Matthew Yglesias took off the gloves yesterday and landed some bare knuckles with mustard to GOP apologists who suggest that Don Cornholeone is just too stupid and inexperienced to commit obstruction of justice effectively.
Noting Paul Ryan’s “he’s new at this” bullshit and Okie Senator James Lankford’s defense of drumpf’s illegality as just “a light touch” Matty winds up and lands this right cross:
“This is part of an ongoing process of Republicans lowering the bar for Trump’s statements and conduct in a way that is both nonsensical and dangerous. The president of the United States is not supposed to interfere in criminal investigations. There’s no “he only did it with a light touch” or “it was to help out a buddy, not himself personally” exemption to that rule. And “he’s too ignorant to know that was the rule” is an absurd excuse to make for a septuagenarian who also happens to be president of the United States.”
Yglesias then patiently explains that with this 180 degrees of latitude extended him by the venal and corrupt leaders of his ruling political party, the Diapered Don could “naively” reach out and “lightly touch” the heads of the now neutered regulatory and law enforcement agencies under his thumb and finish transforming our democracy into an easily digested Banana Republic Frappé suited to his Kleptocraic taste.
“ That’s a standard of conduct that sets the United States up for massive and catastrophic erosion of the rule of law, not only, or even especially, because the president is behaving corruptly, but because Republican Party members of Congress have chosen to allow it.”
But Republican’s are O.K. with this, Matthew inveighs.
They are willing to subject the Republic to ever increasing illegality and national security risks as long as the felon-in-chief signs their attempts to denude our nation of all trappings of a liberal democracy.
That is, as long as they are not personally in the line of indictment:
“Over lunch, a right-of-center think tanker told me that during the transition his colleagues joked that in this administration, you’d rather get a job in a federal agency than a White House job — because that way you’d stay out of jail when the indictments come down.
But Republicans have decided they aren’t going to address this crisis situation. Instead, they are going to try to manage it in pursuit of the shared agenda of tax cuts, welfare state rollback, and deregulation of banks and polluters.”
Republicans are demonstrating once again that their doing what is right is not even a consideration.
The only way out is in the voting booth; but how much of what is good about this country will survive the wait?
