Corruption of the GOP on show ... After Trump’s Acquittal, It Will Only Get Worse for Republicans

[Hossfly]

The Democrats can have every witness they want. We just want Hunter Biden. After today's presentation by Pam Bondi, the Bidens are cooked.

 

[Weatherman2020]

The GOP will cease to exist after they refuse witnesses and refuse to convict and remove Donald Trump despite compelling evidence that has emerged since the impeachment opened. They will be absorbed into Trumpworld of personal vassals of Donald Trump.

There is no doubt that the only power that holds the GOP lawmakers to Donald Trump is fear of retribution from the Trump base and having their head publicly displayed on a pike.

Acquittal of Trump will forever destroy the oversight power of Congress because a precedent will have been set that will allow any POTUS to refuse to cooperate with investigations by Congress.

The GOP is greasing the slippery slope.

“The impeachment trial is an exercise in displaying the Republican Party’s institutional culpability in Trump’s contempt for the rule of law. At some point, they will have to decide to damn the president or to damn themselves.”

“No one is really making the argument, ‘Donald Trump would never do such a thing,’ because of course we know that he would, and of course we know that he did,”

After Trump’s Acquittal, It Will Only Get Worse for Republicans

After Trump’s Acquittal, It Will Only Get Worse for Republicans
Accepting the president’s corruption is one thing. Enabling the erosion of democracy is another.

By Francis Wilkinson
January 26, 2020, 8:00 PM GMT+7

The Senate trial of President Donald Trump is proving less Soviet than expected. Representative Adam Schiff of California, the House impeachment manager, last week presented a coherent, damning and often eloquent narrative of Trump’s guilt, backed by text messages, emails, letters and sworn witness testimony previously delivered to the House.

As my colleague Jonathan Bernstein points out, the weight of such facts can alter political gravity. Even Republicans who have made up their minds to acquit — which almost certainly describes the entire GOP caucus — have had to sit through the avalanche of evidence. Surely it weighs on at least a few consciences. Meanwhile, writes New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, ignoring the facts carries risks of its own: “The impeachment trial is an exercise in displaying the Republican Party’s institutional culpability in Trump’s contempt for the rule of law. At some point, they will have to decide to damn the president or to damn themselves.”

It’s a foregone conclusion: Republican senators will damn themselves to infinity and beyond. The question isn’t what Republican senators will decide next week, but where the Republican Party will go after Trump’s acquittal. That answer, too, is alarmingly clear: further downward. From 1994 to 2015, give or take, the party was tumbling down a slippery slope. Since 2016, Republicans have been falling at 32 feet per second squared.

Acquitting Trump is not the same as shrugging at the president’s venality and vindictiveness, or mumbling and walking away when a reporter asks whether you believe it’s OK to solicit foreign sabotage of a U.S. election. Acquitting Trump is a bold, affirmative act.

The acquittal will mark the senators as political made men. It will be their induction into Trump’s gangster ethos, using constitutional powers to enable corruption. For those who have hovered on the periphery of Trump’s political gangland, there is no route back to innocence.

Many long ago crossed that Rubicon, proclaiming their fealty to “the chosen one.” But acquittal will transform even the most reticent Republicans into conspirators against democracy and rule of law.

It will not be long before they are called upon to defend the indefensible again. And they will do it, acquiescing to the next figurative or literal crime just as they did to Trump’s videotaped boast of sexual assaults, his horrifying sellouts to Russian President Vladimir Putin, his personal use of charitable contributions intended for veterans, his brutality toward children, or his quotidian blitzes against decency and democracy.

Schiff’s repeated use of the word “cheat” to describe Trump’s posture toward U.S. elections was less an accounting of past performance than a guarantee of future results. “No one is really making the argument, ‘Donald Trump would never do such a thing,’ because of course we know that he would, and of course we know that he did,” Schiff told the Senate last week. “He’ll do it now. He’s done it before. He’ll do it for the next several months. He’ll do it in the election if he’s allowed to.”

Whether the game is golf or politics or business, Trump cheats. On trial for seeking foreign interference in the 2020 election, after having been the beneficiary of foreign interference in the 2016 election, Trump will find many willing accomplices before November. His presidency is a strategic boon to multiple U.S. adversaries, most prominently Putin. Another modest investment in Trump’s presidency could yield an even larger return — destroying, for a generation or more, American democracy not only as a vehicle of ethical government but also as a protector (aspirationally if not always actually) of human dignity.

This is not cynicism. It’s the reality of U.S. politics in 2020. Acquitting Trump will destroy what’s left of the Republican Party’s claims to ethical legitimacy and pave the way for the further erosion of democracy. The only question that remains is how much more corruption the non-MAGA majority of Americans is willing to take.

I think you have been hitting the sauce. Here is the deal, within 30-60 days the American public will forget about the impeachment and the trial and it will have little effect in November. It happens all the time.

Pfffttt. By this Saturday everyone will have forgotten about this charade.

 

[Weatherman2020]

The Democrats can have every witness they want. We just want Hunter Biden. After today's presentation by Pam Bondi, the Bidens are cooked.

Schiff and Uncle Joe as witnesses too.

 

[occupied]

Approving the Iraq war was one of the most career ending votes ever taken in congress, this is going to be just like that, only worse. About two seconds after Trump leaves office the avalanche of revelations about this administration will make a vote for acquittal something that really has no plausible excuse.

 

[MACAULAY]

It's more likely the Democrats will cease to exist since they have lurched so far to the left that they are about to nominate a Communist for President.

Democratic socialism is not communism.

_______

Technically, Socialism is economic, and Communism is political---but they are virtually inseparable, Communism always at least follows promptly upon the onset of Socialism---because it takes FORCE to get people to behave while they are stripped of their assets and freedoms.
______

This same scenario has repeated itself many times throughout history---which repeats itself because human nature does not change.

 

[skews13]

Coookoo

 

[Mac1958]

I'm not exactly watching this silly partisan Kabuki Theater very closely, but I haven't seen or heard anything that will change many minds one way or the other.

 

[Crepitus]

they are virtually inseparable

They are not.

 

[MACAULAY]

Approving the Iraq war was one of the most career ending votes ever taken in congress, this is going to be just like that, only worse. About two seconds after Trump leaves office the avalanche of revelations about this administration will make a vote for acquittal something that really has no plausible excuse.

______

Sounds like a "Mueller" Threat.

The Wet Dream of 98.53% of Sufferers of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

 

[Oddball]

Approving the Iraq war was one of the most career ending votes ever taken in congress....

Like it ended the careers of Hillary, Kerry, Biden, Frankenstein, and Schumer?

Oh wait.....

 

[Frankeneinstein]

The GOP will cease to exist after they refuse witnesses and refuse to convict and remove Donald Trump despite compelling evidence that has emerged since the impeachment opened. They will be absorbed into Trumpworld of personal vassals of Donald Trump.

There is no doubt that the only power that holds the GOP lawmakers to Donald Trump is fear of retribution from the Trump base and having their head publicly displayed on a pike.

Acquittal of Trump will forever destroy the oversight power of Congress because a precedent will have been set that will allow any POTUS to refuse to cooperate with investigations by Congress.

The GOP is greasing the slippery slope.

“The impeachment trial is an exercise in displaying the Republican Party’s institutional culpability in Trump’s contempt for the rule of law. At some point, they will have to decide to damn the president or to damn themselves.”

“No one is really making the argument, ‘Donald Trump would never do such a thing,’ because of course we know that he would, and of course we know that he did,”

This is actually not a bad post, I'm not sure about the conclusions it draws but it is not the usual liberal gibberish...now as to whether the GOP is going to cease to exist is your opinion, but if you are correct I would like them to take the PC crowd out before they go...America is being suffocated by political correctness from the left, it is so ingrained in our politics and such a cancer that it gave us a candidate based on nothing more than gender and has made me a rooting fan of a man I had never liked before even when everyone else including the media was singing his praises.

 

[LAUGHatLEFTISTS]

It's more likely the Democrats will cease to exist since they have lurched so far to the left that they are about to nominate a Communist for President.

Democratic socialism is not communism.

You do understand the term democratic socialism was recently made up to hide how far left you nuts have gone....its just socialism lite dontcha know.

 

[Weatherman2020]

Approving the Iraq war was one of the most career ending votes ever taken in congress, this is going to be just like that, only worse. About two seconds after Trump leaves office the avalanche of revelations about this administration will make a vote for acquittal something that really has no plausible excuse.

Hilarious.

 

[Weatherman2020]

It's more likely the Democrats will cease to exist since they have lurched so far to the left that they are about to nominate a Communist for President.

Democratic socialism is not communism.

You do understand the term democratic socialism was recently made up to hide how far left you nuts have gone....its just socialism lite dontcha know.

Democratic Socialism- like electing Hitler.

 

[Crepitus]

It's more likely the Democrats will cease to exist since they have lurched so far to the left that they are about to nominate a Communist for President.

Democratic socialism is not communism.

You do understand the term democratic socialism was recently made up to hide how far left you nuts have gone....its just socialism lite dontcha know.

Not
The origins of democratic socialism can be traced to 19th-century utopiansocialist thinkers and the British Chartist movement that somewhat differed in their goals yet all shared the essence of democratic decision making and public ownership of the means of production as positive characteristics of the society they ...

Wikipedia › wiki › Democratic_soci...
Democratic socialism - Wikipedia

 

[Crepitus]

It's more likely the Democrats will cease to exist since they have lurched so far to the left that they are about to nominate a Communist for President.

Democratic socialism is not communism.

You do understand the term democratic socialism was recently made up to hide how far left you nuts have gone....its just socialism lite dontcha know.

Democratic Socialism- like electing Hitler.

Hitler hated socialists.

 

[Weatherman2020]

It's more likely the Democrats will cease to exist since they have lurched so far to the left that they are about to nominate a Communist for President.

Democratic socialism is not communism.

You do understand the term democratic socialism was recently made up to hide how far left you nuts have gone....its just socialism lite dontcha know.

Democratic Socialism- like electing Hitler.

Hitler hated socialists.

Go look up what NAZI stands for, shitforbrains.

 

[Crepitus]

It's more likely the Democrats will cease to exist since they have lurched so far to the left that they are about to nominate a Communist for President.

Democratic socialism is not communism.

You do understand the term democratic socialism was recently made up to hide how far left you nuts have gone....its just socialism lite dontcha know.

Democratic Socialism- like electing Hitler.

Hitler hated socialists.

Go look up what NAZI stands for, shitforbrains.

Does that mean you think the DPRK is democratic?

 

[Weatherman2020]

Democratic socialism is not communism.

You do understand the term democratic socialism was recently made up to hide how far left you nuts have gone....its just socialism lite dontcha know.

Democratic Socialism- like electing Hitler.

Hitler hated socialists.

Go look up what NAZI stands for, shitforbrains.

Does that mean you think the DPRK is democratic?

Shitforbrains claims NAZI Germany didn’t take wealth from people and redistribute it.

 

[Lakhota]

The GOP will cease to exist after they refuse witnesses and refuse to convict and remove Donald Trump despite compelling evidence that has emerged since the impeachment opened. They will be absorbed into Trumpworld of personal vassals of Donald Trump.

There is no doubt that the only power that holds the GOP lawmakers to Donald Trump is fear of retribution from the Trump base and having their head publicly displayed on a pike.

Acquittal of Trump will forever destroy the oversight power of Congress because a precedent will have been set that will allow any POTUS to refuse to cooperate with investigations by Congress.

The GOP is greasing the slippery slope.

“The impeachment trial is an exercise in displaying the Republican Party’s institutional culpability in Trump’s contempt for the rule of law. At some point, they will have to decide to damn the president or to damn themselves.”

“No one is really making the argument, ‘Donald Trump would never do such a thing,’ because of course we know that he would, and of course we know that he did,”

After Trump’s Acquittal, It Will Only Get Worse for Republicans

After Trump’s Acquittal, It Will Only Get Worse for Republicans
Accepting the president’s corruption is one thing. Enabling the erosion of democracy is another.

By Francis Wilkinson
January 26, 2020, 8:00 PM GMT+7

The Senate trial of President Donald Trump is proving less Soviet than expected. Representative Adam Schiff of California, the House impeachment manager, last week presented a coherent, damning and often eloquent narrative of Trump’s guilt, backed by text messages, emails, letters and sworn witness testimony previously delivered to the House.

As my colleague Jonathan Bernstein points out, the weight of such facts can alter political gravity. Even Republicans who have made up their minds to acquit — which almost certainly describes the entire GOP caucus — have had to sit through the avalanche of evidence. Surely it weighs on at least a few consciences. Meanwhile, writes New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, ignoring the facts carries risks of its own: “The impeachment trial is an exercise in displaying the Republican Party’s institutional culpability in Trump’s contempt for the rule of law. At some point, they will have to decide to damn the president or to damn themselves.”

It’s a foregone conclusion: Republican senators will damn themselves to infinity and beyond. The question isn’t what Republican senators will decide next week, but where the Republican Party will go after Trump’s acquittal. That answer, too, is alarmingly clear: further downward. From 1994 to 2015, give or take, the party was tumbling down a slippery slope. Since 2016, Republicans have been falling at 32 feet per second squared.

Acquitting Trump is not the same as shrugging at the president’s venality and vindictiveness, or mumbling and walking away when a reporter asks whether you believe it’s OK to solicit foreign sabotage of a U.S. election. Acquitting Trump is a bold, affirmative act.

The acquittal will mark the senators as political made men. It will be their induction into Trump’s gangster ethos, using constitutional powers to enable corruption. For those who have hovered on the periphery of Trump’s political gangland, there is no route back to innocence.

Many long ago crossed that Rubicon, proclaiming their fealty to “the chosen one.” But acquittal will transform even the most reticent Republicans into conspirators against democracy and rule of law.

It will not be long before they are called upon to defend the indefensible again. And they will do it, acquiescing to the next figurative or literal crime just as they did to Trump’s videotaped boast of sexual assaults, his horrifying sellouts to Russian President Vladimir Putin, his personal use of charitable contributions intended for veterans, his brutality toward children, or his quotidian blitzes against decency and democracy.

Schiff’s repeated use of the word “cheat” to describe Trump’s posture toward U.S. elections was less an accounting of past performance than a guarantee of future results. “No one is really making the argument, ‘Donald Trump would never do such a thing,’ because of course we know that he would, and of course we know that he did,” Schiff told the Senate last week. “He’ll do it now. He’s done it before. He’ll do it for the next several months. He’ll do it in the election if he’s allowed to.”

Whether the game is golf or politics or business, Trump cheats. On trial for seeking foreign interference in the 2020 election, after having been the beneficiary of foreign interference in the 2016 election, Trump will find many willing accomplices before November. His presidency is a strategic boon to multiple U.S. adversaries, most prominently Putin. Another modest investment in Trump’s presidency could yield an even larger return — destroying, for a generation or more, American democracy not only as a vehicle of ethical government but also as a protector (aspirationally if not always actually) of human dignity.

This is not cynicism. It’s the reality of U.S. politics in 2020. Acquitting Trump will destroy what’s left of the Republican Party’s claims to ethical legitimacy and pave the way for the further erosion of democracy. The only question that remains is how much more corruption the non-MAGA majority of Americans is willing to take.

I agree! It will get much worse! Many patriotic journalists and others are working overtime to expose all the Trump* corruption. It should be awesome by Election Day.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Shitforbrains claims NAZI Germany didn’t take wealth from people and redistribute it.

They did. They took all the wealth and things that the Jews had, and sold them or kept them for themselves.

And, if you replace "Mexican" with "Jew", you would be all in favor of taking everything from the Mexicans and giving it to poor Americans.

Interestingly enough, the rhetoric that Trump uses against Mexicans is pretty much the same that Hitler used against the Jews.