Happy

[H2O Man]

48. Consequences.

I'm not a fan of Mitch McConnaloid, but I had to partially agree with him when he said this: &quot Trump) hasn't gotten away with anything -- yet." On one hand, that is bullshit, because he got away with numerous things, starting with his 2016 behaviors, with the Ukraine, and on and on. But he is going to be facing some consequences now, as a private criminal, er, um, citizen. There are both criminal and civil cases awaiting the old boy.

Now, per "Democrats" ..... we have to remember there is a large range of Democratic Party politicians in Washington, DC. Each individual, in fact, has within them some progressive traits, mixed in with liberal, centrist, and conservative traits and values. I will speculate that people's responses to various stimuli tends to follow general patterns -- depending on what mixture of progressive, liberal, centrist, and/or conservative traits they have.

Let's take an example. For some reason, the attack on the Capitol comes to mind. I think we can agree that had to be on a range from uncomfortable to frightening for every person there for a good reason -- the politicians, their aides, the workers, and the police. What we might focus on is the immediate responses up to 48 hours later, compared to three weeks later. The Democrats were solid in recognizing both Trump's central role, and the need to hold him accountable. Right?

But by the time of the trial, there were differences of opinion within the party about issues, including the calling of witnesses. Quite a bit of the party's leadership, including in the White House, were opposed to calling witnesses. By mid-week, they knew which republicans were entrenched and unwill to vote to convict. So when Raskin announced he wanted to call a witness, he was giving voice to the progressive wing. That resulted in the "time out" and Senators going into a huddle.

It was up to leadership to determine the next step. Now, the simple truth is that calling witnesses offered potential benefits and negatives. In my opinion -- and I understand exactly why others may disagree, but I am basing my opinion on my rather shallow understanding of politics -- having Trump's legal team allow the information to be introduced, though not testified to, was the est of the potential outcomes. I think it was, in fact, what Rep. Raskin had in mind from the giddy-up. He played them. Just my opinion.

Now, what does that do, in the larger, national sense? It helps document the Truth, without the clutter of lies and bullshit the Trump team would have introduced. It avoided meaningful distraction, and put important information on the record. The public gets to see it on television, and read about it in the news. They know it is important, because it ruffled republican feathers, and put the legal chihuahuas' tails between their legs.

It is a further blow to the wedge that is dividing the republican party at the seams -- the cult vs the "regular" republicans. Those regulars did vote for Trump in 2020, but events since then insure that they want him removed from their party. Plenty of republicans have already left their party since November. We do not want them to become Democrats. That would damage our party severely. But we do want to splinter their party. And in such situations, one does best to strike while the iron is hot.

And that, my Wonderful Little Sister, is exactlywhy I'm saying we all need to don our blacksmith's gear.