Republican hath its privileges
Donald Trump recently begged Congress to help save him from his escalating legal troubles. Much has been said about that, much in the way of invective, much in the way of ridicule. But there’s one thing about it that everybody seems to be missing. In publicly asking Congress for help nobody is calling Trump insane or delusional. It’s because as pathetic as it may sound on its face, it’s yet one more bit of evidence of Republican privilege.
If you or I posted a video of ourselves calling on Congress to pay our mortgages or forgive our tax bills people would think we were nuts, and they’d be right to think that. They’d rightly say we are deluded. Because there’s no way Congress could or would do that for us. But they could do it for Trump, and they would do it for Trump if the House and Senate had a Republican majority.
Imagine it yourselves. With a fully Republican Congress and a Republican president and an already Republican SCOTUS Trump would have no worries. They’d find a way to pass a law or a Constitutional amendment making it impossible to prosecute a president or an ex-president at the federal level or the state level — and the Supreme Court (as currently composed) would find a way to make it stick.
Republicans obviously wouldn’t worry about it being applied equally to Democratic Presidents because Democrats don’t tend to break the law. Besides, next time Republicans are fully in power I have a funny feeling they’re going to see to it that they never lose power again.
Such things have become so obvious and so automatic that we forget to notice them. While MAGA Republicans are doing their best to dismantle our civil rights we would do well to recall what they intend to replace them with: privilege for themselves.
Republicans are shocked — SHOCKED! — at the very notion of forgiving college loans, but think nothing of bailing out failed corporations to the tune of billions of dollars. It’s a nice deal for big corporate America: if they fail, you and I pay for it. If they succeed, they keep all the money. Meanwhile you and I had damned well better pay off those usurious college loans. If you’re a big American corporation, what’s to hate about that? No wonder so many rich people are Republicans.
Even though he’s never worked a day of his life in the White House, Hunter Biden has been relentlessly persecuted by Republicans for years because he made a couple of measly millions that he wouldn’t have made had he not been named Biden. So why does Ivanka Trump and her dybbuk husband get to make two billion dollars after pulling some serious strings from inside the Oval Office? They just do, that’s why. That’s privilege, and being Republican hath its privilege.
The whole MAGA push exists ostensibly to roll back our civil rights and ideologically “restore” America to the 1950s. That’s what they mean by “Make America Great Again.” But that’s just the message for the losers and suckers who buy into Trump’s bullshit. What Republicans secretly want is to take away all our rights and keep the money and the power and the privilege for themselves. We would all do well to keep that clearly in mind. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.