Divine intervention is all we’ve got left
Over the years, I’ve had mixed emotions about Mitt Romney.
Mostly, I’ve thought of him as a wishy-washy politician who is guided by whichever way the political winds blow.
As governor of Massachusetts, he helped craft a progressive healthcare initiative that passed the state legislature.
There was his hard-right proclamation during his 2012 bid for the White House that 47 percent of Americans pay no income tax and are dependent on the federal government. Karma bit him on the backside when the final votes of the election came in and revealed that he drew 47 percent.
His ongoing feud with the president has yielded a lot of headlines, from Romney’s saying he would vote for neither candidate in 2016 to his scathing letter to the editor in the Washington Post that criticized the president’s lack of character. However, shortly after the 2016 election, he met with the president-elect to discuss a possible appointment as Secretary of State.
In Facebook-speak, Romney’s relationship with the president could best be described as “it’s complicated.”
It got a hell of a lot more complicated last week when Romney was only one of two Republican senators to suggest that the Senate portion of the impeachment trial required witnesses, that without them it was a sham, and that the Senate should listen to what John Bolton has to say.
Let’s be clear about this.
The decision whether to call witnesses to the Senate trial should never have been political. It is not how the system is supposed to work. But our system has been corrupted beyond reason by a Republican Party that has basically said the president can damn sure do anything he wants without penalty.
Imagine, if you will, a system where the accused in any sort of trial can handcuff the prosecution and not allow it to call witnesses. What kind of justice is that? Presidential privilege does not extend that right, something Romney and Sen. Susan Collins from Maine understood when they cast their votes.
So now Romney and Collins have bull’s eyes painted on their backs.
In fact, Romney has already been uninvited to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, an event the president has addressed in the past, and Collins has been described by other GOP leaders as dead woman walking.
I’m not sure about Collins, but the feeling on Romney is that he really doesn’t care.
Let’s be real here. Romney is 72 years old only a year into his six-year term. He and his wife have undergone serious health issues. It wouldn’t surprise me if he becomes a “one and done” senator. I mean, what more could he want to add to his resume? Besides, my guess is that the Utah GOP already has Jason Chaffetz warming up in the bullpen. He’s a pretty good fit for the current breed of Republicans who seem to have lost their collective minds.
And as far as perjury goes, we pretty well could get at least 50 convictions among the senators who swore an oath to conduct an open and fair Senate trial of the impeached president except to the victors go the spoils.
The cover-up gets a final burnish on Wednesday when the Senate votes on the president’s fate. Only divine intervention will prevent an acquittal.
There will be much backslapping and braying from the GOP side even though justice has not been served.
Sour grapes from the left?
Absolutely, because we have watched as our system was systematically gutted by Republicans who still hold a grudge because a black man was elected to serve in a white house.
That’s what it comes down to, really.
The president has tapped into our basest levels, those deep, dark places where we used to hide and keep our hatred under control and made it suddenly OK to expose our racist, homophobic, misogynistic selves.
It’s OK to resort to playground name calling.
It’s OK to bully others.
It’s OK to lie.
It’s OK to cheat.
It’s OK to break the law.
Except, it’s not OK. Not if you have a moral or decent core.
It’s easy to hear the echoes justifying bad behavior – “the Clintons did this,” “Bush did this,” “Nixon did this” – but that is nonsensical justification. And, to my friends on the left, if you want to shrug off the Clinton impeachment, remember that he was not on trial for getting a blowjob in the Oval Office. He was impeached on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.
You know, seeing how the last two impeachments have gone, I wonder what would have happened if Nixon had decided to fight it out. Would the Senate have acquitted him? It’s a valid question, especially considering what happened with these last two impeachments.
It will also be interesting to see what happens to Romney in the further aftermath of his vote. Will he be a pariah in GOP circles? What will happen in his home state of Utah, the paragon of Republican virtue? It certainly won’t play well among the rabble.
Meanwhile, the president gets off Scot free without even the slightest little rap on his tiny little fingers, free to solicit other foreign governments to help him steal yet another election. I mean, how much influence can North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and of course Russia buy from colluding with the president?
You know, back in 2016, it sounded like idle chatter, but I guess the president was right when he said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and he still wouldn’t lose any voters.
Only the way it played out, the president didn’t kill anybody on Fifth Avenue.
He killed a thing called our Constitution where we are all guaranteed inalienable rights, including the people of the United States, 75 percent of whom wanted to hear what Bolton and other potential witnesses had to say.
But it all becomes a moot point tomorrow when the Senate votes.
So, divine intervention?
It’s a longshot.
While a longshot doesn’t hold a lot of promise, it’s the only shot we have at saving the Union.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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