Somewhere over the cosmic rainbow, President Hillary Clinton is under siege.
In that alternate universe, half a dozen well-staffed congressional investigations are winding their way through various GOP-controlled committees and leaking to the press like sieves. Politicians are ubiquitous on cable news, wearing expressions of grave concern, heads half-bowed in rehearsed reverence to the Founding Fathers, speaking in solemn tones about the president’s negligent handling of classified material, corrupt giga-dollars meandering through various accounts and into the ruling family’s infinitely deep pockets, and most importantly, voting irregularities in key districts that allowed her, just barely, to eke out a razor-thin electoral victory much slimmer than the liberal media so smugly predicted.
Barely over 100 days in she is politically neutered: no legislation will progress until such time as the dark stain of Crooked Hillary Clinton and her many criminal enterprises can be cleansed from the nation’s business.
It’s a conservative dreamland where pundits and pols explain that our very democracy is under attack, that we must root out the filth and stay the foul corruption, lest the flame of liberty be extinguished. Special prosecutors-in-waiting are polishing up their resumes, and the chosen are setting up their offices. Conservative media is setting records, words like impeachment and felony flow like milk and honey from the right-wing pious trudging toward the promised land, and talk of witchcraft and demon house-flies are applauded and liked and promoted by the more rabid members of the base. Aggrieved Republicans are now tuning in eagerly to every move and nuance and rumor, popcorn in hand.
Meanwhile, back here, in universe C-137, the tables are completely turned and Donald Trump is a disaster on just about every level — including the once sacred topic of national security. The cosmos it seems, is not without a sense of irony and it is we progressives—and just about everyone else—who are alternately entertained and disgusted by the continuing saga otherwise known as the Trump White House.
Which brings up an interesting thought experiment: are we in some sense better off with Trump in office than some of the Republican alternatives?
It’s worth mentioning that removing a president from office is a lot harder than some people might think. First, it has to be brought up and passed out of at least one House committee. Then a majority of the House has to pass it. That’s when the going gets hard. It gets referred to the Senate, where the actual impeachment trial is held with the senators acting as the jury and appointed House members acting as prosecution. A full two-thirds of the Senate has to vote guilty, at which point the president has been constitutionally removed and the next in the line of succession is sworn in. That succession goes to the sitting vice president, currently Mike Pence, and then to the speaker of the House, currently Paul Ryan. The new president would have the full authority—and, some would argue, the obligation—to then fully pardon the former, disgraced one.
But regardless if Trump walks out his own two legs at the end of one term or two, or if he’s carried away feet first, consider what that means. On the upside, we are living in an incredibly entertaining time and it’s mostly because of Trump. Trust me (especially you younger people), you’re going to look back on this as a sort of golden age of political drama. After Trump, politics is going to seem dull.
Speaking of entertaining, right now conservatives are anxious, bordering on neurotic, and it’s hilarious. The schadenfreude of watching them lose whatever shreds of intellectual honesty or consistency they once had is almost too delicious. It’s so well-deserved, it’s been so long avoided, that as finally happens it’s incredibly satisfying, like a fine chocolate rolling around the tongue. It must be absolutely mentally and emotionally exhausting to defend Trump day after day, always worried, always tensed up in a frightened crouch over what stupid thing he might do or say next.
Think about that: years of nurturing conservative ignorance, billions and billions of dollars to inure them against documented facts and reasonable inferences, decades spent slowly conning them by radio, by direct mail, from the pulpit, by hook and by crook, into voting against themselves and for whacky creepy zillionaires—and in one fell swoop Trump hijacked the whole shebang right from under their greedy noses to serve himself at their expense. He reaps the harvest, they’re stuck with the rotten leftovers. And that pretty much sums up Trump’s entire adult life.
Better still, Trump’s “reward” for pulling that off is looking more and more dismal. By any measure he has been, so far, uniquely unsuccessful. If things continue the way they have for the past few months, maybe he’ll may persist in office and avoid impeachment, but a few more months of this and he’ll soon be little more than a spectacle. He’s already been diminished to some sort of national sideshow freak by some accounts, reduced to the petty base archetype shielded by wealth and celebrity that was always there, with near surgical precision in front of the whole world. If that continues, Trump could turn into a shambling bag of bones, held in contempt by many and not taken seriously by anyone, robbed of all dignity and substance, wandering the White House halls muttering to cable TV screens and himself like a political poltergeist, perhaps under the care of family and friends. Picture all of this happening as his party, his enemies, and the whole nation quietly waits and hopes for his term to end, or his heart to give out.
It’s lucky for us he turned out to be deeply corrupt, spectacularly lazy, and more than a little bit stupid right out of the gate. Because of his dishonesty and incompetence, he is damaging the entire GOP while serving as an unending source of great entertainment to the rest of us. Yes, the conventional wisdom is to say how worried we all are, and it’s understandable why many feel that way.
But in the back, hiding in the id ... are you not a teeny-tiny bit entertained? Is there perhaps even a hint of relief at how inept this clown is at working with the GOP robber-barrons in Congress?
A President Pence or a President Ryan would be far more effective in dismantling the New Deal, wounding Medicare, robbing millions of life-saving medical treatment, and generally moving noxious legislation into law and policy—the reverse-Robin Hood kind that takes from the poor and gives to the rich. Another president stepping in right now would ignite a national media-gasm and pundits would quiver in ecstasy. The new occupant of the Oval Office would be given more than a hall pass: we would be told it’s a new dawn for the whole country! An enormous collective sigh of relief would be heard from sea to shining sea -- and only douchebag, America-hating, liberal radicals would dare resist that new and hopeful detente.
Indeed, Trump is his own worst enemy. He’s the biggest danger the GOP has faced in years. But an effective, media-savvy Republican could have been far worse, and we as progressives have been lucky in that respect.
Now we can only hope it turns out to be lucky for the nation, too.