Editor’s note: This commentary is by Walt Amses, who is a writer who lives in North Calais.
[I]f there was ever any question about whether power corrupts we need look no further than the current state of the political party once a bastion of conservatism that has willingly bartered every shred of its dignity and credibility in myopic support of Donald Trump. Republicans appear to believe the rewards gleaned from this craven solidarity justify putting the country on a dangerous trajectory, long on twisted ideology but short on legitimate leadership.
The GOP has gone from tolerating incompetence and accepting mindless dissembling to repeating verbatim the easily debunked, rapid-fire calumny spewing almost hourly from the White House. Worse yet, the lies have lately coalesced around the legally questionable and morally indefensible position on executive branch malfeasance that trivializes constitutional checks and balances while begging the question: Do the foundations of American democracy matter any more? Does anything?
Republicans quietly acquiesce to Attorney General William Barr’s four-page whitewash of the Mueller report and subsequent redactions thereof, as well as his apparent reluctance to testify before Congress, fueling the president’s “total exoneration” delusion despite ample evidence to the contrary. In Barr, Trump has found the perfectly loyal, unquestioning operative, willing to do his bidding. The attorney general has become the human stand-in for the president’s coveted wall, protecting the White House rather than the southern border.
So off base was Barr’s distillation of the special counsel’s report that Mueller himself felt it necessary to edify what the New York Times called his “deep concerns” over the resulting public confusion it would cause. He also twice asked Barr to release the summaries included in the report to no avail since confusion was precisely the goal the attorney general was looking for. In his testimony on Wednesday, Barr further looked to muddy the waters, astonishingly explaining that Trump’s “frustration” with the investigation was essentially his get out of jail free card and attempts at “removing” Mueller were not the same as “firing” Mueller.
And make no mistake. Barr’s appointment was not a random decision by any stretch. If his history defending discriminatory profiling in the lead-up to the Persian Gulf War, support of secret military tribunals, and defense of Trump’s initial Muslim ban weren’t enough to make conservatives salivate, his crowning achievement would certainly do the trick.
As George H.W. Bush’s AG, Barr supported pardons for those involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, which involved a suspected high level conspiracy to obstruct justice, protecting former President Ronald Reagan and future President George W. Bush. Given the current profoundly disturbing assault on the rule of law, coupled with the increasingly volatile nature of Trump’s presidency, there is no mystery why Barr was chosen. As the nation’s top cop he will be expected to provide a legal smokescreen for whatever decisions the president issues as well as for the Republicans who maintain complacency in the face of outrage.
Before we ask what part of Mueller’s clearly stated “does not exonerate” reference to Trump’s obstruction they do not appear to understand, we must first understand ourselves that the party’s loyalty to Trump is only overshadowed by its disloyalty to the country, the majority of which disagrees with its policies, which overwhelmingly favor millionaires, billionaires and corporations at the expense of everything and everyone else. Their cowardly willingness to overlook the president’s increasingly off-the-wall behavior, self aggrandizing “campaign rallies,” and pathological lies (approaching 10,000 at this point), is a clear indication they’re not only tethered to Trump for the long haul, but have little regard for what ordinary Americans might think.
But for Republicans, this disregard for the niceties of law and the quaint supposition that in a democracy, public opinion matters, is nothing new, but rather the culmination of a decades-long propaganda initiative, designed to indoctrinate their base into believing almost anything is acceptable because the opposition is “The Enemy,” unworthy of respect. The ascension of the Trump Crime Family into the Oval Office is the unintended consequence of their effort and the indication that the monster they created is unshackled, roaming the villages, no longer under their control.
Years of GOP holier than thou platitudes have snookered evangelical constituents into willingly ignoring Trump’s depravity, believing him a “gift from God”; have, via their racist dog whistles, not only motivated right wing voters, but also emboldened white nationalists into leaving the sanctuary of their caves to march on Main Street; and now, abdicating values that have been the cornerstone of our democracy, they cast a blind eye on what is clearly obstruction of justice at the very top.
When Republicans lose, they either cry foul or cheat: Trump losing the popular vote blamed on “massive voter fraud”; President Barack Obama appointing Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, proudly stonewalled by Mitch McConnell; newly elected Democratic governors stripped of power by GOP controlled legislators in several states; and state-by-state efforts to make it exponentially more difficult for minorities, people of color, the elderly and the poor to cast a ballot.
Although it would appear the GOP’s failure to hold itself accountable would make it hypocritical to intervene on Trump’s adventures in lawlessness, hypocrisy is as much emblematic of the Republican Party as the elephant. The truth is they don’t care. As long as the president continues to deliver on their agenda, whatever else he does when he’s not watching television is fine with them, even if it means driving the country off a cliff.
