Trump and the GOP put all their eggs in the wrong basket
In lacking any ability to perceive nuance or express any emotions besides self-indulgence and arrogant indignation, the Republicans have sided en bloc with Attorney General William Barr over Special Counsel Robert Mueller with regards to the interpretation of the findings of the special counsel investigation. Barr’s slapdash performance at his own Senate hearing, and decision to play hooky for his upcoming House hearing, seem to have elicited considerable Republican support.
Republican Senator Kevin Cramer was quoted by Politico as having said “These guys, whether it’s Jim Comey or Robert Mueller or whoever it might be, their egos, their feelings seem to get hurt so easily,” in reference to Mueller’s now-infamous March 27th letter to Barr, in which Mueller chided Barr for his mischaracterization of the special counsel report. Republican Senator Ron Johnson said “I’m dissatisfied with Mueller.” Other Republicans similarly cast aspersions on the intentions of Mueller, which leads me to believe this coordination was the work of human manifestation of being a dick, Mitch McConnell.
McConnell has an astonishing way of getting everything he wants, often to the detriment of the hundreds of millions of people living in America – plus more beyond our borders – by way of illiberal and regressionist policies. Republicans are notorious for how they maintain a fastidious rank-and-file nature with McConnell, but they can’t win this time; sometimes the facts do matter.
The facts, in this instance, are thus: Barr tried to lead everyone up the garden path and got caught, Trump is actually guilty, and it’s only going to get uglier for the Republicans and Trump as the offshoot investigations yield results. Although he seems to be in deficit of any sense of self-preservation, Barr knows this, and it’s one reason he’s not testifying to the House this week (I like to imagine the other reason being that he’s a devout masochist who’s been calmly and staidly begging to be thrown in prison).
Fortunately, our system seems to have been conferred sufficient checks and balances to ensure an ersatz dictator can’t metamorphose into an actual dictator. Instead, what’s been happening since the beginning of the investigations into Trump is the slow assembling of the truth, which will ultimately metamorphose into the whole, unabridged, unredacted, filthy truth, for which the Republicans will have to answer.
Democracy thrives in snarkiness