Courage of Political People

I'm trying to avoid political posts on social media because they do far more harm to my cause than good. This means that I've (mostly) sat quietly throughout the Trump impeachment. This blog is the perfect place for me to vent my spleen then.

I don't want to hear any more sanctimony from Democratic supporting peoples about how they stand up for their convictions more than Republicans do. Most political people work hard to find context for why their opponent is worse than he probably is and context for why their guy is more innocent than not. I can provide about two dozen examples of Dems doing this. I'm sure they can come up with at least as many for Reps.
Or let me put it this way: if you think that the worst scandal of the Obama era was the time he wore a tan suit, I'm not interested in your take on any political wrongdoing ever again. If you think that Ilhan Omar's comments about Jews buying votes for Israel were fine, then you've simply been brainwashed into supporting your own party.

What do I think of the impeachment? Trump was impeached on two articles. I would have supported one of them and I think the other is ridiculous. Yes, he abused his power with his "perfect call" to Ukraine. That abuse of power is part of a series of incidents from him in which he displays that he has no understanding of the limits of his office and no interest in being bound by law, custom or the Constitution.
I think that his abuse was serious to have him removed from office but I understand where others would differ. He did hold up aid, but not in a meaningful way. Ukraine was not materially effected by his actions. Also, I'm not particularly convinced that we can describe his attempts to dig up dirt on a probable opponent as "trying to sway an election". Or rather, if we can, then quite a bit of traditional political activity falls under that heading. Campaigns regularly dig up dirt as "opposition research". The details in doing so are often noxious. I do think that this crossed a line, but not nearly so far as, say, what Nixon did with Watergate. Throw in the fact that we're coming up on an election where the people can remove Trump and I can understand not voting to remove him.
The second article, that Trump should be removed because he obstructed Congress, is ridiculous. It represents a standard that Democrats would never hold one of their own to. They certainly wouldn't have held Obama to it. Presidents often resist investigations from the opposition party. Given the history of such investigations becoming fishing expeditions, who can blame them?
This means that my votes would have tracked with Romney.

No, the country is not at risk and anyone who says we now have a dictator is delusional and should either be ignored or medicated. We simply live in highly partisan times. I don't see anything on the horizon that will change that.

Now that Trump Has Won

There are some things that I need to say, and I think I'll write them here, in this little watched space. Some people enjoy bathing in the tears of their enemies, but I'm not one of them.

• Now that Trump has won, I want someone to ask every elected Democrat if they want Trump to succeed. Dems had so much unearned outrage over comments made after Obama had won. Let's see if they are mature enough to understand where they went wrong.
• In fact, 'mature enough to understand where they went wrong' is going to be an enormous test for Dems and I'm not optimistic. The most obvious one has to do with executive power. For years I've been saying something like 'would you give this much power to your opponents' and I haven't been listened to or acknowledged. Well, guess what?
• The early news that I'm hearing is that Trump out-performed Romney with Hispanics and African-Americans. If you want to hang this all on 'angry white men', then you have to factor that piece into your analysis.
• We've spent the past eight years having almost every criticism of Obama dismissed as racism. We were starting to have every criticism of Clinton dismissed as sexism. Well, there's a price to pay for not actively acknowledging criticism. Huge portions of the country are absolutely fed up with being called racist or sexist for weak reasons. It looks like they've spoken up.
• Hillary Clinton was a disastrous choice for a nominee. And she won in part because her own cronies in the DNC made it possible. People didn't find her trustworthy. (And no, they didn't find Trump trustworthy either.) The Bernie Sanders style criticism of her Wall St speeches was dead on. Her obviously unethical behavior turned off tons of people. If YOU bought into her, it was in spite of all this.
• And the emails, of course the emails! The fact that she used a private server to keep her own communications away from routine FOIA is bad. The fact that she was sloppy with classified info is terrible. The fact that she then LIED about her use was basically a big ol' middle finger aimed at anyone that cared for good and open government. Forget the damn emails? It looks like America wanted to remember them long enough to forget the damn Hillary.
• I would also like to tell everyone that is yelling at third party voters (like myself) that they can kindly go fornicate themselves. Hillary Clinton didn't earn those votes in any way shape or form. Either did Donald Trump. I can't speak for other third party voters, but I kind of think that the ones who should be ashamed are the ones who brought us these awful, awful choices.
• If you think that your life is over now, because your preferred candidate lost, then you might need some perspective. Yes, elections have consequences and those can be dire for some people. I'm kind of a squish on immigration so I feel for families that now fear being deported. However, if Hillary had won then it would have been terrible for pro-lifers. (It may still be.) It would have been terrible for people whose health coverage expenses are insanely expensive. Their concerns matter too.
• I hope that Trump surprises us, but I'm not confident. I hope that congressional Republicans can keep him in check, though I don't know if that's true either. But...we need to have some faith and optimism.