The Grand Illusion
Why is he keeping everyone he can from testifying? Why is he threatening and denigrating lifetime federal employees and decorated military officers with impeccable and honorable records? Why is he trying to keep his tax records out of the hands of public prosecutors?
The Republicans are trying to claim that Democrats don’t have testimony from enough people with “first-hand” contact with Trump, but at the same time, Trump is doing everything possible to keep as many of those individuals as possible from testifying before Congress.
What’s occurring on the Republican side doesn’t look like honorable individuals trying to get the truth out. It looks like a Mafia gangster using every stratagem possible in the law book, and some that are anything but legal [threatening witnesses, directly or indirectly, is a crime], to keep the truth from coming out.
Supposedly, if one is innocent, truth is the best defense, yet while Trump complains and calls the impeachment hearings a hoax and claims he’s innocent, he’s doing everything possible to keep whatever happened from coming out or being investigated.
What amazes me is how many people, particularly his supporters, don’t see this, and don’t want to. Their attitude is similar to an old sculpture my grandmother had with three monkeys in a row. Under the monkeys was the inscription: Hear No Evil; See No Evil; Speak No Evil. The first monkey has his hands over his eyes; the second over his eyes, the third over his mouth.
And, in a perverse way, that seems to fit Trump and the Republicans at this point. They don’t want to hear, see, or speak of Trump’s evil.
… What amazes me is how many people, particularly his supporters, don’t see this, and don’t want to. Their attitude is similar to an old sculpture my grandmother had with three monkeys in a row. …
Given this attitude it still puzzles me as to why we (as a nation) voted Trump as our leader? Hating Hillary, big government, the elites, the swamp etc. is emotive rubbish which does not come close to explaining why any cognizant human would vote for Trump. Trump made, and makes, no effort to hide his personality and behavior before contesting the Presidency, during the electioneering, and now his behavior as The President. Yes, the Media and The Congress plus the two political parties seem to need to encourage President Trump for fear of somehow losing power and their financial base. But in the quiet of our minds do we not see the consequences of his actions as a business man and now as President which Trump has laid before us?
Most polarized individuals disagree about matters where there is no evidence but usually agree about uncontestable facts. At this time we have a situation where the facts are documented and verified and yet we still do not agree that they exist or that they matter. Not only in the USA but elsewhere in the world; in the most unexpected places. The nihilism in the belief of the absence of Truth seems to be at least part of the problem. Without a reversal of this belief it seems that we are unlikely to avoid the chaos of anarchy or the slavery of dictatorship.
How can a present day politician push back against this belief of the absence of Truth? One’s own behavior seems inadequate.
It seems fair to say that the Republican Party is as much on trial as the President in this process.
Except they don’t see it that way. They believe they’re unjustly under attack, which is rather amazing, since it was their attacks that started it all.
It seems plain to me that Republican politicians do not ‘believe’ it and know they are saying it in bad faith. They know their only chance of saving Trump (and themselves) is by confusing things enough with the public that it creates cover for Republicans in the Senate to decline to convict during the trial, and also create a hole that the Senators and others can escape through come election time.
My pet theory is that many people voted for Trump because they were tired of business as usual in DC and wished to have a change.
Which comes back to the old adage “Be careful what you wish for, it may come true.”
The best attribution of this idea is a version of a saying attributed to a catholic saint named St Teresa of Avila (patron saint of headaches). Her idea was that unhappiness is caused by wishes being granted.
What many people seem to overlook, that is so fundamentally simple is this; Innocent people don’t hide… Innocent people do whatever it takes to lawfully clear their names. Only the guilty hide, and do whatever they can, to impede the investigation. What I truly find to be mindboggling is, how can any self respecting person defend, and accept this egregious kind of behavior from our Commander in chief? Why’re the Republicans protecting the “MAN”, and political party instead of our Constitutional Laws?