HOW WE GOT HERE

I have tried to avoid politics, but I fear for my country. The assumption is that Trump will be acquitted this week.

“You know what else they say about my people? The polls, they say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? It’s like incredible,” Trump said on 23 January 2016. [Click the link—he said this, but his statistics in that speech are, of course, untrue.]

Below is from today’s comments section in The Washington Post.

“How the Republican Party got to this point.
1. McCarthyism: The beginning of hatred toward liberals and Democrats and the purging of liberals from the Republican Party.
2. Nixon’s Southern Strategy: Diving the nation by race by taking advantage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by courting white segregationists into the Republican Party and purging out African Americans.
3. Reaganism: Building the Republican Party around white conservative Christians and purging all non Christians and non conservative Christians from the Republican Party.
4. Newt Gingrich: The beginning of gutter politics, hate mongering, and lying within the Republican Party.
5. Fox News went live in 1996 broadcasting with a blatant Republican Party and conservative bias. The propaganda component of the Republican Party was complete. At this point the Republican Party had primarily reached, racial (white), ideological (conservative) and religious (Christian) purity. There were no internal checks and balances remaining within the Republican Party, it had internally become a dictatorship.
6. Trumpism: Trump was never strongly affiliated with any political party, but he recognized the political apparatus that the Republican Party had built and the rage within the national conservative base over changing national demographics that threatened their newly found racial, ideological, and religious purity. With populism, nationalism, miss-branding of his opponents, and blatant lies, Trump took total control of the Republican Party. This included the House, the Senate, and the Republican National Committee. Trump then began purging anyone who opposed him within the Republican Party. Since all independence has been removed from the Republican Party, it no longer exists. It’s now the party of Trump with no internal checks and balance, much less any respect for the US constitution; the laws and freedoms it represents.

“Time to vote for our Constitution, vote blue, it’s the patriotic thing to do.”

Clinton was ultimately impeached for lying to the FBI about an extramarital affair. It was immoral but primarily a personal failure, not violation of our country. The current president is free to use congressional funds to extort personal political favors. There is no bottom.

This is not merely a party failure but failure of individual citizens.

I would add that I used to know moral conservative Republicans. I do not think I can say that any longer. And though I know decent people who still support this administration, these people have failed in the most essential way to respect the aspirational and on-the-ground goals of our nation. They have failed in their moral duty to support our Constitution. They have prioritized party over public decency. They have been pushed there by people with money.

Money now has absolute power over morality.