by Carlo W Paul
Vendredi 11 décembre 2020 ((rezonodwes.com))– Long ago I wrote an article exhorting the readers to get involved in matters of concern, to be an actor, not a spectator and I used this quote of a prominent Jewish historian named Eli Wiesel : “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who standby, watch and do nothing”. Sadly we are seeing a Republican Party watching their leader trample on what was a relative Democracy and saying nothing, by their silence the Party and its members are complicit.
In the political history of this nation, the Electoral College has been a formality and not an instrument to overturn the result of an election. Now we have a sitting president trying to convince the voters, the courts, the legislators to ignore the will of the people. By so doing he is putting Democracy itself on trial. Even though there is no evidence to back up his baseless claims of voter fraud, a significant number of the Republican Party are sticking with him, allowing him, and urging him to continue with this stupidity. They do so not because they like him (privately, they don’t) but they like his base of supporters and also because of fear and fear has always worked for Trump, his tantrums have always paid dividends.
All throughout his presidency, Trump has acted in a fascist and dictatorial way; he has shown a complete disregard for democratic institutions and democratic norms as described in Rachel Maddow’s new book.
Turns out under Trump, investigation can be smeared and muddied up with a simple and aggressive counter offense. Feelings over facts, loyalty over evidence, obstruction over cooperation. Trump went beyond denying the lies about his criminal activities and rallied his supporters against the public officials in his own administration working on his case.
He called witnesses who were cooperating with the government; crazy and self-motivated and denied that he never knew them. He demanded that the investigators be investigated and purged from the government payroll if need be, he demeans the professionals and personal integrity of specifics officials in the chain of command of his prosecution.
The assault on his own government was paired with his ceaseless attack on the media stocking his supporters distrust of legitimate reporting. He portraits the press itself as one of his chief adversaries and encourage the crowd to show open hostility toward journalists , he threaten reporters covering his case with subpoena and even with jail time and incidentally he did all this at a time when the country was in serious crisis : the Coronavirus crisis, Trump attempted to survive his own scandal by waging a concerted attack on the institutions of American life and government that is trying to hold the small d democratic line and thereby hold the country together at this particularly tenuous time in our nation history.
Ultimately he failed to save himself but he left a scorched earth battle plan for any corrupt office holder that follows him: attack the investigation as a witch hunt, obstruct behind the scene, attack any individual investigator in personal term, attack the credibility of his accusers, attack the media informing American about the case. Never back down or admit defeat. How sad is it for you America?
Through it all, Republicans stood by, watched and did nothing, making this country a dangerous place.
Carlo W Paul
cwpolo@aol.com