President Donald Trump thinks we’re “human scum” for making our principled Republican arguments against some of his policies and pronouncements, which hurts our feelings something awful, but on the other hand he also thinks he’s building a border wall in Colorado, which makes us feel slightly better about not having to defend everything the man does and says.
There’s a lot to defend these days, and a lot of it requires a strenuous effort. Few Republican politicians dare to criticize the president, except on his most obviously egregious foreign policy mistakes, but fewer and fewer of them seem willing to defend him against the charges that seem hurling at an increasingly rapid rate toward his impeachment. The allegation that Trump withheld congressionally appropriated aid from Ukraine until he won help in his election campaign has been corroborated by the White House’s own rough transcript of a telephone call, the chief of staff’s bold assertion that “we do it all the time” and anyone bothered by it should just “get over it,” and testimony by the ambassador to the Ukraine appointed by the guy Trump appointed as Secretary of State, and so far “get over it” seems the president’s best defense.
Two dozen of Trump’s most loyal followers in the House of Representatives are arguing “shut up,” and attempted to force the Democrats to do just that when they walked uninvited to a House oversight committee’s questioning of another civil servant with first-hand knowledge of America’s dealings with Ukraine. They held up the proceedings for about five hours, during which they had a pizza party and a grand old time, but eventually the impeachment inquiry continued toward its inevitable conclusion. The Republicans were insisting that their party’s members be allowed to question witnesses, which they already were, and that all the testimony be made public, which it eventually will be to the Republicans’ ultimate chagrin.
Trump has famously boasted that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose any supporters, and his lawyer was arguing with a lawyerly straight face in federal court on Wednesday that even if he did he couldn’t even be investigated by any authorities, and we’re eager to hear what the loyalists say when Trump eventually gets around to doing that. Probably something along the lines of “get over it,” “shut up,” and “what about Hillary’s e-mails?”
This will give the talk radio talkers something to work with and suffice to rally much of the faithful, but all the polls indicate that it’s not winning any new converts to the faith, and each day slightly fewer Republican politicians and pundits are rushing to the president’s defense on each and every policy and pronouncement. Each day slightly more Republicans even sign up with we “human scum” who dare to voice any disagreement, and are less intimidated by Trump’s “tweets” and presidential rhetoric.
Two-thirds of the House Republicans voted to rebuke Trump’s retreat from Syria and abandonment of our Kurdish allies, and the usually loyal Senate Majority leader wrote a critical op-ed in the hated Washington Post, and even such an obsequious Republican as South Carolina’s Sen. Lindsey Graham has said he might support Trump’s impeachment and removal if confronted with indisputable proof of a quid pro quo with Ukraine, which is a perfectly reasonable position we expect he will have trouble wriggling his way out of when it comes to down to his impeachment trail vote.
When Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton called Trump’s supporters “deplorables” they gladly embraced the slur and started wearing it on their t-shirts, and lately they’ve been buying t-shirts emblazoned with “Get over it.” So far we haven’t seen any “human scum” t-shirts, but if we could only play three chords on an electric guitar we’d start up a punk rock band by that name and screech NeverTrump Republican protest songs all night at Kirby’s Beer Store.
This all comes at a time when polling by Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service shows that 67 percent of Americans fear the nation is heading to another civil war, which does not surprise us. Trump and his followers are clearly ready to rumble, and so are a lot of those damned Democrats. We’d like to think there are still enough of us “human scum” Republicans and those corporate sell-out centrist sorts Democrats to work things out according to facts of the matter of the Constitution and its divisive impeachment clauses, but if it comes to worst we’ll try to stay out of it and help rebuild in the aftermath.
— Bud Norman
The Central Standard Times 