Our political system is broken. This is a somewhat obvious statement to anyone who has seen a news broadcast or read a paper in the last seven years. But think about it a minute and let it sink in because sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees and the biggest, most obvious conclusion escapes one. That’s where we are now.
Adam Schiff made this very comment when the first impeachment trial was revving up. I remember the moment well. The congressman sounded as if he couldn’t believe it, almost as if he was talking to himself, that transgressions of the level under consideration were taking place and people of bad faith were refusing to take them seriously and apply the rule of law equitably.
This was not the Watergate debacle of the ’70’s when men and women of good faith sat on both sides of the aisle and Barry Goldwater strode across the White House lawn to tell Richard Nixon he was finished. Nixon had no intention of enduring an impeachment trial on the facts of his case. Donald Trump had two impeachment trials on two sets of far worse facts.
No, Donald Trump survived the first impeachment and he survived the second. And he is credibly poised to come back for yet a third run at the Oval Office. But first we have to see if he can survive criminal charges being brought against him for inciting a riot at the nation’s capitol because he was too small a man and childish a personality to simply accept the results of the election and move on, as far better people than him did so readily, if painfully, in the past.
It’s been rumored that Trump is going to announce his candidacy for office in a few days, on the nation’s birthday, July 4th. Maybe he will do so in order to allow all the legal fallout he faces in the days ahead to be framed, in his vernacular, as a “witch hunt” and not the legitimate outworking of the rule of law in this nation.
The rule of law in this country has never been so challenged by one man, with a sycophantic tribe of cultist followers which includes most members of one of the two major political parties, than in the case of the reality TV actor who was, improbably, the 45th president of the United States and who wreaked havoc on our institutions during his four years of bombastic shambling for the TV cameras.
Further sabotaging the rule of law is none other than the Supreme Court. That is a remarkable statement to make, but I don’t think it’s particularly hyperbolic after the last ten days we saw of this court’s term.
Dan Rather nails it. If you read only one article in full today, make it this on Steady:
This Supreme Court term will be remembered as the moment a cynical and anti-democratic movement, decades in the making, reached its zenith, empowered by bad faith and opportunism. Now the cabal lords its power over a broken political system from a perch of increased influence and lack of accountability.
This is power politics by unelected actors, appointed largely by men who lost the popular vote for president. Its path was paved by Mitch McConnell’s Machiavellian exploitation of the deaths of two justices. He was a master of shamelessness with a single purpose — to accomplish via judicial appointment what he could never have achieved through democratic means. […]
We have now firmly left behind the realm of the theoretical. This is real, and it will get only more so. For years there were those who warned that Roe wasn’t safe, and neither was anything else, that these justices were licking their chops to devour a modern America and spit out a distorted version of the past. Too many of these prophets were dismissed as hysterical, their fears histrionic and overblown. Surely, they were lectured, precedent matters. Certainly there would have to be some legal basis to rewrite America’s social contract and decades of settled rights. […]
The Supreme Court relies on its reputation, and these days, its reputation for humility, fairness, and wisdom is in tatters. Its rulings increasingly seem to be far outside where most Americans are. Wait until they tackle contraception and the privacy of one’s bedroom.
And it gets worse. Affirmative Action and the Voting Rights Act are next up on the chopping block docket. We live in unprecedented times. We are flying blind with no navigational system, because in the history of America we have never before been here and faced this set of facts, or anything remotely close. I would say “may God help us” but that would be passing the buck. No, we need to depend upon the better angels of our nature, all of ours, collectively, to rise and take hold of matters, or this nation as we knew it will be lost. It is as simple and as final as that.
The media needs to have this phrase as a ready cut-and-paste for all articles about or referencing the s.c.: “the six political hacks on the court…”
The six extremists have debased themselves thoroughly…completely in fact. They have made no secret of the fact they’ve been bought and paid for by issuing faux rulings to please their masters all the while whining and wagging their tails, squirming and piddling as if to ask “am I a good boy/girl”?
The six political hacks are as much of an embarrassment to our nation as former guy himself. One can only hope young people, young women especially since they are about to get royally screwed, get off their a*sses and VOTE this November. Without getting almost every ‘pube out of the H.O.R. and Senate this country is toast.
I’m starting to feel like the political system and for that matter the country we had prior to Trump’s attaining political power is more than broken. It’s some poor victim lying on the ground taking a beating from out-of-control cops who are using not just fists but batons, tasers and now even their guns to shoot the very life out of the victim.
And there are cops standing watching who are afraid to intervene, and won’t even let medical persons in to try and save the victim.
Given that 1% ever serve in the military, & the politicians since Reagan have gutted our public schools thereby producing a generation of citizens who KNOW NO HISTORY, it’s no wonder the sacrifice of blood over the past means nothing & therefore the vote means very little. The truth, as elusive as it can be at times, means very little. Fantasy, entertainment & consuming are our holy trinity. If the voters had gotten off their collective asses with intelligence about the politicians involved, Trump, McConnell & the rest would be sitting in a prison library instead of the most powerful positions in the world. WE ARE THE PROBLEM.
The nation as George Floyd. 🥴
If 45 declares his candidacy on 7/4 it’s only to get $$ for his legal bills. We are so screwed – he runs or doesn’t run. We have lunatics on SCOTUS, Moscow Mitch running the senate and people like Boebert/Green, etc with the ears of what…….30 million or more Amerikans?
I understand that once a candidacy is officially declared, the FEC has strict rules and limits on contributions (not that Trump would care, and SCOTUS will likely overturn such rules). That said, if Trump announces this early, it can only mean that donations to his PAC are dwindling and he needs something to re-energize his base of suckers. I suspect, however, that big-money donors will take a pass this time.