The Party of Cover-up

Seeking political “cover,” for acquitting former President Trump of inciting an insurrection, the GOP is acting as if it is bound by a code of silence, ironically defending Trump on freedom of speech, a dubious claim.

America is watching this unfolding complicity in real-time.

The Rand Paul Resolution

Senator Rand Paul and a few lead white men hatched a resolution framing the second impeachment of Donald Trump as an aberration of decency, another “cri de coeur” from hapless Democrats and worst of all “unconstitutional” and therefore probably illegal and a “total waste of Senator’s time.”

Barely thirty days prior, these same Senators were ushered to safety by Capitol Police as armed assailants roamed the Capitol. But never mind, we are in a movie now and we can avoid tampering with the “existential question,” why are we here?

Answer: To raise the specter of inauthenticity and paper it with, well, a paper called the Constitution. Never mind the oath part of “upholding.” Go back to the script.

44 of 50 Republican Senators complied: just settle in to your seats and pass the popcorn.

The “Due Process” Ruse

Repeating an absurd claim does not validate it.

Is the Impeachment a criminal trial or a constitutional reckoning? Republicans would have it both ways and in the process distract their constituents. Layered on top of this distraction is the oft-repeated claim that the Impeachment is of former President Trump.

The other part — never raised by any Republicans — is that the Impeachment is not about Trump but about the Constitution. To characterize the impeachment proceeding as “unconstitutional” and raise an abject issue of “constitutionality” is a direct affront on balance of power and accountability. “Constitutionality” like Steven Colbert’s gag scenario, “truthy-ness,” became the substitute for “Constitution.”

The Cover-up of an Electoral Loss

Sounding more like film directors than lawyers, Trump’s team on Friday and Saturday, instructed the few “re-acting” Republican Senators to follow the script scrupulously. “There is no evidence,” was the claim because like the Electoral College certification proceeding “there is none.” What the nation was watching Thursday was an action film, not a documentary, a work of leftist escapism, not real life. To underscore their point, Trump’s team clipped and tucked 38 mentions of the cry, “Fight,” as if we, the audience had just learned the word, first-grade style. No, we were witnessing a political face-lift. Mirrored this way was the party of cover-up, and so Trump’s lawyers speaking to the nation in hushed tones, chastened the nation’s audience, “that this may never happen again.”

So concluded a bad movie, revealing a nascent conspiracy.

Of course Trump “loved it.”

Saturday, February 13