With Trump's Acquittal, Winning In 2020 May No Longer Matter

Senate Republicans have just doomed democracy in America.

Feb 03, 2020

by Ben Cohen

Trump’s assured acquittal in the Senate impeachment trial was never really in doubt. One hoped some Republican Senators would show courage and take the process seriously, and maybe even vote to impeach. It would have shown that the country could still hold a fair trial, present important evidence to the public, and function as a democracy. But those hopes were dashed last week, as the Senate voted 51-49 to not even allow new witnesses in the trial.

This stunning abdication of duty has disastrous consequences for the country, and the Democrats now have few tools to stop Trump turning the United States into a fascist dictatorship.

Trump’s Senate

Two Republicans, Mitt Romney of Utah, and Susan Collins of Maine voted to allow new witnesses, but every other Republican in the Senate buckled to Trump and Mitch McConnell’s pressure. Their reasoning was simple: new evidence, particularly John Bolton’s revelation that Trump told him personally to blackmail Ukraine into investigating the Bidens, would incinerate what was left of their defense. McConnell gambled that voting to block new witnesses would make the subsequent vote to acquit Trump less embarrassing for the party.

Everyone outside of Trump’s cultish base understands he is guilty. The GOP knows it, political moderates know it, and so does the right wing media complex. They also know that admitting guilt would force them to take a moral stand and alienate their own voters and audience. The Republican voting base is so firmly behind Trump that no one in the party can ever stand up to him, and no one in the right wing media bubble can dare point out the obvious.

It can happen here, and it is

Trump has bullied the party into submission, and with his assured acquittal in the Senate for a text book impeachment crime, there is now nothing he cannot do as president. He can bribe foreign governments into investigating political opponents, suppress evidence as he sees fit, allow foreign interference in American elections, lie without consequence, cheat, and rig trials for his own benefit. America is in the midst of a fascist takeover of government, and Trump is a bonafide dictator in the making. Those who understand history have seen this play out before and are rightly sounding the alarm.

Americans might think that “it can’t happen here”. It can, and it is happening right now.

If you pay attention to Trump’s language, he has been setting the country up for a hostile takeover since before he got into office. Before he won the election in 2016 and it looked like he was going to lose, he told his supporters that “the election is going to be rigged.” He told an interview later that day that “people are going to walk in and they’re going to vote ten times.” He claimed the Russia investigation was “a hoax” and a “Deep State plot” to get him out of office. He has dismissed impeachment as a “witch hunt” and compared them to the Salem witch trials.

There is now no way to stop Trump

Leading up to the 2020 elections, Trump’s grip on power is almost complete. He has locked up the Supreme Court, the Senate, the State Department, and the Department of Justice. Only Congress has any authority to curb his outrageous abuses of power, and that will not be enough to prevent him declaring victory in 2020 if he loses the vote.

“The best case scenario is that enough American voters will turn out -- overwhelming the vote and directly punishing Trump and McConnell with undisputed defeats in spite of their cheating,” Bob Cesca wrote in a sobering piece for The Banter last week.

That may help, but as Bill Maher noted on his show last week, it might not be. “When I’ve asked Democrats, what do we do if he doesn’t go? Their answer is always some variation of we have to win big,”

“Okay first of all, no. No.” Maher said. “We don’t have to win via landslide. Jesus. Fucking Democrats. I am so sick of Democrats volunteering to play by two different sets of rules. That’s the new paradigm? Republicans can win by one vote but we’re not legitimate unless it’s a landslide.”

Maher quoted Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who told Congress last year that “given my experience working for Mr Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020, that there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”

If anyone understands how ruthless and dangerous Trump is, it is personal lawyer.

“If Trump loses, there’s zero chance he doesn’t say it’s a conspiracy by the Deep State trying to take another election away from you people, my people,” Maher said.

Pelosi understands what is at stake

It is worth considering the fact that Democrats in Congress are also preparing themselves for just that scenario. “We have to inoculate against that, we have to be prepared for that,” Nancy Pelosi told The New York Times last year.

Pelosi knows there is absolutely no way Trump is going to accept defeat, and no way his party or the right wing media is going to defy him either. Trump can order Bill Barr to begin an investigation with predetermined findings, claim there was election fraud, and refuse to leave. The right wing media complex will find a way to justify Trump’s conspiracy theory and whip the base into a violent frenzy. Who, then, will stand up to him and make him leave? Pelosi and the Democrats in Congress would be reliant on law enforcement obeying them, and not the president — a big ask given their loyalty to Trump.

"I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump,” Trump said in an interview with Breitbart [note: The Banter does not link to Breitbart]. “I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."

The only course of action then, is for the country to prepare for mass demonstrations and potential civil unrest if the Democrats win in November. Trump is preparing for a hostile takeover of the US government, so the people must be ready to stop him by any means necessary. Thanks to the spineless cowards in the US Senate, the situation is now that serious.

Photo by History in HD on Unsplash

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