The Six Raised Hands

When those six hands went up during the Republican presidential debate a few days ago, I thought it qualified as the year’s most terrifying moment.  And at the time it did.  But no longer.  MAGA Republicans have superseded it.

Polls show that as many as 80 percent of Republicans say they also would vote for Donald Trump even if he were convicted of a felony.

And remember: Not only is Trump charged with committing a felony – 91 felonies actually — but he also is essentially charged with running a criminal empire dedicated to destroying America as we know it.  He is charged under laws that Congress wrote specifically to help law enforcers go after Mafia dons, and that’s exactly what the Department of Justice did.

The department did not charge Trump with incitement because it said he has the First Amendment right to lie about the election all he wants to. But it did charge him with:

• Conspiring to defraud the United States by “using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit” to stop the government from determining the results of a presidential election;
• Conspiring to obstruct the lawful January 6 congressional proceeding to count and certify the results of the presidential election; and
• Conspiring to deny Americans their “right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.”

Those crimes are damn near treason, and Republicans overwhelmingly want him to be our president! !!!   They want him even though he opposes the right to vote and have your vote counted, and he runs a criminal empire to get it done.  They forgive him all that while they focus on finding some way to impeach President Biden.

Yes yes I know a person is innocent until proven guilty.  But that’s legally guilty.  We all know Trump did at least most of what he is charged with, and any one of them is enough to eliminate him from the ballot.

But there’s so much more.  Those charges are in addition to the 13 felony counts in Georgia that accuse him of racketeering, forgery, filing false documents and making false statements; 34 felony charges in New York for falsifying business records; and a civil case in New York charging him with financial fraud.

He’s even a convicted rapist whose victim is suing him for character assassination.

And that’s the person Republicans want to be president of the United States of America.  Unbelievable.

Here is a man who, according to The Washington Post, publicly made more than 800 inaccurate claims about the election from the time polls started closing on Nov. 3, 2020,  until he left the White House.  Dozens of times he characterized the election as “rigged,” “stolen” or “a hoax.”  He flatly declared he had won even though a mountain of evidence showed he had lost, and he admitted privately he knew he had lost.

If that’s not enough for Republicans to throw him out of the race, add to the list the undeniable truth that the 14^th Amendment clearly  prohibits Trump from running for president — or from holding any other public office, ever.  Section 3 of the amendment stipulates that any person who has ever “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States, or “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”, shall forever be prohibited from holding any state or federal office.

The amendment does not demand that a person be convicted of engaging in an insurrection or rebellion.  It only stipulates that he/she had “engaged in” or “given aid or comfort” to those who did.

Who can deny with a straight face that Trump gave the rioters aid and comfort?  The riot lasted seven hours, and much of that time Trump sat in the White House dining room watching it on television.  His aides pleaded with him to do something but he refused.  By the time he finally did do something at least 2,000 rioters had crashed through the Capitol building, five people had been fatally injured, and about 140 officers had suffered injuries.  Trump fiddled while Rome burned and we all watched him do it.

Our Founding Fathers feared one thing above all else, and that was that a demagogue would arise, become president, and Congress and the American people would succumb to him.  Trump is the very definition of the word demagogue, he is rising, and a  lot of Americans are succumbing to him.

But Republicans don’t care about his being a demagogue. They don’t care about all his  felonies.  They don’t even mind trampling on the Constitution if that’s what it takes to get Donald Trump elected next year.

There can be no denying what these new Republicans want.  They want to destroy our democracy and replace it with a Trump-headed authoritarian form of government.  They want to win, and they’ll do anything to do it.

For evidence of what Republicans are doing you need look no further than what the far-right Freedom Caucus is doing in Congress right now.  It is threatening to shut down the government unless Congress includes three items in the legislation it must pass soon to keep the government funded:

• A House-passed border security bill;
• A way to “address the unprecedented weaponization” of the Justice Department and the FBI; and
• Provisions that would put an “end” to the “woke policies in the Pentagon.”

The sponsors do not suggest a way to “address the unprecedented weaponization,” they don’t define “woke”, and they don’t say what those “woke policies” are.

So those demands are pure blather.  You could build a Three Stooges plot around them. No way those three items could pass the Senate, ever, even in this unanchored world.  And the sponsoring Republicans know it.

You’d think, or at least hope, that if these folks want a dictator they’d have the guts to come right out and say so. Put on the ballot in plain English whatever it would take to end democracy and replace it with – call it what you will – authoritarianism, totalitarianism, dictatorship, despotism, fascism, neo-Nazism.

But they won’t.  They hide.

Sum total: A civil war is not in our future; it has begun.  It is here.  The shooting hasn’t started yet, but you know that if Trump feels a conviction closing in he’ll call for violence.  It’s his style and he’s preparing for it.

You know it will happen.  Remember what he did during the Capitol riot.  And remember his recent blast on Truth Social: “IF YOU COME AFTER ME I’M COMING FOR YOU.”  And powerful people are coming after him.

Leaning toward violence is just what Trump does.  He’s been hinting at violence ever since he took that ride down the escalator to announce his candidacy, and his minions appear to be awaiting his call to begin.

So let’s let it begin.  I hope the Republican Party does nominate Trump as their candidate and force Americans to see the stark-naked differences between him and President Joe Biden.  When the race gets down to two people, the differences will glare.

I most certainly hope Republicans will not nominate one of those six hand raisers.  Those raised hands revealed them as Trump lite, wolves in sheep’s clothing who only appear more benign than Trump. Any candidate who would vote for Donald Trump under these circumstances is dangerous and does not deserve to be president or anything else.

So let’s keep the choice real here.  Bring on Trump.  If they will, I trust Americans enough to believe that once they see the stark differences between him and Biden that  there will be such a blue tsunami it will take Republicans years to recover, if they ever do.

If you like this column please recommend it to your friends.  I appreciate all feedback, both from those who agree with me and those who don’t, and I will respond to all replies.  I may print your replies unless you tell me not to, but I will never use a name unless you specifically authorize it.  

And if you would like to read past blogs, please feel free to roam around my website, growpurpose.com/skipjohnson.  You can do that and a lot more.  Thank you.