No, Republicans still won’t hold Trump to account
by Tom Toles
Yesterday, the world changed as President Trump stood shoulder to shoulder with a foreign dictator, and took his side against America.
Yawn. The Republican response amounted to a tut-tut. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) got it right when he said that “no prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.” But the tea got watered down pretty rapidly from there. Newt Gingrich called it “the most serious mistake of his presidency.” Oh, yes, mistakes were made. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared that he has complete confidence in the findings of our intelligence community, but at last check, the intelligence community was still under the bus after being thrown there by Trump.
Let’s see. An adversarial power acted systematically to undermine our election, and plans to do it again. Trump, in effect, said he doesn’t actually believe the U.S. position on this, let alone will he do anything to punish or stop it. The only thing he has ever threatened to do is shut down a full investigation into it.
Let’s go to the tape. The tape of Trump winking at Russian President Vladimir Putin. TWICE! Cute, huh? And after a day of angry jowl-shaking, will the Republican Party do anything about this? Such as acting to protect the special counsel from Trump? No, it will send Trump a wink or two of its own. Tut-tutly winks.
Algebra time! If A equals B, and B equals C, what is the relation of A to C? If Trump stands with Putin on Putin’s interference in the U.S. election, and Republicans stand with Trump, what have you got? An American crisis is what. As The Post’s editorial page points out today, the collusion question has now been answered. In public. Putin did for Trump, Trump just did for Putin. Quid, meet quo. Democracy, meet authoritarianism.
The Republican Party is making its choice here. Your choice is in November.
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OCU
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