Republicans march over cliff

[struggle4progress]

Richard Wolffe

... How will the nation’s Republican senators look anyone in the face and say they have any rights to keep in check a corrupt and criminal president? How can they pretend to be Trump’s victims when they marched themselves off a constitutional cliff?

And how on earth can they pretend to the world that their vision of America – where a president can happily use military aid to coerce a foreign government to smear his political rival in an election – is the model for democracy?

... There was little drama or suspense in Trump’s impeachment trial, save for the bat-excrement quality of crazy that tumbled out of Alan Dershowitz’s mouth. According to Harvard’s emeritus law professor, presidents are unimpeachable as long as they think they are acting in the national interest when they use their power to corrupt their own election ...

Having decided the facts against Trump, Alexander then decided to trivialize his criminal acts of withholding congressionally mandated foreign aid and demanding foreign interference in his own election. According to Alexander, such stuff was simply “inappropriate” – much like wearing brogues to the Grand Ole Opry or asking for the fish at Top’s Bar-B-Q ...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/31/republicans-impeachment-trump-richard-wolffe

[Skittles]

1. they can easily look MAGAts in the face

Trump Humpers don't care about America any more than Trump or the Senate does

[Hortensis]

5. They have a different idea of America, one in which

the evils of runaway fascist-socialist (yes, I know) liberalism are defeated by a more moral, authoritarian, hierarchical government that suits them better anyway. Or so they very foolishly think. And, of course, for many one in which white (male) Christians retain their privileged dominance. Or so they think.

[Skittles]

6. they're FASCISTS

for all their screaming about the Constitution and rule of law, they don't give a DAMN about America

[Hortensis]

7. Yes, many are, but they don't know it. Those know it's

a bad word, but they're told liberals are fascists (LITERALLY no such thing as a liberal fascist, though there is LW fascism). They're like drivers who only look left at intersections and are incapable of believing they were run down from the right.

Don't agree that hard-core conservatives don't give a damn about America. That's silly. They give a damn about THEIR image of America -- the one they believe we're destroying. They give such a damn (frightened by what's happening in this era of out-of-control change) that they vote their beliefs a lot more reliably than the left.

[Skittles]

8. I'm talking about what America stands for

they DON'T GIVE A DAMN

they believe in America ONLY FOR CERTAIN PEOPLE

that means THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN AMERICA

they certainly DO NOT CARE, for example, about KIDS IN CAGES

FASCIST, RACIST ASSHOLES

[Hortensis]

9. Yes, the ideological liberalism we thought was culturally

embedded at least somewhat in those who are conservative by nature turns out to be more fragile and vulnerable to sabotage.

But the trumpster types turning to a strong man to protect them definitely believe in a their ideal/standard of America, one they hold in their hearts as the true America. The one I think of as "Ozzie and Harriet" America. Remember how nice those people were, how they lived good lives and were rewarded with good lives, how secure in their pretty, reassuringly conforming ("people like us&quot world? An idealized version of America, but close enough -- the America they remember and want back. And they're not all white.

Also, never to forget that they've been systematically manipulated for decades and encouraged to be both unreasonably frightened of changes in their world and ultimately, finally close to the worst political versions of themselves. They don't know it though. They think that's us.

[Skittles]

10. their ideal / standard is FASCISM, RACISM, SEXISM

and I am fed up with people telling me how those poor folk are MANIPULATED - it is easy to find the truth, THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT THE TRUTH

[Hortensis]

11. No, they don't care about the truth. But then, there

are plenty exactly like them in that respect right here.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. The worst of it is that they are dragging the rest of us with them over the cliff.

[bdamomma]

3. Apparently

Rump thinks he's immune from falling off that cliff too, talk about being delusional.

tRump wanting to be in the dictator's club, they are truly laughing/mocking him for being so gullible.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. He's too ignorant and egotistical to see it ...

Some of his Republican minions may see it, but they still work to make the U.S. a copy of Putin's Russia. It's beyond cowardice.