For all the babbling about “democracy” we have heard in recent days, the establishment wants to eliminate the possibility that the people could rise up, and, horror of horrors, elect Donald Trump once more.
As soon as the Senate received the lone article of impeachment accusing President Donald Trump of “incitement of insurrection” in the Jan. 6 mob assault on the Capitol, Rand Paul rose to object.
The Senate, he said, has no right to try a private citizen, which Trump now is. Thus, what we are about to do is flatly unconstitutional.
Forty-five of 50 Republican members agreed with Paul’s motion.
“This vote indicates it’s over. The trial is all over,” said Paul. “If you voted that (the Senate trial is)… unconstitutional, how in the world would you ever vote to convict somebody for this?”
Consistency says you would not.
Susan Collins of Maine, one of five Republicans who voted against Paul’s motion, agreed that the vote portends the final vote on conviction.
“Do the math,” Collins said. “It’s extraordinarily unlikely the president will be convicted.”
Rand Paul may have just derailed the second impeachment of Donald Trump.
Chief Justice John Roberts, the constitutional officer designated to preside over Senate impeachment trials, has said he will not preside over this latest trial of the ex-president. With Roberts seeing no constitutional duty, and declining the honor, his replacement as the presiding officer will be Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the longest-serving Democrat and the president pro tempore of the Senate.
But Leahy is viscerally hostile to Trump and one of a Democratic bloc that voted twice last January to convict Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors. How will it look to the world if this partisan is installed as both judge and juror at the trial of his political enemy?
Welcome to Zimbabwe.
Does the liberal establishment, now back in power and controlling the House, Senate and presidency, not see how this is all going to look in the history books, generations hence?
Blinded by hatred of Trump, enraged by the mob that stormed the Capitol, Nancy Pelosi’s House, in a rush to judgment, without hearing a single Trump witness and without letting his lawyer offer a defense, impeached, i.e., indicted, Donald Trump for “incitement of insurrection.”
But how could Trump have incited the riot and the attack on the Capitol when the mob swept up the stairs before Trump finished speaking a mile away? And he would end his rally remarks by urging the crowd to march to the Hill “peacefully and patriotically.”
We have subsequently learned that plans and plots were being hatched days before the assault on the Capitol began.
Was the Trump White House, or Trump, privy to those plots?
In August 1974, it was a near certainty that the House would vote to impeach Richard Nixon. But after the president resigned, the House did not impeach, and Ford pardoned Nixon so the country could move on.
The rage of the establishment at being deprived of its revenge against Nixon who had turned the Silent Majority against it, not unlike today, knew no bounds. And, though history has vindicated Ford, his pardon of Nixon precipitated a plunge in his poll numbers.
Half a century on, however, history says Ford did the right thing.
Why then are the Democrats continuing with this exercise in vengeance?
They want Trump convicted so that he will be prohibited from ever again holding public office. The establishment fears that Trump could make a comeback, win the Republican primaries in 2024, become the nominee, and return in triumph as president.
They are determined to abort that possibility. Many openly admit it.
What does that say about the liberal establishment’s love of democracy when they would disqualify, in advance, the largest vote-getter their opposition party ever had, out of fear he might come back to win the presidency as he did in 2016?
“Trust the people!” was a campaign slogan made famous by George Wallace. Our national establishment prattles endlessly on about its devotion to democracy, but it does not trust the people.
But the establishment is going to pay a price for trying to squeeze the last ounces of juice out of this rotting fruit. President Joe Biden’s call to unity are being drowned out by Democratic howls for a trial, conviction and banishment.
This effort to convict and disqualify Trump from running again tells us more about the people behind it than it does about Trump.
For the odds are slim at best that Trump would or could, at 78, win the nomination and the presidency a second time, as Grover Cleveland did in 1892.
Yet, a fearful establishment does not want to take the chance.
For all the babbling about “democracy” we have heard in recent days, the establishment wants to eliminate the possibility that the people could rise up, and, horror of horrors, elect Trump once more.
You can smell the fear.
Republished with gracious permission from Mr. Buchanan (January 2021).
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I have long admired and often, but not always, agreed with Pat Buchanan. I voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984, my first election for which I was qualified to vote. I have read most of the writings of Russell Kirk and William Buckley amongst other seminal conservative writers. I have been a member of the Republican Party, for better or worse, since 1984. Over the years, the party has changed on a variety issues, as all parties do over time. I voted reluctantly for Trump in 2016, and very reluctantly in 2020, given the alternative.
The conservative movement has been a movement of a variety of dispositions: traditionalist/paleo, fusionist, neoconservative, and populist. Without an ability to bring these strands together (as William Buckley did, frequently and often successfully) conservatives’ impact on national GOP elections will never be successful enough to take the White House again. Populist conservatism, as it is haphazardly dictated by Trump, alienates more than it attracts. Some have perversely compared Trump favorably to Reagan. Reagan attracted Democrats while inspiring his conservative base, unlike Trump who alienates everyone who is not a MAGA conservative.
After watching the false narrative by Trump and Senators Cruz, et al. that Trump rightly won the 2020 election, but lost due to a variety of ballot improprieties (in spite of flimsy to no hard evidence, and in spite of every legal attempt that was thrown out by every court), I quickly became dismayed. Voting fraud of some kind has always occurred in every election (most noteworthy, JFK) and there is zero evidence that enough fraud occurred which caused Trump to lose the 2020 election. Yes, Trump won 74 million popular votes, but over 81 million voters voted against him.
Then, the storming of the Capitol clearly encouraged by Trump was the tipping point. As we conservatives rightly denounced the ongoing rioting, protesting, and anarchy of the left, Trump supporters acted similarly, but this time attacking The Capitol building to physically intimidate elected Congressmen. Could you imagine the reaction — appropriately — by media conservatives if Antifa had stormed that building? Think about the attack ads with video footage of this disturbing event by Democratic challengers to incumbent Republican House and Senate races in the near future. That conservatives at every level have not spoken forcefully and frequently against that event is disappointing and dismaying.
The Republican Party, if it is ever to appeal to the electorate in a national election again, and remain relevant as a national political party, it is going to have to broaden its appeal and attract voters beyond the current dominant demographic: older whites with limited educational attainment. That alone is not a winning and growing demographic.
Right now many Republicans, to my astonishment, continue to defend a man who alone lost the 2020 Presidential election and caused the defeat of both Georgia Senate Republicans and who encouraged supporters to intimidate congressmen to nullify an election. If conservatives believe that populist purity headed, cult-like, by Donald Trump, the GOP will indeed remain the minority party for years to come. As Russell Kirk frequently reminded his readers, “Politics is the art of the possible.” The current Republican Party, headed by Donald Trump, ignores this truism.
I have never admired Patrick Buchanan although I do read his contrarian essays. My first vote for President was cast for George McGovern and until the second Bush ran I never voted for a Republican. They say we move from left to right as we age, I say I learned from my mistakes.
And the big mistake was thinking the liberal left cared about ordinary people. I’ve learned they only care about gaining the power to impose totalitarian control over the most mundane of our daily lives. Right down to forcing us to accept as female those men who “self identify” as women. For the left there is no truth only point of view.
Well, they are wrong and that is why Trump won in 2016 and will win again if he runs. I hope he doesn’t run but instead supports the new Republican candidates who will advance his policy agenda.
What happened in the markets this week is a hint of what has happened to our country and it appears Jason C missed it. The time of the oligarchs who control the country and our election in 2020 is coming to an end. As Ross Perot once put it, the stables are soon to be mucked out. Mr. Buchanan is correct, the Democrats fear the wind that is coming.
The grain of good news here is that Justice Roberts declined to participate. That alone should indicate what is actually going on here. What the Democrats don’t get is that 1) the further to the left they go now, the further the pendulum will swing to the right later on and 2) the tools they use against the right will be used against them as soon as the opportunity arises.