WSWS Offers Its View

It’s an op-ed, and much longer on claims than on evidence, as usual.

Democrats’ impeachment cover-up leaves coup-plotter Trump emboldened
Andre Damon
10 hours ago
The US Senate voted Saturday to acquit President Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection” in connection with the attempted coup of January 6, 2021.

The verdict marks a milestone in the breakdown of American democracy. A president sought to overthrow the separation of powers and install himself as dictator, and Congress refused to take the most basic action to hold him accountable.

By voting to acquit, 43 Republican senators gave aid and comfort to a fascist coup attempt. Their votes showed what they would have done had Trump succeeded: they would have endorsed and supported the overthrow of the Constitution.
Trump’s “legal” defense was a combination of incompetent sophistry and raving hysterics, making the fascist argument that his insurrection was the outcome of—or even the appropriate response to—left-wing demonstrations against police violence. Trump lawyer Michael Van der Veen declared that the Capitol riot was “pre-planned by fringe left” groups.

Emerging from the impeachment trial emboldened, Trump stands secure in his position as the head of the Republican Party. “Donald Trump is the most vibrant member of the Republican Party,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close Trump ally, gloated on Fox News Sunday. “The Trump movement is alive and well.”

This outcome was aided by the Democrats, who sabotaged Trump’s prosecution. The Democrats purposely protected Trump’s co-conspirators. This includes the 147 Republican House and Senate members who voted against the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory, along with those who provided the political framework for the January 6 insurrection with charges of a “rigged” election. It also includes those forces within the state who secretly worked with Trump to orchestrate a stand-down of federal forces on January 6.

Throughout the trial, the Democrats begged and pleaded with the same Republicans who encouraged and took part in Trump’s drive to overturn the election.

The Democratic impeachment managers never once addressed themselves to the American people or sought to explain the political strategy behind the insurrection. They did not once mention what was happening inside the Capitol while Trump was inciting the mob–the objection by one congressman and senator after another to the electoral vote totals certified by the states in an election Trump lost by over seven million votes.

The only reference to the Republicans’ objections during the entire trial was a video played by the Democratic impeachment managers of the rioters ransacking the desks of members of the Senate, in which one of the insurrectionists declared that Republican Senator Ted Cruz was “with us” because he backed Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

The Democrats also deliberately excluded any discussion of why the rioters were allowed to overrun the Capitol without any opposition from the tens of thousands of National Guard and federal military forces stationed in and just outside Washington. The day after the riot, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan said that his request to deploy the Maryland National Guard to Washington to support the Capitol police was held up for 90 minutes by the acting secretary of defense, who had been installed by Trump after the November 3 election. It was only the secretary of the Army who gave the authorization to release the Guard.

Yet there was no investigation of which elements in the military chain of command facilitated the stand-down and whether this was done at the orders of Trump.

Even as they limited their case to Trump’s actions alone, the impeachment managers kneecapped the prosecution on even the extremely limited, legalistic grounds for impeachment they had set out.

On Friday night, Washington Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican, released a statement making clear that Trump actively supported the insurrectionists in a phone conversation with Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. According to Herrera Beutler, when McCarthy pleaded with Trump to stop the attack, Trump openly sided with the insurrectionists, saying, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”

With the Democrats in control of the Senate, not only Herrera Beutler, but dozens of other people with first-hand knowledge of Trump’s attempt to overturn the election and the stand-down of federal forces could have been subpoenaed and forced to testify under oath.

But despite winning a vote to bring Herrera Beutler and possibly other witnesses to testify, the Democrats abruptly backtracked, hastily bringing the trial to an end less than 24 hours after Herrera Beutler’s statement.

The record of Trump’s first impeachment—centered around the Democrats’ differences with Trump over foreign policy—spanned thousands of pages. The impeachment process unfolded over a period of three months, including many witnesses called before the House committees considering the charges.

But after the greatest assault on constitutional government in the country’s history, the Democrats devoted less than a week to the Senate trial, on the grounds that the impeachment was a distraction from other legislative priorities. This claim was proven to be a complete fraud when the Senate adjourned for a week immediately following the impeachment vote, and senators left town for the recess.

It is worth comparing the way in which the second impeachment of Trump was conducted with the investigation of the Watergate scandal under the Nixon administration. The Senate hearings that began in February 1973, chaired by Democratic Senator Sam Ervin, led not only to Nixon’s forced resignation in the face of virtually certain impeachment, but also to the exposure of FBI and CIA involvement and the criminal conviction of nearly two dozen people. And all that was triggered by a single burglary carried out by five people, in which no one was injured, let alone killed.

The Iran-Contra hearings in 1987 also had significant consequences. The investigation revealed that the Reagan administration flagrantly violated the Boland Amendment, passed by Congress to prohibit US government assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras. It also exposed the existence of the Rex 84 plan for the mass detention of “subversive” elements.

The Democrats’ deliberate sabotage of their own case in the second Trump impeachment was widely noted by legal observers. “If the House was going to impeach, it should have framed the case to make it as difficult as possible for the Senate to acquit,” wrote Michael W. McConnell, a constitutional professor at Harvard Law School.

“It is abundantly clear,” he noted, that Trump “sought to intimidate members of Congress and other officials to block Mr. Biden’s election, and that he failed in his duty to do what he could to end the violence once it started. Those would be ample grounds for conviction.”

But any investigation of the Republicans’ efforts to overturn the election and the stand-down of federal forces would have implicated precisely the forces the Democrats were most concerned with protecting.

Following the impeachment vote, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made clear the Democrats’ motivation for protecting Trump’s Republican co-conspirators. “We need a strong Republican Party,” Pelosi said, echoing an earlier declaration by Biden.

In choosing between the interests of the ruling elite and democratic forms of government, the Democrats will side with the needs of America’s plutocracy every time. The Democrats have proven once again that they have no interest in defending constitutional forms of government in the United States. The defense of democratic rights must and will be carried out through the independent mobilization of the working class on the basis of an anti-capitalist, socialist program.

Billy_T wrote:

That makes sense. Protecting themselves while protecting Trump in effect. But it’s a perverse bargain. They wouldn’t be in danger if not for Trump. Not politically or literally. And that part puzzles me. The GOP, if it wanted to, could shut Trump down, along with his entire base, if they got on the same page against him, as they are now pretending to be for him.

I think this is just math.

The Republican candidate for president has won the popular vote once out of the past 8 elections.

Only 25% of the country identifies as Republican, and a quarter of them are 65+, and more than half are 50+.

To the extent that they have been successful, it has been largely due to gerrymandering and a wide variety of voter suppression tactics.

What I’m saying is… they can’t afford to alienate any Republicans. The Trump wing of the party has already thrown down people who are not sufficiently “loyal.” Perdue and Loeffler lost because part of the Trump base was alienated from voting.

I think the anti-Trump GOP had their perspective voiced by McConnell yesterday. They would like to see Trump go down to criminal charges which removes him from the scene, and they won’t be blamed for it.

Trump may be a convicted criminal by 2024, if not by 2022. There are several breeches in Trump’s hull, and he may sink all on his own without the GOP having to alienate anybody. I think that is the play.

InvaderRam wrote:

that was a very good listen.

made me think. the one thing that could appeal to jj watt. and if i was the rams’ front office this is how i would sell it if they really want to sign him. is the opportunity to play alongside aaron donald. two guys. two peers. very few players have ascended to the heights that these two players have reached. and the opportunity to not only play with one another. but to practice with one another day in and day out. to learn from each other. to push each other. well. that would be very special…

or you can go play with your brother in pittsburgh.

I would think the pull to play with his brother, who is not a bad player, would be stronger. If he’s going to give a discount….

Billy_T wrote:

Biden stopped the XL pipeline, for instance, reversed dozens of Trump’s earth-killing orders, stopped our support of the Saudi’s war in Yemen, and is actually trying to defeat the pandemic. Environmentalists are hopeful, for the first time in years, that progressive change is possible.

I read somewhere that Warren Buffet contributed millions of dollars to Biden’s campaign.

And the Buffett is the owner of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway Company, the largest freight railroad in North America, and the one person who benefits the most financially from the transport of oil from Alberta to Texas, the route of the XL Pipeline.

Furthermore, the news of the XL cancellation has overshadowed the news that Biden has approved 31 new drilling permits on federal lands and coastal waters ALREADY. Here’s an article from Rigzone, the oil industry employment clearinghouse.

So… environmentalists might just want to join wvram in going “over the edge,” because pinning one’s hopes on Joe Biden’s environmental progressivism is questionable.

zn wrote:

Republicans, on the other hand, are sticking with Trump no matter the consequences because they simply can’t imagine a world in which they have to appeal to anything beyond white identity to win elections.

I think that is true for some of them, but not all of them. This is an interesting ground for speculation. I think they are simply calculating that they cannot afford to piss off the Trump base because if they do, they will lose just like Loeffler and Perdue. They are in a pickle, and they are lining up with the noisiest, most visible part of the Republican party out of fear.

If I was arguing for the Democrats, I would try to get them to fear siding with Trump. Everybody saw it. The % of people who think that Trump’s behavior is justifiable is pretty low. And the senators know this. They were there. So this isn’t about “voting one’s conscience.” Those Republican senators are not interested in the principles at stake (with the exception of Sasse, Romney, and maybe a couple of others). They are only interested in their own political position, their own political futures. If I was making an appeal to the Republican senators, and genuinely hoped they would vote to convict, I would make the argument that the Trump ship is going down. He has been cut off from his social media platforms, and has no way to fan the flames of his supporters any more. And he is now already facing the first of what is likely to be multiple legal/criminal challenges in multiple states for a variety of actions including tax fraud, racketeering, and financial defaults. I would argue that the further we get away from the Trump presidency and the heat of the moment, the more public opinion is going to see the dismal failings of a man who is headed to ruin, and when they go up for re-election in 2 years, 4 years, or 6 years, a vote to acquit Donald Trump in the face of – frankly – overwhelming evidence…well, that’s going to be an anchor on their future, not a boost. I would make an argument that if they are really concerned about their own political future, they safer bet is to vote to convict.

Another point of interest here is that the Democrats aren’t calling in witnesses. The GOP was shitting itself at the prospect, and my guess is that is because witnesses would have testified about who knew what and when, exposing the complicity (or outright support) of the Capitol police and several GOP congressmen, both in the House and Senate. It would have ripped the GOP in half, and decimated the party. But they would not have gone down without taking as many Democrats as possible down with them by bringing up ANYTHING they had on them, no matter how irrelevant to the Jan. 6 incident. I suspect the Dems caved on this in order to preserve “stability.” But that’s just armchair speculation. They have certainly been very careful to confine the case to Trump alone, however, and even tried to make the case that the GOP is not responsible as a whole.

Some quality work on Tanden’s wiki page. It’s already gone, but someone got a screencap.

My accounts gonna get pegged, but it's worth it https://t.co/r9ltL8EEhO pic.twitter.com/Ad5OFv26Cg

— Glory Jones🌺⏳#FreeAssange🙏🏽🍀🎗🕊✨ (@drgloryjjjjj958) February 10, 2021

I was thinking about Watson, and if I was Houston, I would have asked for Donald + in a deal for Watson. A great player for a great player. One’s a QB, the other isn’t. And Watson is younger, and likely to have a longer productive career, so I can see that request.

But Stafford? No. That’s not even… just no.

I would have thought he would get there before Calvin Johnson.

I think IR is right. The problem is that he played with a lot of other HoFers.

zn wrote:

New
@RamsNFL
QB Matthew Stafford has been one of the most efficient passers on play action over the last two seasons.

Since 2019, Stafford has generated the 2nd-most EPA on play action (+84.7) despite using play action at a below-average rate (23.5% of dropbacks).

Imagine how effective he could be if he had a running game.

Nah, it’s nothing to do with BB. What I read (or heard on the radio) is that Stafford had an exhausting relationship with Matt Patricia when he was the beyond awful head coach of the Lions. The Lions were in disarray the entire time under Patricia, and Patricia is now back on the coaching staff at NE.

That seems far more plausible to me than that Stafford is afraid of “tough coaching” from BB. That doesn’t pass the eyeball test.

The elimination of the Patriots as a destination had nothing to do with BB.

Maddy wrote:

Ha! This site was unavailable to me for a period of time, like it had been dismantled and terminated. I tried to find this crew as I have in past migrations. Couldn’t find you guys. I thought it was over. Then I just tried again and here it was!

Welcome back. It has been awhile.

I think this trade is more on McVay than on Snead. I don’t think this was Les Snead’s idea. It was McVay’s, and Snead approved it.

Stan wants a Super Bowl right now, and he hired McVay to do that. McVay thinks that the missing piece of the puzzle is at QB. He has undoubtedly been having ongoing conversations with Snead since before he was even hired about his system, and what he needs in the way of players, and they have been talking about Goff since the very beginning.

McVay convinced Snead with evidence, analysis, and explanations that an upgrade at QB was the first, most important change that the Rams could make this off-season to give them the best possible chance of winning the Super Bowl next year.

I do not think that the decision was made rashly, or recklessly, or without careful consideration of every angle on the team, and its future. Whether the plan works or not is to be seen. One thing is for sure: both McVay and Snead have staked their jobs on this trade.

But…on meddling…both Davis and Jones had some football experience (Davis a lot;Jones less than he thinks), so they meddled. Stan is a businessman who has to be told what inning the game is in. The Rams are an investment, a Brand, and a flag planted in the middle of American consciousness. He hires the best experts he has, and defers to their judgment. That’s just smart business. If they succeed, they are going to be rewarded and if they fail, they will be replaced.