Republicans Need to be Gone

What are we to do with Republicans?  They all to a man (with the exception of one of them out of a total of 291 Republicans in Congress) refuse to stand by the Constitution and the rule of law.  In the Senate they all seem to have drunk some sort of potion where patriotism and reason have been dissolved.

With an Executive Branch that is simply defying all actions of Congress in its effort to exercise its Constitutional duties, they all seem to have forgotten their oaths of office.  The Trump administration has somehow lobotomized them all to simply accept what he is doing as ok.  As an American, I am simply at a loss to understand how they all seem to have surrendered their independence and their ability to think for themselves.  The only motive I can imagine is that they are so concerned about retaining their jobs and perks that their greed and personal self-aggrandizement supplants any concept of why they were sent to Congress to serve their constituents.

Because of the state of mind that they are all in, we find that our American governmental machine has been corrupted. 

As a body politic, we are suffering from another phenomena that has sinister roots and effects, because we as the voting citizens have not been paying attention to what has been happening at the local and state level.  The Republican party has been quietly accumulating power in our statehouses.  Voters are putting these people in office, and while these new legislators profess traditional Republican values, their actions reveal a more nefarious orientation.  

Look at what is happening with the passage of abortion laws in a third of the nation.  Essentially, white men who have some Christian messianic control complex have decided that they can simply pass restrictive legislation that is directly in opposition to the law of the land, Roe v. Wade.  If you have been listening to the statements from these people over the past couple of weeks, their understanding of women’s reproductive systems and their complete negation of a person’s right to control their own body is breathtaking!  Their stupidity is consummate.  These restrictive pieces of legislation show the hateful ignorance of these legislators by not even providing for exception to their actions for instances of rape and incest, much less the welfare of the mother.

What we are witnessing is a power accumulation by forces that do not represent the majority of the public that voted them into office.  It should terrify you that while 7 in 10 people in the United States believe that Roe v. Wade is the law of the land and is rightfully providing abortion services to women, these legislators and the judges they appoint are quite content to take actions that are in direct contradiction to the will of the majority.  The passage of that law in 1973 began saving thousands of women’s lives, who before the enactment of that law faced dangerous and fatal occurrences at the hands of backdoor abortionists.

These same Republican legislators, who have been elected by voters who do not understand their real motives, are at the vanguard of those trying to deny minorities the right to vote, of those who pass legislation to restrict the powers of incoming elected officials for their own benefit. 

What we are witnessing is a creeping inexorable destruction of the basic tenets of our democracy.  These people are turning our nation into something we have not seen before in our 242 year history….a country that looks more like a mob-run banana republic than a constitutional democracy.

At the national level, the separation of powers vested in our three governmental bodies is being corrupted in plain view.  The Executive places himself and his minions above the law.  Republicans apparently unanimously decry all the attempts at constitutionally mandated oversight as witch hunt activity to try to harass an elected President.  Trump and his appointees dare the Congress to challenge them with subpoenas and demands to testify.

Forget that their claims of investigative abuse are truly unjustified and an excuse to misdirect the discussion. This is an abuse of power and obstruction of justice that couldn’t be more plain.  In simple terms, they are declaring themselves above the law.

So, how does the increasingly frustrated Congress deal with this situation?  That is the current dilemma that the Democratically controlled House of Representatives faces.  Nancy Pelosi’s hope is that the more factual information that finally is revealed and exposes the criminal duplicity of Donald Trump, the more that will educate and persuade the American people that they have been duped by the Trump administration and the Republicans.  

But Trump is no fool.  The more he defies any investigative effort, the more he can count on delaying any judicial resolution of the Congress’ efforts, and therefore any awareness of the American people before the 2020 elections. 

If the Democrats try to impeach him, his election mantra will be that they are ‘persecuting me’.  He will use that to engender sympathy and therefore the need to be re-elected.  If the Democrats don’t impeach him, they will be stalled by the judicial system by not being able to reveal what will most certainly be damning facts and information that would preclude re-election.

In the meantime, we the citizens are the real losers:  No progress on healthcare reform, infrastructure re-building, climate change deterioration, immigration reform, too many other important issues that our representatives need to be attending to.

The Trump administration is in a sorry state.  Half the needed appointees for all manner of jobs that could at least maintain the status quo of a deteriorating governmental structure are still not made.  Appointments made are filled with incompetents—have you seen the clips of HUD Secretary Ben Carson trying to answer rudimentary questions from Congresswoman Katie Porter yesterday?  Shameful and disgraceful!  The man knows nothing about the office he occupies and nothing about the mandate HUD has to assist people in need.  He is one of the many incompetents appointed by this administration.

It is possible that Americans are waking up to the debacle that has become our daily political life.  The reaction by millions of women to the anti-Roe v. Wade actions of many state legislators could foreshadow a massive vote to change things.  Polls suggest that the wave of anti Trump voting we saw in 2018 could be a tsunami in 2020.  I am more certain than ever that the only real way to make things better in the United States at this point is to understand that all the current Republicans need to be removed.  Since they all seem to approve of Trump’s defying the rule of law, they have no business being our representatives.  They should be voted out en-masse at the earliest opportunity.  Only when we place people who place the rule of law, honesty, integrity and patriotism above all else will we have any hope of redemption.