What the US senate won’t do, US voters must — and that’s get rid of Donald Trump
It’s incredible to think that, in the end, Donald Trump’s impeachment trial in the US Senate is likely to amount to nothing. It’s a costly charade. Based on the evidence, Trump is guilty as hell, but he’ll be acquitted. It’s supposed to be a trial — the senators make up the jury and it’s presided over by the chief justice — and yet it’s not about justice; it’s all politics. Welcome to America.
Trump’s poodles, the Republican senators, have the numbers, which, in the end, is what matters in politics. They will simply vote to retain their guy regardless of the gravity of the evidence. Like the one-eyed patriot who stands by his country right or wrong, the Republican empty suits will stick by their man. They know which side their bread is buttered.
One always has to be circumspect when talking about Trump — in SA too. Unsurprisingly, he has many admirers in these parts. The last time I said something mildly critical of the man, I got a going-over from a chappie somewhere in the Free State who was obviously not amused by my lowly opinion of the idiot. “What about Zuma?” he fumed, as if the fact that Jacob Zuma was my country’s corrupt president somehow disqualified me from an opinion, however misguided, about Trump. He was, I guess, warning against people in glass houses throwing stones.
But perhaps the man was not far off the mark in mentioning Zuma in relation to Trump, because both men are stupid and corrupt. And what the Republicans are doing in protecting Trump is similar to the ANC’s shielding of Zuma, for many years, as he looted and plundered. Parties in power are about exactly that — power. Their purpose is to acquire and retain power. Nothing to do with ethics, morals or principles. The UK, for instance, has elected with a huge majority a compulsive liar as its prime minister, though Boris Johnson and the Conservatives had the advantage of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, so unpopular that he inadvertently proved a handy Tory recruiting agent.
The US under Trump is almost unrecognisable as the country that for so long was regarded as the bedrock and totem of Western democracy and all the freedoms that come with it.
But Trump didn’t initiate the decay; he’s merely benefited from it.
The US has always prided itself on its so-called exceptionalism, on being what Ronald Reagan famously referred to as a shining city on a hill guiding freedomloving people everywhere. Lately, however, the light seems to have dimmed.
Probably the first time the international community realised something was amiss in America was during the 2000 presidential election battle between George W Bush and then vice-president Al Gore, especially the debacle of the recount in
Florida. The TV networks declared Gore the winner in Florida, which would have put him in pole position to win the White House. But Bush had the family connections, which were to prove pivotal. His younger brother, Jeb, was governor of Florida and played a crucial role in getting the votes that ultimately secured George the White House. And when the matter went before the US Supreme Court, the justices, some of whom were his father’s appointees, found in Bush’s favour. In an instant, little distinguished the US from the emerging democracies it’s always quick to lecture. The US had lost its innocence. In another anomaly that foreigners found hard to comprehend, Bush won the presidency despite losing the popular vote. Also — no different from what happens in tinpot dictatorships — family connections played a key role in Bush’s elevation to the presidency.
It was on that thin or suspect mandate that he went on to initiate and wage wars that have huge international ramifications to this day, especially in the Middle East.
If Bush’s victory seemed a bit suspect, Trump’s was almost illegitimate. Hillary Clinton got almost 3-million more votes than Trump and still lost. He carried the electoral college, which, in US-style democracy, seems to carry more weight than the actual number of people voting. But the fact that he lost the popular vote seems to be playing on his psyche. He regards every political contestation as an attempt to overturn the will of the electorate. The impeachment process is for him therefore grist to the mill, to be exploited for every possible political advantage.
Ironically, those in the know thought that the Republican Party, which initially resisted candidate Trump, would eventually get rid of him as it deemed him too toxic for the brand. Trump has, however, been able to assemble a fanatical following and is perpetually on the campaign trail. He’s hugely popular among certain Republican voters, with some even regarding him as a better leader than Abraham Lincoln. Any Republican senator contemplating voting against him will therefore do so at their peril.
Thus Trump will easily survive this little difficulty. What matters is what happens after this process. Will it leave him politically wounded or emboldened, and what effect will that have on his re-election prospects in November? So far, the impeachment furore doesn’t seem to have had any effect on his base. In fact, he has amassed a huge election war chest, raising more than any of his Democratic rivals.
It is the irony of our times that among those rooting for Trump in November will be Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. Meanwhile, US allies, especially in Western Europe, will be anxiously praying that he comes a cropper. The world simply cannot afford another five years of Trump.