P.T Barnum

P.T. Barnum, the showman, was credited with saying, “You can fool some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”  It appears today’s Republican Party, led by Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell are turning that thought into reality.  Republicans have been fooling the American voter since the eighties with their economic lies about trickle down economics and self-proclaimed Republican fiscal responsibility. Of course the reality of either of these claims differed considerably.  This week provided America with a new version of Republican attempts to fool the American voter.  Given the opportunity to impeach Donald Trump Republicans came up with the claim that the impeachment wasn’t “Constitutional” because Trump was no longer the President.  This, of course, was a completely made up fantasy since there is nothing written in the Constitution to support this line of thinking and looking at instances of impeachment that occurred over the past there are examples of impeachment of people no longer in office.  While McConnell was correct in stating if impeached Trump could not be removed from office because he was already out of office impeachment would have other, perhaps in the case of Trump, even more severe penalties.  For example the Senate could have voted to prevent Trump from ever again running for President.  By voting to acquit Trump McConnell and 43 other Republicans have given Trump license to declare himself a candidate for 2024 and raise funds for that venture.  In as much as much of Trump’s businesses are in the crapper, the Republican Senate enabled a much needed source of income for Trump.  Speaking of income, impeachment could mean the loss of Trump’s pension, Secret Service protection, and office expenses.  This would also be financially detrimental to Trump since he has managed to use both the Secret Service protection and office expenses as a much-needed source of income for his failing businesses.  Trump has made a career of fooling people and his acquittal is just another example of his unique ability to bring this off.  Today, many Republicans, while verbally condemning Trump’s presidential behaviors are afraid to back up their condemnation with actual votes even though the Trump base represents, at best, 40% of possible voters and in spite of the fact that Trump has NEVER won the popular vote in any election.  While you can’t fool all of the people all of the time Trump has succeeded in fooling sufficient numbers of Republican politicians virtuall all of the time.  Fortunately, for America, the Trump wing of the Republican party continues to shrink and has little chance of ever again winning a national election.