Whoever writes the definitive history of the United States of America, many years in the future, is going to be have to grapple with a multitude of ironies from this time frame. Possibly the most glaring irony is how a political party which professed to embody “patriotism,” and actually justified its entire existence out of vilifying the other side’s supposed “lack” of patriotism, inexplicably chose to turn a blind eye when one of its elected leaders was plainly revealed to be serving the interests of a hostile foreign power.
And not just any hostile foreign power, but one which has been an enemy to American interests for six decades.
Another, more prosaic-- but no less important-- irony will be how that same elected leader--and the same political party --spent the better part of a year demonizing professional football players as "unpatriotic" because they didn’t stand for the national anthem, but at the same time chose to deliberately ignore the fact that not only was the previous election tainted by foreign meddling, but those same foreign attacks were continuing and threatened the integrity of every American election yet to come.
Charles Blow, writing for the New York Times, tries to capture this moment in time:
This is an incredible, unprecedented moment. America is being betrayed by its own president. America is under attack and its president absolutely refuses to defend it.
Simply put, Trump is a traitor and may well be treasonous.
I’m fairly confident that if a Democratic President were even remotely implicated in one tenth of the collusion and crimes revealed thus far in the Special Counsel’s investigation, that not only Republicans but most Democrats in office would have seen to it that this person was impeached and tried by now.
I’m fairly confident that if Democrats were in power of all three branches of government, there would now be strong measures in place to counter these Russian cyberattacks and that severe sanctions would be imposed. I’m fairly confident that the protection of our elections would be their utmost priority. And I am absolutely positive that no American President in his right mind would be holding a "summit" with that foreign invader's leader right now, while singing his praises on one hand, and blaming past and present American actions for their “poor relationship," on the other.
Those would be the priorities for anyone who dared call themselves “patriotic.”
But our historian would be shaking his head in bewilderment. Because the Republicans who had the power and ability to do something about this sorry spectacle did...nothing. In fact, they went out of their way to do...nothing.
And their leader did worse:
And yet Trump, the president whom the Constitution establishes as the commander in chief, has repeatedly waffled on whether Russia conducted the attack and has refused to forcefully rebuke them for it, let alone punish them for it.
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America’s commander wants to be chummy with the enemy who committed the crime. Trump is more concerned with protecting his presidency and validating his election than he is in protecting this country.
So history is going to be tasked with making some profound judgments. Not only did the American system elevate a probable traitor to the Presidency, but that traitor's political party -- the party of so-called "patriotism"--stood by and acquiesced to the foreign attacks on our elections-- even going so far as to actively thwart and derail investigations into those attacks. And, even more stunning, they had the support of their constituents in doing so.
History is going to ask what happened to these people?
What went so wrong with them that they willingly gave up their Democracy? What kind of people were they? What in God’s name were they thinking?
The answer is going to be a hell of a lot more complicated than just, “Fox News.”