They Hang Traitors, Don’t They?

                In the aftermath of the plundering of the American economy by the GOP and their rich donors, it can be hard to understand what really has happened in the eleven months of Trump’s reign.  So much that we had just assumed was part of the bedrock of our politics and our culture has been eroded or destroyed.  This week they finally found a way to kill off the ACA and start the process that will strip health insurance from millions – which is a wonky way of saying they just decided to kill thousands of people they were elected to represent.  It feels like watching a group of thugs in suits trash the neighbor girl’s lemonade stand, kick her in the teeth, and then, realizing they might have left a dime on the sidewalk, going back to take the dime and kick her again.   The spectacle of rich, old, white senators writing tax breaks for each other while kicking two million kids off health care makes the Grinch look like an amateur.

                As disgusting as this display was, the even more damaging news was that the Right has decided to defend Trump’s ties to Russia by attacking the special counsel.  What worries me is not the issue of collusion – which is pretty clear by now – or even the failure of congress to do one thing to stop Russian intrusion into our elections: what worries me is treason.  Trump has taken actions against NATO, the UN and climate change that have damaged American interests around the world.  Moving our embassy to Jerusalem just gave Russia the upper hand in any future political activity in the Middle East.  This is not just a matter of being incompetent – although he surely is that – it is a direct action that weakens American interests while aiding the interests of a hostile power.  Isn’t that treason?  Trump owes Putin and the Russian oligarchs (otherwise known as the Russian mob) billions for propping up his failing real estate empire.  Now he is paving the way for Russia to dominate world politics by dismantling the American government.

                He has destroyed the State Department, politicized and attacked the FBI, CIA and EPA.  He has nominated people for federal judgeships that have never tried a case.  His pathological lying has opened the door on a politics of deception that threatens the very notion of democracy.  He is still in violation of the constitution every day he doesn’t put his business interests in a blind trust.  I think we’ve just grown numb to the onslaught.  Every day is a new low.  Every news cycle brings an even more disastrous and unbelievable transgression.  We need something to focus our intention in a way that cuts through the noise and the chaos.  TREASON should do it.  Let’s stop talking about the normal political process or anybody’s legislative agenda.  This is basic.  You have to be an American or a traitor.  No more phony umbrage over NFL protests or hollow praising of the troops.  This is a moment to save your country or be part of the mob that aids and abets a traitor.

                Trump and Putin are the prototypes of a new form of post-nationalist power.  They represent the unfettered and unregulated use of wealth outside the structure of nation states.  They need a world of weakened states to allow their form of kleptocracy to flourish.  Trump, Putin and the GOP are in business of unshackling a new class of global robber barrens intent on destroying the environment and controlling the world’s economy.  To do that they are willing to make America a second- rate power and put the safety and health of its citizens at risk.  The interests of America are the interests of its people and not the interests of a craven class of political and economic opportunists.  The ‘tax’ bill they passed this week without even knowing what was in it, was a big step toward a new world disorder.

                This is the greatest existential threat to democracy since the Civil War.  This makes Benedict Arnold look like a clownish frat boy.  It’s time to tell the MAGA crowd that we’re the real patriots.  We believe in the good things that America can still become.  They are the enemy.  Their leader is guilty of treason.  To support him is to share his guilt.  I don’t just want an impeachment, I want a hanging

It’s Come to This

                The Republican Party is on the verge of doing what seemed impossible only a year ago.  They are about to pass legislation that will officially make this country a kleptocracy like Russia.  The new tax bill isn’t just a bad bill, it is the pretext for a new round of government austerity that will make it inevitable to cut social security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, health care and infrastructure.  It will mark the point at which we stopped being a functional democracy and started evolving into a caste system where there are one set of rights for the elites and quite another set of rights for everyone else.  We’re on our way to the same predicament as the folks in Puerto Rico who live in colony that the elites have abandoned and left for dead.

                All of this is brought to you by a party that will openly run a pedophile for the senate and refuse to question the sanity of a man who is quite obviously mentally unstable.  We have reached the point where 30 -35% of the people will now tell the vast majority of their fellow citizens that alternative or oppositional views no longer matter.  We are in the middle of an occupation that will only end when we end it.  The midterms and the 2020 elections are the last chance to stop this short of revolution.  The time to equivocate over candidates is over.  We have to form a coalition – hopefully it will be as diverse as the slate of candidates elected this year – regardless of the candidates to not just drive the Republicans out of office but to drive them to extinction. 

                It is time to call the Trump administration guilty of treason, of selling out America for their own economic connections to Russia.  It is time to demand that Trump be removed from office and treated as the very sick and dangerous man he is.  It is time to hold him accountable for the sexual assault he bragged about committing and to call out the racist supporters of this administration.  It is time to tell the Christian Right that it is impossible to consider them Christians at all anymore.  What good is the idea of Heaven if when you get there you find Roy Moore and Donald Trump?

                This was legislation written up as it was passed.  No one could even know what was in it or what the possible ramifications of the bill would be.  All they knew was that their ‘donors’ told them to do it.  There were no hearings, no scoring of the bill, no debate and no compromise.  The Republican party is not an American political party.  An American political party realizes that the people who disagree with them still have rights.  Usually we talk about this as protecting the right of the minority, but in this case, it’s the rights of the majority that are being ignored.  Nothing in this bill is supported by the majority of the citizens.  The Republicans continue their use of phony data, their lies about what the bill would really do, and they are depending on a president too stupid to know the difference to sign it into law.

                The framers of the constitution never imagined a political party that cared so little about the republic or the people in it.  The Republicans have become the thing they most wanted to avoid: a class of political hacks who would sell the country for their own economic gain.  It’s time to vote them out or it's time to revolt.  Resistance alone isn’t enough anymore.  This era is over – get out of the way if you can’t lend a hand in making a new order.