The Definition of Treason

This is the first time since all this began that I am really scared.

I feel like I am witnessing the transition of the democracy I grew up with in the US into something different-- something evil that rejects lofty ideals, veracity, the rule of law, and compassion and replaces it with paranoia and a complete assault on truth.

What is happening in the White House and the Congress is a result and condition the founding fathers may have thought was possible, but is only being tested now for the first time 247 years after the country’s founding. 

What we are experiencing is the manifestation of treason. 

We are becoming a society so polarized that we are warring with our institutions.  Our democratic structure of separation of powers and the existence of a system of checks and balances in our governmental structure is being corrupted.  We are  changing from a system where all of us are responsible for monitoring the even balance of power to a new paradigm where self interest, greed, and naked autocracy are replacing the old order.

The collapse of the Republican party and it’s morphing into a tool of the autocratic power center in the Executive Branch marks this transition.  And friends, what that amounts to is the assault and redefinition of truth, evidence and facts into propaganda, lies, and deceit.  It almost doesn’t matter who is responsible for our slow motion slide into this state of chaos and deconstruction.  What is more important is whether there is anything or anyone who can stop it.

What would you call a president who, when confronted with evidence that a hostile foreign power had tried to influence our election, would repeatedly reject those findings and fail to take action to shore up the nation’s defenses against a repetition?  That person, while denying facts presented by the nation’s intelligence community, has tried repeatedly and surreptitiously to remove sanctions on Russia voted overwhelmingly by the Congress--in fact has moved to nullify those sanctions by simply refusing to enforce them. 

And, most unthinkable, a president, confronted with evidence that his own top officials found probable cause to surveil a former campaign aide, Carter Page, for acting as the agent of a foreign power, reacts with indignation — not at the aide but at the accusation.

I know what I would call a person like this.

And now we see Trump rabble rousing his lemming-like Republican toadies to join him in this treasonous quest to destroy our justice system and denigrate our law enforcement structure.

I have always believed that the salvation of this descent into despotism would be our election process.  Get ready folks.  The midterm elections in November are going to be accused by this administration of being rigged, fraudulent, or whatever antidemocratic term they can concoct.  Trump’s re-election effort in 2020 will be even worse.  Trump and the Republican zombies he has created will attempt to sow seeds of distrust , bias and paranoia in the electorate.  You think you’ve seen horrible attack ads in the past?---Wait, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

There are two escape routes from this disastrous path the country is on:

1. Begin to change the Congress back into an organ that accepts its responsibility to be a separate but equal branch of the government.  That will only happen if we are able to actually have elections to change the composition of our representatives over the next three cycles.  Beware of Russia—they are not done with us yet.

2. Hope that the Special Counsel, Mueller, will soon present what I believe will be overwhelming evidence of a long conspiracy by the Russians to groom someone like Trump to be manipulated into office.  He needs to be impeached, but that is only possible if we accomplish solution #1.  It is clear that the Republican majority has been co-opted by treasonous forces, and we can expect only opposition to the re-instatement of respect for our institutions and the rule of law.