The New York Times has written a very insightful opinion on the continued partisan politics of the GOP in the US Senate and its relationship to Trump. Entitled A Dishonorable Senate, it raises many points that the public needs to consider and respond to in moving forward. The necessity for voting Trump out of office as well as his GOP enablers is made clear by their actions. McConnell also needs to be removed as a priority. The need for continued investigations by the US House and the media is also urgent.
Below are some quotes from the New York Times. I urge you read the whole opinion.
Alas, no one ever lost money betting on the cynicism of today’s congressional Republicans. On Friday evening, Republican senators voted in near lock step to block testimony from any new witnesses or the production of any new documents, a vote that was tantamount to an acquittal of the impeachment charges against President Trump. The move can only embolden the president to cheat in the 2020 election.
The vote also brings the nation face to face with the reality that the Senate has become nothing more than an arena for the most base and brutal — and stupid — power politics. Faced with credible evidence that a president was abusing his powers, it would not muster the institutional self-respect to even investigate. …
The precedent this sets is alarming enough: the Senate abandoning its role as the ultimate guard against a dangerous president. Just as bad is the rationale on which most Republicans have settled for refusing to hear from witnesses — that whatever you think of Mr. Trump’s behavior, it wasn’t impeachable, and there is no evidence that could change their minds.
Given the seriousness of the charges against Mr. Trump, it’s hard to envision anything that this president could do that would require Republican senators to vote for his removal. …
Senate Republicans’ indifference to the overwhelming public support for calling witnesses was of a piece with the party’s minority politics. Its president lost the popular vote by three million votes. Its Senate majority represents 15 million fewer Americans than the Democrats’ minority. In states like North Carolina, it rigs the maps to turn popular-vote losses into legislative majorities, then strips power from duly elected Democratic leaders.
And just in case Americans want to register their unhappiness with Republican leadership, the G.O.P. passes laws across the country to make voting harder and discourage turnout. “I don’t want everybody to vote,” Paul Weyrich, a leader of the modern conservative movement, said in 1980. “Our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
That is becoming the rightful slogan of today’s G.O.P. leaders, who are in thrall to a would-be autocrat, fearful of their own constituents, desperate to lock in control of the courts and the nation’s legal system before a diversifying nation can pry their political authority away.
That was the game Mitch McConnell was playing in 2016, when he blocked any consideration of Judge Merrick Garland, the Supreme Court nominee picked by Barack Obama, a popularly elected president, and held the seat hostage until it could be filled by Mr. Trump. That’s the game Mr. McConnell played again this week.
Make no mistake: The Senate may acquit Mr. Trump, but it will not, it cannot, exonerate him. Mr. Trump is the most corrupt president in modern times, a reality Americans will continue to be reminded of — by continuing investigations by the House, which should immediately issue a subpoena to Mr. Bolton; by a trio of cases in the Supreme Court that seek to reveal Mr. Trump’s shady finances; and, of course, by the behavior of the man himself.
America is better than this. Our democratic government and society is at risk because of the GOP and Trump’s disregard for following the nation’s laws. An aberration has been created by Trump and McConnell that puts the President above the law and the Constitution. The GOP is allowing an autocratic President to operate with no checks and balances. It is an open conspiracy that is allowing plutocrats and money interests and corporations to put their financial and self interests above that of the nation and its people. This November’s election is critical to the future of America.
