As Far As The Loss Of Democracy Goes, America Already Crossed The Rubicon.

There are sem­i­nal his­tor­i­cal moments that indeli­bly etch them­selves into our sub­con­scious minds. Moments that are sig­nif­i­cant enough to war­rant the ques­tion, “where were you when this hap­pened”?
Historical events like the mur­ders of John F Kennedy & Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The moon land­ing. The death of Bob Marley, Nelson Mandela’s release from prison. The September 11^th attack on the World Trade Center.
Each event was sig­nif­i­cant enough to jog the mem­o­ries of those who lived in those moments and take them back in time to exact­ly where they were when they unfolded.

I under­stand that some peo­ple may be dis­tract­ed, or more to the point, dis­in­ter­est­ed, and may not find the for­gone events mean­ing­ful or wor­thy of rec­ol­lec­tion the way I see them.
And so, I also under­stand that some may scoff at the notion that the United States Senate’s deci­sion not to call wit­ness­es in the impeach­ment tri­al of Donald Trump is one such moment. Nevertheless, for those who have been pay­ing atten­tion, this isn’t very com­fort­ing.
It is a clear and unequiv­o­cal depar­ture from what was once expect­ed of the United States Senate. The sen­ate has enjoyed a billing as the world’s great­est delib­er­a­tive body, and the body which is sup­posed to keep the rau­cous house in check.
Some have even ped­dled the non­sense that the Senate was designed to keep Presidents in line; that’s out the win­dow.
Those fal­lac­i­es were nev­er true; nei­ther does the Senate live up to any of those billings.

By that vote not to call wit­ness­es, the Republican-con­trolled sen­ate exposed to a trans­fixed world, that every­thing that the United States pon­tif­i­cat­ed about pre­vi­ous­ly, regard­ing the rule of law, was all a load of crock.
No longer can America talk about spread­ing democ­ra­cy around the globe. Those far­ci­cal premis­es does­n’t sell any­more. By its abdi­ca­tion of demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples in the open, the Senate sent a strong mes­sage to the rest of the word, that Trump’s crimes are accept­able. By that token, the goal-posts are for­ev­er moved for pres­i­dents, Republicans, and Democrats alike.
By that token, despots and degen­er­ates have a free hand to engage in ille­gal acts with­out America lec­tur­ing them.
Maybe that’s not such a bad thing for world peace on the one hand, because the fraud­u­lent nar­ra­tive of spread­ing democ­ra­cy has been dis­cred­it­ed, it should be off the table.
Yet on the oth­er, there is no longer a pow­er­ful voice to keep despots in check, if not for its moral author­i­ty, for its strength and might.

Understandably, Republicans feel that they have the right to stop a sit­ting Democratic pres­i­dent from fill­ing a supreme court vacan­cy. Because, of course, that President would not replace Antonin Scalia, [a right-wing ide­o­logue], with anoth­er right-wing ide­o­logue; worse yet, that pres­i­dent is black.
[Moscow] Mitch McConnell has said that if a vacan­cy comes up, Trump has every right to replace that Justice, elec­tion year or not.
So as far as the Republicans are con­cerned, the rules do not apply to them.
They are also say­ing that a Republican pres­i­dent can­not be indict­ed, [regard­less of his crimes], he can­not be impeached. His lawyer Allan Dershowitz even argues in the sen­ate that Donald Trump can break the law to have him­self elect­ed, and there would be noth­ing wrong with that.
Literally, every one of the 51Republican sen­a­tors, except Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, believed in that con­cept.
The aver­age observ­er may be miss­ing because the United States of America, under those events, has already crossed the Rubicon. There will be no going back.
From Moscow, to Constantinople, From Beijing to Baghdad, From Riyadh to Caracas, and cap­i­tals beyond, what­ev­er moral high ground America thought it had has been bull­dozed into a val­ley.
America is no dif­fer­ent than a banana repub­lic many in the Republican Party love to belittle.

For starters, the United States Senate’s arro­gant brand­ing as the World’s great­est delib­er­a­tive body is now a lie, an incred­i­ble lie, and a far­ci­cal mis­nomer.
A body that would vote to sup­press direct evi­dence that would shed light on whether truth is the endgame, can in no like man­ner ever claim valid­i­ty, much less rel­e­vance.
Whether the United States Senate vote to remove Donald John Trump from office on Wednesday, February 5^th, (which it most cer­tain­ly won’t), is hard­ly the point.
Republican Senators, except for Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah, vot­ed en-masse to sup­press crit­i­cal evi­dence which would most cer­tain­ly bol­ster Democratic House man­ager’s case against Trump, and make it more dif­fi­cult for them to vote to acquit.
Rather than being con­front­ed with the moun­tain of evi­dence, they turned off the pipe. How can this body ever again claim credibility?

The vote to come Wednesday to acquit Donald John Trump of the two charges laid against him by Democratic Hose man­agers will be aca­d­e­m­ic.
It has been clear from the begin­ning that there would only be one out­come. That out­come being, that Donald Trump will be allowed to tear away at the demo­c­ra­t­ic frame­work of the United States, because Republicans are will­ing to aid and abet his efforts.
We can lament that for­mer Republicans wrapped them­selves in the American flag and feigned loy­al­ty, feal­ty, and patri­o­tism to America.
What has become evi­dent is that this is not the Republican Party of yes­ter­year.
Aiding Russia is now no big deal. Destroying America is now a‑okay as long as a Republican chief exec­u­tive does it.

Many peo­ple argue that we are where we are because Republicans want to hold onto pow­er, but that is not so.
Despite the cult-like stran­gle­hold that Donald Trump has on the Republican Party, House and Senate Republicans had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to join House Democrats in send­ing Donald Trump pack­ing. It would not be a Democrat replac­ing Trump as the 46^th pres­i­dent; Mike Pence would.
Republicans had a gold­en oppor­tu­ni­ty to send a strong mes­sage, not just to Trump, but to future Presidents, that they would not be allowed to usurp the United States’ con­sti­tu­tion.
They could have sent Donald Trump pack­ing and still con­trolled the White House. They chose to empow­er the despot­ic Trump and shred the constitution.

Their fail­ure to use this moment to stand up against Donald Trump and his crim­i­nal strong­man ten­den­cies indi­cates that their feal­ty to Trump has noth­ing to do with main­tain­ing pow­er.
Whether or not there is com­pro­mis­ing infor­ma­tion on many of these Republican politi­cians is any­body’s guess. However, there is a stronger moti­va­tion than hang­ing onto pow­er or fear of his base, about 35% of the pop­u­la­tion.
The fact is that Donald Trump is a White Supremacist who stacks the courts with unqual­i­fied white suprema­cists, tells abu­sive, vio­lent cops to abuse cit­i­zens, and spews hatred and dis­dain on peo­ple of col­or.
That is the fuel that dri­ves the zealotry of Trump’s sup­port. It is also what moti­vates Republicans to bow down in absolute sub­mis­sion to Donald Trump.

The Republican Party has long left (Mitt Romney).
Willard Mitt Romney ran against Barack Obama and lost in 2012.
As bad as his par­ty was then, it had not yet reached this stage. Mitt Romney is a Trout swim­ming in a pool filled with Piranhas. On the oth­er hand, Susan Collins from Maine only vot­ed along­side Romney to hear evi­dence because her polling num­bers are in the tank.
When push comes to shove, nei­ther Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, nor Lisa Murkowski cares about the con­sti­tu­tion. Party comes before Country, and that’s the bot­tom line.