04:30:30 pm on
Saturday 05 Oct 2024

A Step Down
AJ Robinson

We don’t celebrate Richard Milhous Nixon for resigning. Many people celebrated when he resigned, but it’s not like we cheer him for doing it. He was told, by the leading Republicans in Congress, that it was time for him to go.

Nixon would be convicted.

Republicans in Congress made it clear that if he clung to power any longer, he would be impeached by the House. He would then be tried by the Senate. He would be convicted.

As we all know, he resigned. So, should we cheer him for doing so? No, he only did the right thing because he had no choice.

Well, a while back we learned that many Senate staff, Republicans, of course, celebrated T****. Yes, they called him a hero. At the very least, they said, he is not a criminal because he failed to carry out his plans for a coup against the Constitution of the United States.

Let that sink in for a moment. He gets credit for failing to not merely break the law. This is like saying a bank robber that failed in his or her attempted robbery did not commit a crime.

No, they consider T**** a great and fine American because he was unable to rip up the Constitution. Let’s be clear here, he did not fail because he had a change of heart, he “saw the light” or he read the law and realized what he was doing was wrong. The reasons for his failure ran deeper.

He failed because most of the Department of Justice (DOJ), so to speak, threatened to resign if he tried to install his stooge as acting Attorney General, in order to implement his plan to attack the election results. Dozens and dozens of lawyers at the DOJ and the White House made it clear to T**** that they would quit if he went through with this illegal act. That threat wasn’t enough to entirely dissuade him.

No, T**** still considered only backed down when his cowardice overcame his ego and greed. Even he saw the downside of the visual of dozens of lawyers walking out of DOJ. He worried he’d be impeached for a second time and might be charged with a crime. That’s what stopped this attack on the foundation of our nation.

The cowards.

Think about that for a moment, especially given what happened afterward. That meeting was January third. The insurrection was three days later and T**** was indeed impeached again. Yet, the republicans in the Senate, still spineless cowards, refused to convict him.

Imagine for a moment if he’d known on the third just what cowards they were. Imagine if he’d known that he literally could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. After all, the mob tried to kill members of Congress, they chanted “Hang Mike Pence,” and now Pence is defending them and T****.

To say that the Republicans are spineless isn’t enough. They are a bunch of ventriloquist dummies. T**** can literally say and do anything, and they will stare blankly into any camera and utter any words he wishes. It is scary.

Imagine what will happen in the next presidential election if he runs. The entire Republican Party will kowtow to him, mimic any talking points he spews forth, and do everything in their power to insure he wins. I do mean everything.

They have now put in place not merely voter suppression laws, they have made it easier for the T****sters to commit acts of violence and do anything they want to intimidate voters. They’ve also passed outright voter nullification laws that will allow them to throw out voting results if they differ from what they consider to be the “right” outcome.

Now we know just how strong the Republican devotion to the Great Orange has become. That Republican report doesn’t merely show that the old men of the party are with him. No, this report was written by the staff, by men and women in their twenties, thirties and forties.

Rot runs deep in the party.

I truly fear for our nation’s future. We’ve taken a step down in our social-political structure. I don’t see it getting restored anytime soon.

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Combining the gimlet-eye of Philip Roth with the precisive mind of Lionel Trilling, AJ Robinson writes about what goes bump in the mind, of 21st century adults. Raised in Boston, with summers on Martha's Vineyard, AJ now lives in Florida. Working, again, as an engineeer, after years out of the field due to 2009 recession and slow recovery, Robinson finds time to write. His liberal, note the small "l," sensibilities often lead to bouts of righteous indignation, well focused and true. His teen vampire adventure novel, "Vampire Vendetta," will publish in 2020. Robinson continues to write books, screenplays and teleplays and keeps hoping for that big break.

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