The Critical Trump Decision

by Mike Meyer ~ Honolulu ~ February 8, 2021

I’m not sure how this will work, but returning to anything like a unified nation does not look possible. The Republican Party's wholehearted effort to turn Trump’s second impeachment into an accolade for neofascist, racist authoritarianism will go down in history as such no matter how much they try to shirk responsibility for it.

We’re being inundated with off the record, high ranking Republican statements that they want Trump gone but can’t figure out how to do it without enraging his cult. As always, with Republican statements, particularly high-ranking ones, there is no substance to their arguments. As Amanda Marcotte in Salon explains, the simplest way to deposit Trump in the dumpster is to impeach him.

Trump is a psychopath with a billion dollars in debt coming due who now uses his political donations after November 3 to keep his businesses afloat. He has lost his corporate political influence. His only hold on power is his threat to start another political party or continue to take over the Republican Party if they let him. Vote to impeach him, and that all becomes an empty threat.

The reasons for the confused and self-serving lies of the Republican leadership in Congress is not the point. That is a rat hole we do not need to go down. The absurdity of the lies, posturing, and misdirection will, very shortly, be irrelevant except to future graduate students studying the intricacies of the American collapse.

If Trump is not impeached, then Trump will attempt to overthrow the US government again. To be clear, Trump will do nothing himself. Whatever he tells his cult members, he will never put his own ass in any threatening situation. Anyone who has spent their required years in elementary and middle school knows that junior bullies are cowards. They only threaten in situations that have no risks for them.

For most of the 70 million cultists, they do not care. They are on a mission from God to restore white supremacy, and the respect they will get from their fellow racists is the icing on the cake. The fact that the terms True American and patriot have been distorted to mean racist and fascist is beyond their ability to grasp.

But that does not matter. If Trump is not neutralized in the next two weeks, there will be hell to pay. And the self-destruction of the Republican Party is ancillary damage in the destruction of the United States. That party’s political demise will likely rate only a footnote in the news of the neo-nazi and white nationalist violence that will take us into the second summer of the pandemic.

70 million people propagandized for forty years, that’s two generations, have been primed for violence for the last four years. The merger of neofascist militias into police and military units around the country with ever greater conspiracies drummed into a population via Fox and, now more extreme media, means large sections of the population are waiting to explode.

As we have seen, this threat is its own worst enemy, just as Trump is his own worst enemy. The kind of incompetence that goes with people easily lured into conspiracies and shills means they often misfire and grossly underestimate what will happen to them in the real world. Still, a sloppy explosion kills and, often, with greater damage and suffering.

We are on the edge of a 21st-century, urban civil war that is avoidable by removing the only figurehead, but it will happen if we decide our hands are tied. Allowing a corrupt, criminal, and heavily insurrectionist vestige of the number two political party to hand the power to Trump to destroy us, whether he can succeed or not, is suicidal, not to mention stupid.

If this were a potential civil war with real issues, other than rehashed racism, amped up fascist nationalism, and spectacularly bonkers conspiracies, the chance of preventing this would be more difficult. But an aged, narcissistic psychopath with the usual delusions of grandeur is a one-trick pony with no idea of a second act.

The ratings fall of Fox News and OAN in the wake of the election and Trump’s coup attempt show has fast this threat could dissipate. Trump sulking with no direct link to social media means his power is fading fast, making the stated fear and trembling of the Republican Congresspeople obvious bullshit.

Lou Dobbs’ cancellation by Fox also shows the effectiveness of massive civil suits against the forces of insurrection and conspiracy funded by billionaires who care only for money. If Trump is removed as a political threat, he can be nothing else; instead of urban civil war, we would have weeks of pleasure watching the erstwhile leaders of fascist America having their assets removed.

This would not remove the problem of tens of millions infected with social psychosis, but they would end up watching the asset removal, too. Maybe a lesson would be learned about honesty and reality.

The Trump decision is now far too critical to be left to the control of an insurrectionist group of senators. We know what they will do, and we should know what it means. Why let that happen?