Editorial rights purchased from iStock. Photo by marekuliasz
I am frustrated with people who say they don’t know what to do. I don’t think they don’t know what to do — I think they just don’t want to do it.
(I include myself in this category, by the way. I’m not being judgmental — I’m just being honest.)
Every day I hear the pundits discussing the upcoming public hearings around the events of Jan. 6, and every day I find myself asking the same question: “How did it come to this?
Unfortunately, every time I ask that question, I end up with the same answer, and it is the most unsatisfying, depression-inducing answer I can imagine — which is probably why I keep asking it — I keep hoping that at some point the answer will change.
Since Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president in 2015, the leadership of our country has failed to do the right thing in almost every situation. And as much as I hate to admit it, it’s not just Republicans. Democrats have done their share of sacrificing morality for a strategic imperative, so there is plenty of blame to go around.
The single biggest problem, as I see it, is the belief that the end justifies the means. I would argue, strenuously, that it does not.
This was what led to the candidacy of Donald Trump in the first place. Eager for certain endpoints to be reached (overturning Roe v. Wade and securing a bunch of lifetime appointments for very right-leaning federal judges, for example) meant anything Trump did would be ignored or sidelined for the desired result.
The second is the Democratic party’s obsession with predicting how they might be perceived and basing their actions on fears around that rather than doing what their morals dictate.
It’s the same failing for different reasons. Neither is acceptable, in my opinion.
When we ignore our moral code we cannot make up for it by getting something else. When we ignore our moral code, we create a deficit we cannot fill any other way.
The whole point of morality is to keep us functioning as a healthy and safe society. Morality is the very foundation of a functioning society. When we sacrifice it so we can get something we want, we are saying with our actions that morality doesn’t mean anything anymore — and once we do that, it is the beginning of the disintegration of our way of life.
The old saying “Actions speak louder than words,” is true. I can’t tell you the exact ratio of power exerted by words versus actions, I can only tell you actions have more power by an order of magnitude.
When our behavior violates our moral code, or we fail to call out and punish behavior we find morally reprehensible — so we can get something we fear we might otherwise lose — we’re taking the first step in the deterioration of the society we have worked so hard to create.
Our moral code is what holds us together — it’s our fail-safe. It’s supposed to ensure that when in doubt we have a guide to tell us what choice we should make. It is not designed to be traded off for baubles or money or power.
When morality becomes a chess piece to be strategically applied, or even taken off the table, it’s game over for a healthy, safe, functioning society.
People rarely see it this way at the time though. Instead, they see what they desperately want, and their obsession with getting it creates a kind of tunnel vision. It is that tunnel vision that causes us to discard our obligation to do the right thing and allows us to focus instead on what we want to happen. Unfortunately, that same tunnel vision also prevents us from seeing the inevitable results of that disastrous decision.
The Republican Party chose to ignore their moral code and support a man who bragged about wandering through the dressing rooms of young women preparing for the beauty pageants he sponsored. He bragged about his ability to leer at half-dressed women who thought they were entitled to privacy (and they were) but didn’t get privacy because a lecherous bully thought it was his “right” to invade their space.
The same man is credibly accused of sexually assaulting over two dozen women. He was even recorded saying he could molest women in public and nobody would stop him because he’s rich and famous.
What did the leadership of the Republican Party do with this information? Nothing.
Sure, there was an initial uproar. That’s how we know his actions violated our moral code. But when the media stopped covering it, Republicans in leadership roles throughout the country acted like none of it ever happened.
I don’t expect every registered Republican to be personally responsible for the extreme vetting process every presidential candidate should undergo. I do expect the leadership of the party to participate in this process, and at a minimum ensure that it occurs. But Republicans did not do the bare minimum. They embraced him without applying any scrutiny whatsoever.
It’s not just his lechery and general nastiness that made Trump unqualified to lead the free world. Trump is deeply in debt, which by itself would prevent him from receiving a high-level security clearance. He has also had multiple criminal allegations made against him. In addition, he is a pathological liar and narcissist. This is the man Republican leadership backed for president — twice. And from what I can tell, they will do so again in 2024.
Trump doesn’t even know what’s in our Constitution — as he’s proven repeatedly. Trump should not have been president — he shouldn’t even have been allowed to run for office.
But Trump promised the Republicans some things they wanted, and they were so fixated on getting those things that morality flew out the window. They didn’t pay any attention to the fallout that would inevitably result from this decision. They failed to connect the dots in every direction. As a result, they not only installed in the White House the most incompetent human they could possibly have chosen for the job, but they also caved to the demands of the rowdiest, least contextually aware, and most disenfranchised members of their party.
This group, who believes whatever lies fellow conspiracy theorists tell them, has made it clear that Trump is their choice. So, the Republican leadership follows them. Think about that.
To be fair, some Republicans saw through Trump. Many of them had the sense to leave the party when they realized Trump would be running for president. I applaud them. Democrats also saw through Trump, as did anyone who lived in New York during the 80s and 90s.
New Yorkers knew about his multiple bankruptcies, his lecherous behavior, and his pathetic attempts to present himself as some kind of genius. They knew he was a business failure and a pathological liar, too. Trump steaks, Trump vodka, Trump University — all worthless. Trump is good at branding. That’s all he’s good at. It’s his niche. It’s also a form of manipulation.
When people say Trump is a marketing genius, I have to disagree. Marketing is the ability to sell a product — a real product — with real value. Trump sells bulls***. That doesn’t make him a marketing genius. It makes him a manipulative prick.
Republican leadership had to know all this as well. But they didn’t care. Trump made good on his promise to put far-right judges on the Supreme Court, and he made hundreds of lifetime appointments of far-right federal judges giving them the opportunity to insert their political influence where it doesn’t belong for decades to come — some of whom were even deemed unqualified by the Federal Bar Association to be judges — but that didn’t matter to Trump, nor did it matter to the leadership of the Republican Party.
Once we toss our morals, all bets are off. No scheme or lie or con is off the table.
If you wonder how bad it could get with the Republican approach to government, look at Putin. Like Trump, he makes up whatever he needs to make up to justify his actions.
Putin also puts people in place to support and protect his position. He has made doing the right thing mean one thing only: total support for Putin. Nobody corrects him now because they are afraid to. And look how that’s worked out.
There is a reason we call children who are not disciplined “spoiled.” Adults get spoiled too. (Another saying worth remembering: “Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.”)
Look at Trump. Look at Putin. These are spoiled men who do whatever they want, regardless of our moral code. And what we need to remember now, and never forget again, is that people just like us put them there.
As for the Democrats, I keep thinking about then-FBI Director Comey’s announcement just days prior to the 2016 election in which he claimed to have found new evidence in the Hillary Clinton email scandal. He said he announced those additional emails before the voting started so nobody (meaning Republicans) could accuse him of playing favorites.
Comey’s focus was on what would happen if Clinton got elected and everybody found out, after the fact, that Comey had hidden those emails. He was so busy trying to figure out how to play it that he violated the FBI’s moral code and spoke publicly about an ongoing investigation.
And what did we learn from those emails? Nothing. Why did we learn nothing? Because the emails were duplicates — we already had them all. They came from a laptop belonging to the spouse of someone who had been investigated previously.
As anyone familiar with technology knows, email accounts don’t live on a laptop. They live in the cloud — on a server owned by Gmail, Yahoo, or whatever service provider you get your email from. Comey should have known these were duplicates. He should at least have asked someone to look at them before announcing to the world that he had found new evidence.
Comey had tunnel vision, too. All he could see was his fear of what would happen if he played it wrong. So, he panicked — and because he acted based on fear and not the desire to do the right thing, he screwed the pooch.
The Department of Justice appears to be suffering from the same problem. Both Mark Meadows and Steve Bannon have been charged with contempt of Congress and referred to the DOJ. Why hasn’t the DOJ acted?
I’ve heard several arguments, the most common being that Meadows did supply some information to the committee, so he didn’t ignore the subpoena entirely. But he is refusing to testify under oath, and it sounds to me like his testimony is critical.
Whenever it’s discussed on MSNBC or CNN, Democrats are quick to point out that it’s never been done before. They’re so worried about how people (specifically Republicans) will react if they pursue contempt against a sitting member of Congress that they are practically paralyzed.
“What if we’re accused of being partisan?” And what if Republicans do this to Democrats in the future?
I have three responses to this line of thinking. First, I would remind them that plotting an insurrection, calling for the hanging of the vice president, and conspiring to commit a coup have also never occurred before. Perhaps an unprecedented act requires an unprecedented response — just a thought.
As for how Republicans will characterize them, they need to let that go. Republicans will accuse them of being partisan no matter what they do. They should have figured that much out by now.
Lastly, if Democrats are worried about being subpoenaed themselves, I would point out that if they do nothing wrong, there is nothing to be concerned about. Once again, their focus needs to be on simply doing the right thing.
This reminds me a bit of Donald Trump’s oft-stated fear of the “perjury trap.” There is one sure way to avoid it: tell the truth.
If it’s true that nobody is above the law, why hasn’t the DOJ acted on the contempt of Congress referrals they’ve already received? The purpose of this committee is to understand what led to the events of Jan. 6 and hold the culprits accountable. This is what morality requires them to do.
Regardless of whether the committee has enough evidence to move forward now without testimony from Meadows and/or Bannon, the right thing here is to process the contempt charges and hold them both accountable for their failure to comply with a Congressional subpoena.
If DOJ fails to act out of concerns about how it might look, they should understand that it looks really bad right now.
Doing the right thing is how you manipulate public perception in your favor.
We’re supposed to have public hearings in June. Supposedly, the January 6 committee will be issuing additional subpoenas for various members of Congress — members whose text messages have already shown them to have been complicit in planning the insurrection. Or was it planning a coup?
It sounds as if some members merely championed the cause as thousands (many armed) descended upon the capitol building, while others conspired behind the scenes to assist Trump and his co-conspirators in creating false elector ballots for the purpose of overturning the results of the 2020 election.
When Josh Hawley raised his fist in defiance at the rally that preceded the violence on January 6, he was encouraging the behavior of the rioters and defending the Big Lie — a lie he knew with absolute certainty was a fabrication designed to steal the election. Hawley put his power and position as a member of Congress behind that lie, with no concern for the moral implications of that decision.
Marjorie Taylor Greene sent a text asking Meadows to make sure Trump knew that he might be able to use Marshall [sic] Law to support the insurrectionists. She wasn’t advocating it, per her testimony under oath. No, she was just suggesting that perhaps somebody ought to mention it to Trump — just in case he hadn’t thought of it.
She may not know the law all that well, but I guarantee she knew this was wrong. Why else would she conveniently forget so much when asked about it under oath?
So, I have to question the strategy of failing to move on prosecuting Meadows and Bannon for their failures to comply with Congressional subpoenas when the committee is planning to issue even more of them. How successful do they think they will be in getting compliance now, after the entire world has seen that absolutely nothing has happened to those who’ve already failed to comply?
It’s hard for me to understand how adults can fail to grasp the importance of following through on this.
Presumably, many of the people at the DOJ have children. Do they discipline them? Or do they expect them to behave well and play by the rules when they never enforce them? Do they think they can ignore criminal referrals without creating a lawless environment?
Every single time a Republican tells lies or makes up stuff to discredit a Democrat, someone in the Democratic party should speak up and set them straight — but they rarely do. I can think of two people who said what needed to be said when it needed to be said: Mallory McMorrow and Jeremy Raskin.
In both cases, they confronted the lies being perpetrated by the Republican leadership who are systematically throwing morality under a bus so they can keep their power. We need to see more of this, a lot more.
We can’t let fear prevent us from doing the right thing anymore. When morals are being sacrificed at the altar of public opinion for greed, money, or power, it no longer matters if you’re a Democrat or a Republican.
Either we find a way to get our collective s*** together or we’re all going down.
Other resources:
Trump walks in on Miss Teen USA Contestants
Donald Trump Sexual Misconduct Allegations
Trump Brags About Groping Women
Diagnosing Trump with Mental Illness
Trump Has Twice the Debt He Suggested
Comey Announced Reopening of Clinton Email Probe
Mark Meadows Contempt of Congress