Vice President Pence, Republican members of the House and Senate, Americans in big cities, thriving suburbs, struggling towns, abandoned villages, lonely ranches and family farms, public servants, white and blue collar workers, soldiers, retirees, and students all face the need to make a decision as citizens.
In court filings by the investigators of the Special Counsel and the prosecutors of the Southern District of New York, it has become increasingly clear that Donald J. Trump has participated in a pattern of felonious actions designed to aid him in winning the presidency of the United States.
Included are a conspiracy to pay hush money to suppress evidence of sordid adulterous affairs in violation of campaign finance and tax laws. Laws also seem likely to have been broken in connection with the misuse of charitable funds for personal and political purposes. And waiting in the wings are chapter and verse concerning connections by Trump and his minions with Russian efforts to corruptly influence an American election, the exploitation of public office for private gain by Trump, his sons, daughter and son-in-law, and a conspiracy to obstruct justice by concealing these and other crimes.
The recent court revelations, and the vote of ‘no confidence’ in November that won Democrats 40 seats in and control of the House, have begun to erode Trump’s Svengali-like hold on a party that will have to defend him and his political and criminal record in 2020.
Some deaf, dumb and blind loyalists like Orrin Hatch, Kevin McCarthy, and Chuck Grassley may still maintain they see no evil, hear no evil because they are afraid to speak of Trumpian evil to their base. But other Republicans with seats that are less safe have begun to say a discouraging word about the White House cesspool.
Trump also may not be entirely sanguine either since his incantation of “No Collusion, Witch Hunt” is ringing increasingly hollow. Crowds at rallies are smaller, polls have worrying results concerning the investigations into Trump, and he has apparently told some confidants that he isn’t sure he can trust Mike Pence. The Veep has amassed a considerable personal campaign war chest and nurses ambitions that his closeness to Trump could doom.
Trump may be right to be suspicious. When he offered Pence’s Chief of Staff, Nick Ayers, a chance work as his top aide, Ayers declined. He’s not alone in seeking future opportunities outside Trump’s toxic orbit. Reports suggest it is becoming ever more difficult for Trump to attract talent to staff a government that may be heading onto the rocks. Therefore, the same small cast of blind loyalists keep getting mentioned for government jobs.
Those who hope to have careers in politics post-Trump are chary of being spattered in the bloodbath that the coming Gotterdammerung could produce. As an acid critique of the president puts it, “Everything Trump Touches Dies.” Those who want to live to fight another day are beginning to opt out.
But it isn’t just pols, operatives, and partisans who should be asking themselves a simple question at this juncture, as the truth about Trump — personal, political, financial and criminal — comes out. Which side are you on? The options are fairly stark.
The first is to cleave to an increasingly difficult to maintain belief in the innocence of “Individual 1,” the unindicted co-conspirator, the grifter, the bully, the perjurer who instead of enlarging the tent of his support keeps shrinking it to a smaller base disconnected from reality and inimical to American values.
The second choice is to renew one’s faith in the importance of the rule of law and and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. Presidents, Vice Presidents, cabinet officers, members of the armed forces, senators, congressmen, judges, juries, and citizens —left, right, and unaffiliated — are all supposed to preserve, protect, and defend it, so help us God.
In Trump’s world of the fast buck, casual immorality, situational ethics, me first, everybody else second, rules made to be broken, laws made to be flouted, neither friends nor enemies just marks to be used and discarded, and no higher loyalty to duty, honor, country but only to ruthless self-aggrandizement, this shouldn’t be a hard choice.
Those who don’t pick the first choice tell you all you need to know about them. Keep your hand on your wallet, don’t leave them alone with your wife or daughter, and don’t vote for them, do business with them, or accept their invitation down a dark alley. Those who choose the Constitution over those willing to undermine it for money, power, or partisan advantage are on the right side of history. Your choice.