Dear America,
Today's topic isn't Donald Trump, at least not directly. It's shamelessness. It's not about Trump, though it could be, but about his party and about Mitch McConnell in particular. There's no point in rehashing the Merrick Garland gambit. It was obvious and transparent. This principle that McConnell and his cabal claimed was sacrosanct was actually so specious as to be an embarrassment even to them, but they had the power to pull the ploy, and they did. There really wasn't much to say about it then, other than "what goes around comes around," but it apparently doesn't. And despite all the disingenuous claims about it all from conniving partisans like Ted Cruz, there is no distinction that makes this time different from 2016. Maybe presidents have nominated and senates have confirmed justices in the past during election years, but you might as well just say that the confirmation votes all happened on Tuesdays, and that's why we're confirming Barrett on a Monday; it's a completely different day of the week. But no matter how you try to dress it up, it's hypocrisy...a tux on a pig. The principle cited by McConnell and his fellow imps was that 2016 was an election year, and the people should in effect pick the next justice by selecting the next president, which selection was imminent. The fact is that the selection of the next president is even more imminent here in October 2020, just eight days before the election. There are no shades of meaning or technical details that can vindicate the Republicans' duplicity. There is no coloring this event as anything but rank apostasy after fulminating, no, waxing profound on the subject of leaving such a meaningful process for the people's most recent choice, which in this case will most likely be someone other than Donald Trump. The Republicans are not just trying to make a distinction without a difference. They are always claiming to be the moral party, and here they are doing the most nakedly, shamelessly immoral thing, and they're snickering about it in the bargain, as if it makes them clever. How Trumpian, which brings me to my point.
There is going to be an election a week from tomorrow. Biden is running against Trump, but that's not all. The Democrats are running against the Republicans. So the question some voters will answer with their votes is, do I want people to think of me as one of what the Republicans have become en masse. Some voters will go into the voting booth and ask themselves whether they actually stand for anything, and if they do, is what the Republicans have taken to doing that thing. I've said some pretty harsh things about Republicans since Trump made the Barrett nomination and McConnell again made the point that he and his party had the power...just like last time...and, to paraphrase the apt phrase from the film, "TheTreasure of the Sierra Madre," they don't need no stinkin' mandate from the voters...not then and not now!
So here we are, might making right again. To be gross about it, you can ignore flatulence, but everyone still stares at the one who's responsible if the evidence is clear, if you know what I mean. It is this time just as much as it was the last, but I don't think everyone affiliated with the responsible party is going to ignore it this time. Republicans will show their real color, and it will be a badge of infamy for them for a generation or so. Mitch McConnell will go down in the annals of the Senate in the same way as Boss Tweed did in the history of New York. What the Senate is doing is corrupt and despicable, and the Republicans who vote for those responsible will be hitching their wagons to that star. Of course, expediency is particularly Republican, and it may be that Republicans in general are Republicans because they believe in it, but I wonder, are there some who don't.
I have hypothesized since Trump won the electoral college (he didn't win the election) that he got as many votes as he did not because he stood for anything his voters openly espoused, but because of their sub rosa subscription to Trump's thinly veiled bigotry, contumacy, and callousness toward the unfortunate. Out of their own expediency, they accepted his despicable conduct, calling it a rejection of political correctness rather than what it is: sheer boorishness and amorality. They actually voted for him because underneath their sanctimony, they actually espoused what he does rather than some self-serving concept of morality that is conveniently elliptical when it comes to the conduct of their new acolyte.
I know that's all rather harsh, but unlike Republicans so far, I am admitting what I feel. Of course, to coin a phrase, some of them may be good people. Let's see whether good people come out of the voting booths.
Your friend,
Mike
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