I’m embarrassed to admit that for a rare, fleeting moment on Wednesday, I actually thought the House managers’ presentation was compelling enough to make Mitch McConnell’s heart grow three sizes, and I imagined he’d ride his sleigh into the town square and deliver justice to all the Whos down in Whoville.
Then I remembered that we live in America, not some lush Seussian phantasmagoria, and Mitch McConnell is not the Grinch. He’s more like the Cat in the Hat, if the cat’s hat were expertly crafted from rich Corinthian leather and Satan’s supple scrotum.
Why oh why did I presume that a guy who lied about his election loss for months, winked at mayhem and violence for years, invited his orc horde to Washington to protest the counting of electoral votes, sat on his hands while his mob assailed the Capitol, and angrily tweeted at Mike Pence even after he learned the former vice president’s life was in danger might actually face consequences?
Donald Trump was forced to give up the presidency, of course, but his GOP gonad collection remains fully intact.
The Chicago Tribune’s Rex Huppke summed up my feelings on this trial pretty succinctly.
“I'm exhausted by many things, but none more so than seeing Democratic lawyers make smart, sound, passionate arguments and then seeing GOP lawyers effectively fart in a bag and leave the room while GOP lawmakers say, ‘Well, that's good enough for me. The Democrats have no case.’”
In the real world, when you have a defendant who’s obviously guilty and a defense team that concedes the strength of the prosecutors’ case while presenting the jurisprudential equivalent of a sack of wet, hairy gum, you get a conviction. But no outrage is outrageous enough for the modern GOP, apparently.
So what exactly do Republicans stand for these days, other than funneling money into wealthy people’s offshore bank accounts and dry-humping American flags into sad, humiliated ribbons?
The actual president of the United States ginned up a mob with lies, lurid imagery, and an oil tanker full of malicious intent, and Senate Republicans’ prevailing reaction is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Hundreds of riled-up Trump supporters breached the Capitol.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
One of them was shot and killed.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
A Capitol Police officer was murdered.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The speaker of the House was nearly assassinated.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The vice president was nearly hanged in public.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The actual president of the United States watched it all unfold and was “delighted.”
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And he did nothing to stop the assault as it threatened to upend the seat of the U.S. government.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Whatevs.
Let’s just move on, shall we? We’ve got a few more Benghazi hearings to get on the docket. We can’t waste time by holding a villainous madman accountable for trying to overthrow our republic. Because that would be gauche.
Republicans hate America. Full stop.
They always have, of course, but never before has the fig leaf fallen so far from the figs.
I wish the marginally sane branch of the GOP luck in launching a new center-right party. As we all know, the GOP is effectively dead. Bring the quicklime, because the body is really starting to stink.
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