History Eats Itself

Today is January 29th, 2021.  Exactly 1 year ago on this date, I wrote this blog post.  

Wednesday, January 29, 2020,  Partisanship Vs. the Constitution

Donald Trump‘s defense team appealed for a quick acquittal. "It will show that you put the Constitution above partisanship," White House counsel Pat Cipollone told senators in his closing remarks. 

The hypocrisy on display here is just staggering.

That the Senate Republicans were prepared to vote in favor of Donald Trump before one word was uttered by the defense is the very definition of putting partisanship above the Constitution.  

That was then. This is now. And one year later, Donald Trump is facing his second impeachment for his reckless and nefarious role inciting the January 6th siege of the US Capitol by a swarm of Trump's agitated supporters.   

Nothing, it appears, has changed.  

45 Senate Republicans voted on Tuesday to dismiss the Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump.  Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul introduced the measure to stop the trial before it even got started, arguing that holding such a trial of a former president was not constitutional.   

My God, Republicans love to hit people about the head and shoulders with the Constitution whenever anything happens they don't like. 

Donald Trump's preternatural hold on the Republican Party persists even as Trump's post presidential corpse is rotting in Mar-A-Lago. 

Rand Paul's effort to stop the impeachment trial has fuck all to do with any constitutional concerns and every thing to do with the calcified partisan divides between the Republican Party and every damn body else.   

Even now, in the face of Trump's most egregious act, the Republican Party cannot look beyond itself and hold one of their own to account.  

To do so would force several Republicans would have to answer for their own complicity in Trump's actions who echoed the big lie that the election was riddled with fraud and Trump's rightful victory was stolen from him.  

Why blame Trump for the rally run amuck when everyone has some responsibility as Kevin McCarthy pitched last weekend? 

Why bother with this since Trump is out of office? Why not just "give the guy a break" as Nikki Haley asked?

The 10 Representatives who did vote for impeachment in the House last week are facing angry responses and punitive action from the party faithful back home. 

Trump may be gone from the White House but he's not gone from the party. Donald Trump is the Republican Party and loyalty to Trump is loyalty to the party and loyalty to the party trumps all other concerns. 

As I wrote on January 29th, 2020:   

In the battle of Partisanship Vs. the Constitution, Partisanship is still on it’s feet, smugly smiling with hardly a cut or bruise while the Constitution lays bloody, beaten and gasping for breath on the mat.

One year later, it appears nothing has changed. 

I wrote this post two days later: 

Friday, January 31, 2020, The Impeachment Inevitability

Meanwhile, the man the Senate Republicans have bartered their souls to Satan to defend, Donald J. Trump, continues to be a fucking lying moron.  I mean, the GOP is going to the wall for defend... this guy? I mean, come on! 

The fix is in. 

One year later with Democrats in charge of the Presidency, the House and the Senate, somehow, even now, even with literal blood on their hands from the events of January 6th, somehow, 

The fix is still in. 

And history eats itself.