Now is the Clarion Call.....

The climate has changed in America...you can feel the ill winds blowing.   Trump’s acquittal has unshackled the forces of despair and evil, and now we all wait for the next development that will expand the level of ‘unprecedented’.

The problem America has is not Donald Trump.  He is merely the most visible symptom.  But this past week we got a glimpse of the what lies under the crust of the effort to hide the real discovery that our country’s leadership has rejected the rule of law and has abandoned truth as the ‘true north’ of the American ideal.  We saw our Senate abandon their oaths of office to protect our Constitution.  And maybe for the first time, we truly see what the Republicans have become.  They have rejected the principles of a fair trial; the presentation of evidence and reliance on testimony and documentation.

As a group (and a predominantly white male group) of overweight, blathering supplicants to the acquisition of power above all else, we can think back over the past 3 years, longer actually,  and see clearly how they have defiled the republic our founders created and gave to us.   All you have to do is think about the display they made at the State of the Union event in our House of Representatives.  They all know that Trump is guilty.  But they are so fearful of him that to a man, save for Mitt Romney, they rejected the truth and surrendered to their own greed and power. 

The sad truth is that they do not represent the people who elected them anymore.  75% of our citizenry wanted further testimony and release of documents during the impeachment trial, but their wishes were ignored by the Republicans.  That is not representative government, my fellow Americans.  That is autocracy and dictatorship….think Russia, China, and other countries that have ‘representative legislative bodies’ that rubber stamp policy and edicts from dictatorial leaders.  We have fallen that far.

And so now the carnage continues, without remorse or regret.  The damage that these people are doing to our republic approaches the point of no return.  Things will not change as far as everyday aspects of our lives are concerned…for a while.  Your TV shows will still be on the air; food will still be in the grocery stores; life for the majority of Americans will appear to be the same….but other things will begin to change.  Elections will be contested as rigged by those who don’t get the result they want.  Republicans will continue to purge voter rolls of people of color, and gerrymander voting districts, destroying the integrity of the vote.  Executive orders will supplant legislative action.  People like Mitch McConnell will do all in their power to corrupt and halt positive middle class and working-class initiatives.  Immigration policy will become increasingly cruel and unlawful.  Look at the example of what the Trump administration announced it is doing in New York re: restricting the ability to expedite  boarding of airplanes as punishment for New York being a state that claims  sanctuary support to stop cruel immigration crackdowns by ICE.

McConnell and his Republican majority in the Senate has basically stopped and blocked all House legislative actions.  McConnell’s mission is to flood our courts with confirmed arch conservative judges who will serve the mandates of corporate interests over the interests of the common citizen.  Money and power are now all important.  Retribution for those who rose to support the Constitution and supported impeachment is now going to be the order of the day.  We have already seen it with the Vindman brothers being summarily fired from their White House jobs.  All the others who spoke out in support of our Constitution and obeyed subpoenas to testify are now fearful for their futures as the administration proceeds unabated to purge them from government.

We are fast approaching the last exit before the toll, my friends.  The national election in November will be the last chance we have to stop this madness.  It is not even really about Trump as President that is the real threat.  We can count on him to behave in the most sinister and egregious way.  It is the rot in our legislature that is the real threat.  And you can expect the most vile election in our history as claims of election rigging will abound, not to mention the probability of more episodes like Ukraine and worse, as forces from outside our boundaries strive to curry favor with Trump and find ways to help him cheat his way to re-election.

The Democrats are stumbling.  They must recover and focus on defeating those senators from every state having a senatorial election.  McConnell must be defeated or made a minority or else we will never regain the power to redeem ourselves.  The Republicans have proven themselves liars and craven power-hungry supplicants to a man they fear.  Our ability to survive beyond 2020 as a democratic republic hinges on our ability to motivate our people to vote these miscreants and Trump out of office and replace them with people who believe in integrity, honesty, and the rule of law.