The Great Divide
Every day that goes by, more and more information comes out to clarify the nature of the events that really took place in the Capitol last week, and it isn’t getting any better. In fact, there is a feeling that we are getting the slow-play version of the real story and this onion peeling exercise might well end up giving us a look at a very rotten onion. Now that Impeachment Resolution has passed the House with a vote of 232 to 197, with 10 Republicans (most notably Liz Cheney) voting for impeachment and four Republicans abstaining. As has been reported, that is as much a bipartisan endorsement for impeachment of a President as has ever been recorded in the history of the United States. I view that outcome as saying that fourteen Republicans would not allow their conscience to be burdened by further support of a man unfit for office and a potentially serious threat to other Americans in the line of fire of the mob that supports him. Donald Trump has given ample reasons now, political, economic, social or moral, to withdraw support for him. At the extreme you have a Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, who had just received the Medal of Freedom from Trump for his dogged and stalwart support of Trump, and no matter how avid he is as a supporter, he too was under the gun on January 6th. There is Mike Pence who was targeted by Trump as a “traitor” to the cause and a coward for not violating the law and his oath of office in the counting and declaration of the electoral vote. The gallows set up in front of the Capitol practically had his and Nancy Pelosi’s names on it. And yet, the Veep is unwilling in his fear and anger to take the logical and constitutional step of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. What all of this tells us is that the political system of the country is not so much divided, as it is logically designed to be in a two-party system, but it is fractured in multiple directions.
The fractures that get the most press at this moment are in the Republican Party on the view that those in the GOP that fervently support Trump are separating from those who feel he has gone too far and is not a positive force for the Party any longer. Given Trump’s personal criminal and financial problems, as well as his newfound taste of political power, he does not want to lose his relevance and power base, so he continues to demand loyalty and take names of those who withhold it. As for the Republicans, let’s all remember that before 2016 and the realization that there was a meaningfully large base of voters who wanted what Trump represented, most of the Republican mainstay were quite vocally anti-Trump. They called it like it was in declaring him unfit for office and morally corrupt. Of course, as epitomized by Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio, politicians quickly became chameleons that forgot all his nasty rebukes and got in line behind him, effectively tipping their hat to the strength of his populist support. Now the lines seem to run in directions that don’t really follow pure political lines, but have become much more personal. Liz Cheney has become the leader of the dump Trump Republican caucus, perhaps influenced by her father and perhaps just personally sick of his clear unpatriotic moves. Mitch McConnell, at age 78 and just re-elected for another six years, has taken a decidedly more pragmatic and politically motivated tack of denouncing Trump through surrogates, but yet refusing to recall the Senate early to begin the Impeachment trial before the inauguration. Mitch is mad that Trump cost him his Senate leadership gavel and is probably doing what he always does, playing chess out several moves to outflank his opponents, all in hopes of regain the man tale of authority to advance the conservative agenda in any and every way he can do so.
The rest of the Republican herd is running hither and yon just like a stampeding herd of cattle, no longer knowing which direction leads to less risk versus more risk. Several in the herd, indeed a painfully slowly growing number, seem prepared to go in a direction driven by conscience, but the rest are just running where the herd is headed in the theory that there is safety in numbers and safety in anonymity. That facelessness likely ends early next week for senators just as it did for House members this week when they have to stand up and declare their vote about whether to convict or not convict the guiltiest president the country has ever elected. In terms of the rift in the party, the unwillingness or inability of Donald Trump to accept his new status and move on so the Party can mend itself is the biggest factor standing in the way of the most likely fix. He could not even pretend to have lost to keep Georgia voters in the poll lines to cast their red ballots. That was a clear sign that he had no intention of going down quietly. And we all have seen enough of what awaits him at the other end of the line (criminal, civil and financial ruin with a chaser of total brand collapse). The man is finished for good this time and I sense that he knows it. Thus, he sees no odds in demurring and is inclined to use the tactic that has given this nimble cat his prior nine lives through at least six bankruptcies and three personal scandals. He is a cat with no lives left looking out at an abyss.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are only better because the situation in the GOP is front and center and being beaten daily by the Trump stick. Within the Democratic caucus there are at least two factions that naturally rub each other raw, even without thinking about who will rule the party after Biden. The forces of anti-Trumpism are so strong that they have temporarily set aside their differences to get past this crazed moment. Think of Godzilla being distracted by Rodan only to find King Kong ready to pounce once he had been worn out. Biden represents the most moderate wing of the Democratic Party. Most of us believed that was the best way to defeat Trump and it worked. It worked well enough, but not so overwhelmingly that the forces of Trump couldn’t mount their Stop the Steal campaign even though it lacked any basis in fact. The Progressive wing of the Party is temporary hiding behind a rock and saving its energy for the right moment to make its play. And of course, it is not lost on anyone on either side that King Kong, as dangerous as he may be to many, is only helpful to Godzilla if he’s poking Rodan in the eye and not Godzilla. The war of the Titans makes for a fearful world. To mix metaphors, as the expression goes, when the elephants are dancing, the monkeys should stay in the trees.
It is my belief that Democrats can more easily heal their divide between progressives and moderates than the current psyche of Republicans (as we currently know them) will allow for a merger with the moderate Democrats. That is a shame that makes little sense to me and, I think, less sense to a growing list of Republicans who are getting weary of the reactionary and somewhat deranged side of their Party. Political history suggests that this may all end with a three-party system with (for ease of understanding and not because I would stand by these definitions), Socialists on the left, Fascists on the right and the broadest swath of Moderates of a broad range in the middle. I see this as the likeliest solution to keep the peace in the short run (next twenty years), though my personal preference would be for a longer-term solution that must be more collectivist in nature so that everyone gets significant skin in the game and we heal the Great Divide.