Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Politics”

Why Congressional Republicans Must Vote to Impeach and Convict Trump

Why Congressional Republicans Must Vote to Impeach and Convict Trump

By John R Guardiano on January 12, 2021

Impeachment and conviction will allow the GOP to wash away the stain of dishonor that Trump has stamped upon their party.

As a matter of principle, Congressional Republicans should support the impeachment and conviction of Donald Trump.

The Republican Party, after all, is the nation’s conservative party—the party of liberty, the rule of law, faithful adherence to the Constitution, and the separation of powers.

Yet, all this and more was flagrantly assaulted in the Jan. 6, 2021, violent attack on the Capitol that Trump shamelessly and unapologetically orchestrated.

Why, then, are so few Republican lawmakers in favor of impeachment? In a word: politics.

Congressional Republicans have convinced themselves that Trump commands the allegiance of too many voters in their districts and their states to risk supporting his impeachment.

Their fear: that they will face a pro-Trump challenger who will defeat them in a primary and destroy their political careers.

This fear is understandable, but shortsighted and myopic—and it risks destroying the Republican Party.

The obvious truth is that Trump is intensely loathed and despised by a clear majority of voters nationwide. And everything he has done in the past two months since losing the election to Joe Biden has made him even more reviled, and justly so.

As the New York Times’ Bret Stephens points out:

The president attacked the states, in their right to set their own election procedures. He attacked the courts, state as well as federal, in their right to settle the election challenges brought before them.

He attacked Congress, in its right to conduct orderly business free of fear. He attacked the vice president, in his obligation to fulfill his duties under the 12th Amendment.

He attacked the American people, in their right to choose the electors who choose the president.

The risk to Republicans is that by trying to appease Trump’s base, they risk losing the country, as they did in the election, and it wasn’t even close. Trump lost the popular vote by more than seven million votes, and he lost the electoral college 306-232.

Trump Voters. Republicans obsess over Trump voters; but the truth is that Trump voters, all 74 million of them, are hardly a monolith.

Sure, many of them may be diehard Trump fans, but many (yours truly, for instance) are not. Many can be constructively engaged and persuaded through good-faith efforts to tell them the truth.

Unfortunately, too few Republican officeholders are willing to tell their voters the truth—the truth about the 2020 election and the truth about Donald Trump; and, until they do, the future of the Republican Party is in grave danger.

Indeed, if Republicans think the loss of two winnable Senate seats in Georgia was bad, they ain’t seen nothing yet. Worse and even more catastrophic political losses may be yet to come, and precisely because of their uncritical embrace of Trump.

Watershed Moment. The Jan. 6, 2021, Trump-engineered assault on the Capitol was a watershed event that will live in infamy. Elected Republicans need to recognize this and respond with the seriousness of purpose that the times and the moment demand.

Impeaching and convicting the ringleader of this attack, Donald J. Trump, is the right and necessary place to start.

Feature photo credit: Violent thugs, summoned by Trump to Washington to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, scale the walls of the United States Capitol as they begin their assault on Congress (José Luis Magaña/Associated Press, courtesy of the Philadelphia Inquirer.)

Trump Must Be Impeached and Convicted—and Legalistic Defenses Cannot Spare Him

Trump Must Be Impeached and Convicted—and Legalistic Defenses Cannot Spare Him

By John R Guardiano on January 10, 2021

Impeachment is not about punishing Trump. It is about safeguarding American democracy and protecting our Constitutional order.

Of course President Trump should be impeached and convicted. He incited a mob to intimidate Congress and the Vice President to steal the election based on baldfaced lies that he knowingly propagated. As a result, five people are dead, including two Capitol police officers.

As former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie put it, if this isn’t an impeachable offense, then nothing is.

The separation of powers within the federal government was one of the principal objectives of the American Founding Fathers when they drafted the Constitution.

By inciting a violent attack on the legislative branch of government, President Trump attacked one of the pillars of our Constitutional order. He must be held accountable for that attack. Impeachment and conviction are the only remedies available to Congress to ensure that justice is done.

This has nothing to do with punishment or revenge. Instead, it has everything to do with preventing a future president from trying to emulate Trump by launching a similar attack against the legislative branch of government.

Congress must lay down a clear marker now that such behavior will not be tolerated; and that there will be grave consequences for any president who even flirts with this idea.

And legalistic defenses of Trump won’t wash. The Founding Fathers deliberately made impeachment a legislative and not judicial prerogative. So whether Trump’s abhorrent behavior meets the strict legal definition of incitement is utterly irrelevant.

What matters is what Congress thinks and knows, not what a court of law might decide. And what Congress thinks and knows—what all of us think and know—is the the president blatantly egged on a mob to storm the Capitol.

Now, did the president know that the mob would turn violent? Maybe; maybe not. Who knows?

Again, that doesn’t matter. What we do know is that violence was a foreseeable consequence of Trump’s rhetoric and behavior; and that a responsible leader never would have behaved as Trump behaved.

As the New York Times reports:

“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th,” Mr. Trump tweeted on Dec. 19, just one of several of his tweets promoting the day. “Be there, will be wild!”

“We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he told the mob Jan. 6.

You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong… Our country has been under siege for a long time…

We will never give up. We will never concede. It doesn’t happen. You don’t concede when there’s theft involved…

Our country has had enough. We will not take it anymore, and that is what this is all about. And to use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with, we will stop the steal. …

You will have an illegitimate president. That is what you will have, and we can’t let that happen…

Feature photo credit: ABC News.

The ‘War on Christmas’ Shows Trump’s Fatal Political Shortcomings

The ‘War on Christmas’ Shows Trump’s Fatal Political Shortcomings

By John R Guardiano on January 4, 2021

Trump’s laziness and aversion to political and legislative grunt work have seriously limited his success as president.

One of the worst aspects of Trump’s presidency has been his failure to engage in the hard and difficult work of leading, governing, and policymaking.

Instead, Trump too often has been content with tweeting and bloviating—as if loudly and boisterously saying something somehow sufficed and nothing more need be done.

But of course, governance involves a lot more than tweeting. It involves crafting public policies and legislation; cajoling lawmakers and the bureaucracy; forming and building political coalitions; working to communicate, explain, and persuade.

And here, Trump has been a dismal failure—mainly because he is too lazy and undisciplined to do the laborious grunt work required of any successful president.

Consider, for instance, the war on Christmas, which I discussed in my previous post. This is a serious cultural problem that transcends politics. However, there are certain things that a conscientious and serious-minded president could do to help make Americans less afraid to explicitly acknowledge Christmas.

For example, the president could issue an executive order explaining in detail that federal agencies have every right to acknowledge Christmas because Christmas is, after all, inscribed into law as a national holiday.

Thus government agencies that have Christmas gatherings or celebrations, or that wish their employees Merry Christmas, are not violating any federal law or policy.

The president, likewise, could give a major speech about the war on Christmas and why that war is antithetical to our history, culture, and political traditions.

He could explain why the Constitution permits public schools to have Christmas concerts and allows schoolchildren to sing Christmas carols.

The president could order his Department of Justice to examine the Constitutional questions involved in these and similar cases and controversies, which have arisen nationwide in recent decades.

Trump Is AWOL. In short, there are things a thoughtful and determined president could do to draw attention to this problem while helping to buck up Americans who have been cowed and intimidated by the militant secularists. Trump, though, has done none of these things.

What Trump has done is tweet—boastfully, impotently, and counterproductively. For example, on Christmas Eve, 2017, Trump tweeted:

Of course, this is a complete lie. Trump has led no such “charge,” and nothing he has done as president has made people more inclined to say “Merry Christmas.” On this issue, as on many others, Trump has been all talk (or tweet) and little or no action.

Unfortunately, Trump’s aversion to the hard and difficult work of leading, governing, and policymaking has not been confined to the war on Christmas. Instead, it has marred his entire presidency and undermined his ability to get things done on myriad issues.

Section 230. In the week before Christmas, for instance, Trump vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). He said that one of the bill’s major shortcomings is that it does not include a provision to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

That law, Trump tweeted, “gives unlimited power to big tech companies.” Now, this may or may not be true; but what certainly is true is this:

Trump never made any serious or sustained effort to explain to legislators and the American people why Section 230 is a bad law that must be repealed.

Instead, Trump belatedly demanded that the law be repealed as part of another piece of unrelated legislation (the NDAA). A dictator can get away with that; a democratically elected ruler cannot.

The president’s job is to build public support for legislation through concerted political action. But the sad and lamentable truth is that Trump never has been willing to engage politically in a serious and sustained fashion. He’d much rather vent his spleen on Twitter.

The result: too many missed opportunities; too many initiatives never taken, and too many balls fumbled.

As a result, Americans today are no less afraid to acknowledge Christmas than they were before Trump became president—and Section 230 is no closer to being repealed either.

This is something GOP voters must recognize when, in 2024, they have to choose another presidential nominee. The party cannot afford to nominate someone like Trump—someone too lazy and undisciplined to lead and to govern.

To win politically and legislatively, the party needs a workhorse, not a showhorse or showman.

Feature photo credit: Dave Horsey, Seattle Times cartoonist.

Trump Must Move On or the GOP Will Lose the Senate and the Country

Trump Must Move On or the GOP Will Lose the Senate and the Country

By John R Guardiano on November 21, 2020

Trump’s failure to acknowledge that he lost jeopardizes GOP chances in Georgia and risks handing control of the Senate over to Chuck Schumer and the Democrats.

President Trump lost his bid for reelection by being a weak and incompetent leader who failed to provide leadership when it mattered most, during the pandemic.

Now, by failing to show grace and magnanimity in defeat, he is in real danger of causing the Republican Party to lose two critical Senate seats in Georgia.

Catastrophe. As we have reported here at ResCon1, this would be a catastrophe for the United States.

That is because if the Democrats win these two Senate seats, they will control the Senate and thus have the ability to enact a host of radical legislative proposals that would effect an irreversible transformation of American politics and our very system of government.

Think D.C. statehood, the end of the filibuster, packing the courts, repeal of corporate tax reform, new tax hikes, “Medicare for All,” the “Green New Deal,” compulsory unionism, et al.

Indeed, the stakes could not be greater than they are right now in Georgia.

Yet, Trump seems not to care. Instead, his focus is on himself and his failed presidential bid.

Weak Leadership. Trump, of course, is too weak and insecure to admit that he lost. Consequently, he and his toadies are concocting ludicrous conspiracy theories to explain his defeat.

This wouldn’t matter except that Trump is consuming all of the political oxygen that otherwise would go to these two critical Georgia Senate races.

As Kimberley A. Strassel explains in the Wall Street Journal:

The biggest risk is that Republican base.

The GOP is optimistic it can win back suburban and older voters who feel conflicted about Mr. Trump but still want a check on progressives.

None of that will matter if GOP voters in rural and exurban areas stay home, angry or frustrated by the presidential election.

Adds the Washington Examiner: 

At this point, Trump’s efforts are more likely to damage the Republican Party, and more specifically, undermine its chances of winning the Jan. 5 runoff elections in Georgia for the two Senate seats that remain undecided.

GOP control of the Senate rests on those races; the party must win at least one of them to retain its majority. And that majority is all that stands in the way of a Congress dramatically more capable of passing damaging and extreme left-wing legislation after Jan. 20.

The president’s efforts to reverse the election result and stay in office for a second term are not going to succeed. Without a chance of succeeding, they have become distractions from the really important task of keeping the Senate in Republican hands.

In Georgia, Trump is setting Republican against Republican.

“The largest shadow hanging over Republicans,” reports McClatchy’s David Catanese, “is what the outgoing president will do.

Trump, who has been almost entirely consumed with his campaign’s far-fetched legal challenges to his own election defeat, briefly praised [David] Perdue and [Kelly] Loeffler in a Tuesday evening tweet.

But GOP officials don’t expect Trump to get more directly involved—if he chooses to at all—until the presidential election result is finalized and his court battles are exhausted.

[Former Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Republican], indicated that Trump likely wouldn’t be helpful to Perdue and Loeffler if he hasn’t conceded his own defeat.
Enough is Enough. President Trump’s failed reelection bid is now history. For the good of the Republican Party—and more importantly, the good of the country— Trump needs to acknowledge this and move on.
 
He needs to focus his efforts on the future, not the past.
 
Trump needs to help mobilize the Republican Party for this Battle of the Bulge moment to defeat the forces of progressivism, which are threatening to take the Senate and, in the ominous words of Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, thereby “change America.”
 
Trump’s legacy, such as it is, hangs in the balance. More importantly, the future of our country is at stake.
 
Feature photo credit: GOP Senate candidates Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, courtesy of 41NBC.com.
Trump Lost, but the Republican Party Won Big in the 2020 Election

Trump Lost, but the Republican Party Won Big in the 2020 Election

By John R Guardiano on November 14, 2020

Even in deep blue states like California, the voters rejected one-party rule and sent Republicans to Congress to check President Biden.

Before the election, we warned that a Biden win almost certainly would mean Democratic control of the Senate and the consequent “progressive” or socialist remaking of America into a very different country than the one bequeathed to us by our founding fathers.

That is because, in these politically polarized times, split-ticket voting has become passé, and the Democratic Party has moved further and further to the left in the past decade.

Well, we are pleased to report that in 2020, the American people actually embraced split-ticket voting to a degree that no one anticipated. Consequently, although Trump lost the presidential election, the Republican Party otherwise did quite well. Consider: 

  • Senate. The Republicans retained control of the Senate, pending the outcome of two runoff elections in Georgia, which they are expected to win.

Yet, in the months leading up to the election, Democrats spoke boldly about winning as many as six new Senate seats, eliminating the filibuster, making Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico new states, packing the courts, and sending the GOP into the dustbin of history.

Not anymore. Because of the GOP’s unexpected Senate wins in Maine, Iowa, North Carolina, and elsewhere, President Biden will be forced to compromise with Senate Republicans—and progressive plans to enact radical and irreversible changes to our very system of government are now dead on arrival.

https://twitter.com/GOP/status/1324062616898121729?s=20
  • House of Representatives. Republicans gained an astounding 10-15 seats in the House of Representatives. (Some House races have yet to be decided; hence the variability of these results.)

“Republicans in Congress won every incumbent seat and 28 out of 29 competitive seats identified by the New York Times’ Nate Silver,” reports Bethany Blankley in The Center Square.

https://twitter.com/henryolsenEPPC/status/1325254596252459008?s=20

As a result, the Democrats have their smallest majority in 60 years. Republicans, meanwhile, are well-positioned to retake control of the House in the 2022 mid-term elections.

Equally important for the GOP’s future in an increasingly diverse country: there will be a record number of Republican women in the House, 35, up from just 13 currently; and these new representatives include Asians, blacks, Hispanics, and Middle Easterners. 

https://twitter.com/CarlosGimenezFL/status/1327665132395229185?s=20

In New Hampshire, a blue state in the heart of deep blue New England, independent conservative Chris Sununu was reelected with a resounding 65 percent of the vote.

https://twitter.com/The_RGA/status/1324439721699954697?s=20

Sununu is young, whip-smart and a political winner. He has to be at the top of the list for 2024 GOP presidential hopefuls.

  • State Legislatures. Republicans retained their lock on most state legislatures: by capturing control of the New Hampshire state house and state senate, while preventing the Democrats from flipping a single state legislative body.

This even though the far left spent huge sums of money to wrest control of the states from the GOP.

The Republicans now control 30 state legislatures, with control of one state legislature split between the two parties and control of another state legislature yet to be determined.

The Democrats, by contrast, control just 18 state legislatures, albeit in three of the largest states in the union: California, New York, and Illinois.

  • Ballot Initiatives. Republicans won overwhelmingly in ballot initiatives nationwide, even in deep blue California and Illinois.

Californians, for instance, voted down an effort to repeal that state’s ban on racial preferences, and they retained their state’s cap on property taxes.

https://twitter.com/ECalifornians/status/1327017400848371712?s=20

They also decisively defeated a union-pushed ballot initiative that would have eliminated independent contractors, curtailed worker employment options, and stunted the gig economy.

Illinois voters rebuffed Democratic Governor, J.B. Pritzker, by voting down a graduated or progressive income tax measure that he had championed.

Coloradans, meanwhile, voted 57 percent to 43 percent for “a simple reduction in the state’s income tax, from 4.63 percent to 4.55 percent,” writes Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform.

However, he adds, voters in Arkansas and Arizona approved tax hikes—albeit through political deception and trickery in Arkansas and very narrowly and dubiously in Arizona.

Conclusion. As William A. Gallston sums it up, the 2020 election

was a defeat for Donald Trump but a victory for the Republican Party, which turned back most challenges to incumbent senators, fought off Democratic efforts to flip state legislatures, and made gains in the House.

The American people have voted for divided government and a less divisive tone in national politics.

Amen to that and God bless America. May our nation—and a viable two-party system committed to the Constitution and the rule of law—live long and prosper.

Feature photo credit: Rep.-Elect Michelle Steel (R-California), courtesy of her Facebook page.