Capitol Hill who delivered standing ovations in the East Room Thursday or his supporters among the callers every morning on C-Span continue to respond enthusiastically to his attacks on “evil” Democrats, “illegal” immigrants, sanctuary cities, perceived threats to the Second Amendment and of “socialism.”
Democrats, for their part, contribute millions every month to those they hope can displace him. Mike Bloomberg commits more hundreds of his millions to the battle.
Another media and political science meme centers on the question whether more Americans are becoming unwilling to accept political outcomes. Considerable research has shown that for about one of five Americans, that opposition to the other side winning or to acceptance of the other side’s win is indeed getting more intense.
At the same time, in a finding that might surprise the rest, about two-thirds of Americans do not strongly identify with either political party.
So while the extremes become more extreme, the majority has a strong aversion to politics in any form. Those who are the most stridently partisan can also be regarded by the majority as the most obnoxious.
At least that’s what the mass of information yielded by another Google search, for the term “Americans accept political outcomes,” seems to boil down to. Amid all the deafening back and forth may lie a more contemplative middle that has not yet spoken.
When Richard Nixon, in November 1969, appealed for the support of the “silent majority” he ultimately did not get it but it came to be seen as part of an electoral strategy of “positive polarization” that survives because it works.
Campaigner Trump in July 2015 first said, “The silent majority is back, and we’re going to take our country back.” He turned out to be right. The big question for 2020, with reelection his top priority, is whether he’s still right.
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Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com