Every Republican Accusation Is A Confession: The Musical

Will Trump’s poor casting choices get past the Senate?

Kash Patel (photo via Getty images)

by Justin R.

As my time here at The Banter comes to a close (New Years Eve, coincidentally, will be my swan song) I thought it might be time to try my hand at a musical article as many shows do in their later seasons. OK, we’re not actually going to do that because I have a singing voice that can curdle milk, raw and otherwise.

We are, however, going to discuss “Every Republican Accusation Is A Confession: The Musical.”

Trump is not picking people according to their ability. He’s picking them according to how they look on TV and whether or not they’ll be willing to use the Constitution as toilet paper in service to him. Matt Gaetz was just the warm-up act. Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel (among others) are the main event. But will Trump’s poor casting choices get past the Senate?

I’m unconvinced but that doesn’t mean their (almost inevitable) replacements will be any better.

Hegseth is doomed before opening night

After the Gaetz casting couch debacle where his drug-fueled pedophilia forced the Florida now-ex-Representative to withdraw his name, a lot of people who should know better opined that Trump actually chose Gaetz as a fake out. You see, his real choice was Pam Bondi all along and Trump was playing five dimensional chess! LOL, libtards, checkmate!

But Trump burned an awful lot of political capital calling around both the house and the Senate trying to browbeat congressional Republicans to back his credibly accused pedophile. It’s important to understand that while the legacy press and Republicans are trying really hard to manufacture a reality in which Trump won a commanding victory, thus giving him a historic mandate and all the political capital in the world to burn, that just is not true.

Trump’s historical narrow margin of victory and laughably non-existent coattails means he has little to no political capital to burn. And yet, he burned a pile of it for Gaetz, the guy he allegedly didn’t want. Sounds legit.

Pam Bondi is corrupt but will she set herself on fire for Trump and violate the law at every opportunity like Gaetz would have? We’ll find out. If Bondi turns out to be another Jeff Sessions, competent but unwilling to shred the Constitution despite being corrupt, she’ll be out of a job by next Christmas. Trump does not want competence. He wants obedience.

Which is where Pete Hegseth comes in. Or rather, almost certainly will not be coming in. On paper, Hegseth is everything Trump wants: Rabidly ideological, possessed of an utter contempt for the rule of law, loyal to Trump, and he’s even a Fox News host so he looks good on TV! He’s a perfect leading man for the United States military! And he’s so manly with all of his macho tattoos!

Just to be clear, Hegseth has made it known that he wants to transform the United States Military from the professional, nonpartisan fighting force it is now into an ideological army of religious crusaders. From a military currently beholden to civilian authority and the rule of law into a lawless weapon to be wielded not against America’s foreign enemies but the American civilians it’s meant to protect.

This is why Trump picked Hegseth. And the fact he “looks the part.” That’s very important to Trump. His staff cast has to be ready for their moment in the spotlight and look perfect for the cameras. Never forget, though, Republicans are constantly calling us “fascists.” But what is possibly more fascist than promising to turn the military against unarmed civilians? Every Republican accusation is a confession. Sing it in the style of your favorite show tune. You’ll be surprised at how well it works.

There is, however, that little problem of the credible rape allegation against Hegseth, and the police investigation that did not end in an exoneration. Because it didn’t end in an arrest either, the right has tried super hard to claim it as “proof” Hegseth is innocent. But the Fox News personality had to pay his victim off to make the impending civil case go away. The definition of an innocent man.

Now we’re getting more information about how awkward Hegseth’s staff meetings will be. The New Yorker has the gory details. It’s a lot…:

A previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events. The detailed seven-page report—which was compiled by multiple former C.V.A. employees and sent to the organization’s senior management in February, 2015—states that, at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team. The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers, whom they divided into two groups—the “party girls” and the “not party girls.” In addition, the report asserts that, under Hegseth’s leadership, the organization became a hostile workplace that ignored serious accusations of impropriety, including an allegation made by a female employee that another employee on Hegseth’s staff had attempted to sexually assault her at the Louisiana strip club. In a separate letter of complaint, which was sent to the organization in late 2015, a different former employee described Hegseth being at a bar in the early-morning hours of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour through Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, drunkenly chanting “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!”

Yes…it’s unclear how a man accused of drunkenly raping a woman could ever display this kind of behavior in public.

Now, none of this would necessarily be disqualifying on its own to Republicans. The racism? Eh. The sexism? Eh. Sexual assault? Brett Kavanaugh on line one, sir.

On the other hand, Hegseth is a clown who will inflict a huge amount of damage on the military. Not just through ideology, but through sheer incompetence and his inability to stay sober and not (allegedly) keep his sticky fingers out of the till. That’s what Trump wants, of course. A military broken to his will. But that’s not what House and Senate Republicans want.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, they don’t give the slightest damn about Trump using the military to shoot BLM protesters. Tom Cotton would watch that on replay as a marital aid. But a military run into the ground by a clown won’t keep the money flowing to defense contractors. That’s literally hundreds of billions of dollars and some of the GOP’s biggest donors won’t be happy about that. When factories start closing in red states and districts, Republican voters aren’t going to care how it happened. They’re just going to be angry. And that’s not even touching on the generous contributions which are not at all bribes that keep elected Republicans happy and wealthy.

So, no. Pete Hegseth will not be getting through the confirmation process/auditions. Democrats certainly aren’t going to vote for him and Republicans? Well, they’re going to want a leading man who is less likely to fall off the stage drunk while trying to set the theater on fire. It’s just bad for business.

Maybe Trump can find another fascist who won’t endanger the money spigot. He has to because he really needs to put the military under his direct control or he’ll never be the dictator of his dreams. A dream he fully intends to implement at the FBI with a dangerous lunatic named Kash Patel.

K for Konsitutional Krisis

Trump likes his leading men to sing one note and one note only: T Major. It’s not part of the normal range of democratic notes we’ve been playing for the last 250 years. But it’s the only one Trump cares about and Kash Patel screams it at the top of his lungs.

Patel doesn’t really seem to have an ideology other than pleasing Trump and that’s all the qualifications he needs to run the FBI.

Just to be clear: When I say “all the qualifications” I mean that literally. Patel has literally no other qualifications to run the FBI. He was a public defender for a few years and then clung to various Republicans like a parasite but that’s it. That’s his entire resume: A short stint as a lawyer before devoting himself full time to being a sycophant. He has no actual experience at any relevant level of law enforcement, much less the FBI itself.

But he sings the song Trump wants to hear the most: That the FBI is corrupt and has been weaponized against him. Patel’s job as the Director of the FBI would be to purge it of any agents not sufficiently loyal to Trump. Once empty of all impediments to trampling the rule of law, Patel would then use the vast power of the FBI to do the very thing Republicans have been accusing Democrats of doing now: Launch an endless series of witch hunts to destroy the lives of all of Trump’s enemies.

But how would that work, exactly? Would Patel just show up in court and demand wiretaps without evidence? Would they execute search warrants without bothering to have a judge sign off on them? Would they invade the emails of journalists and activists and Democrats at will because “We’re the FBI?”

Patel will find a lot of sympathetic agents in the FBI itself. Lest we forget, Rudy Guiliani used the FBI’s NYC field office to push James Comey into releasing the memo that cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election. Law enforcement tends to be conservative by nature. But the courts? Not so much.

Patel’s hypothetical weaponized FBI can demand wiretaps on journalists from now until the end of time but unless they have cause, very few judges will sign off on it. This is not the heyday of warrantless wiretapping under the Patriot Act because invisible terrorists were under every prayer rug. There simply are not enough Aileen Cannons, James Hos, and Reed O’Connors out there. Too many judges, including judges appointed by Trump, still follow the rule of law.

That’s going to be an immense stumbling block for Patel’s plans to turn the FBI into Trump’s personal vehicle for mass destruction of his political enemies. After the first handful of investigations blow up in Patel’s face, the public is going to become extremely upset when they discover what actual government persecution looks like.

Maybe Trump plans to get the courts to sing a different tune. Every dictator seizes control of the courts to consolidate power. But Trump is a weak and lazy wannabe dictator. And that’s aside from his advanced age, poor health, failing stamina, and clear cognitive collapse. Once you add all of that into the mix, it’s not clear Trump will be able to keep all of his players dancing to the same tune long enough to topple democracy. At least not before they start stabbing each other in the back and pursuing their own solo careers/agendas.

None of this may matter in the short run because Republicans have to understand how dangerous Patel would be in that position. The specter of Patel targeting them, as well, has to loom large. At any given moment, Trump could have a temper tantrum and tweet his displeasure at a Senator who didn’t grovel enough on TV. How many elected Republicans, long-known as the most upstanding and honest people in Washington, can withstand having their lives picked over with a fine tooth comb? Not many, I’d wager. A weaponized FBI in the hands of a toddler like Trump is dangerous to everyone, even his “allies.” I’m not so sure they’re going to be eager to put a sycophant in charge whose only qualification is “I will do anything to please Donald Trump, especially destroy his enemies.” If I were the GOP, I’d be looking to cancel that particular performance just out of a sense of self-preservation. Again, we’ll find out.

And so the curtain falls on the most tortured extended metaphor ever. Sometimes, you just have to laugh at the nightmare these fascists and the unbelievably stupid people who voted for them are about to inflict on this country. Fascism thrives on fear. It wilts under scrutiny. Never look away. Never stop resisting. Hold them accountable and make them pay for every cruel thing they do. It’s the only way we get through this.

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