ANALYSIS:
On Wednesday, House Democrats voted for articles of impeachment against America’s 45th president, then send the case to the Senate for trial. Trump will join the infamous list of Nixon and Clinton becoming the third American president to be impeached.
In my opinion, Trump is guilty as sin. He should be impeached, convicted by the Senate and removed from office.
The problem is that in this current landscape of tribalized hyper-partisan politics, he won’t be convicted in the Senate. House Democrats put together a circumstantial case. A very strong circumstantial case but circumstantial none the less. Attorneys will tell you in a court of law that circumstantial evidence can be more damning at times than direct evidence. But this is not a court of law. This is the court of public opinion. In the court of partisan public opinion, you must be clear, real clear.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has publicly admitted to stacking the deck. According to McConnell, “Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with the White House counsel…There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this to the extent that we can.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told us in 2016 that Trump is “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He doesn’t represent the values that the men and women in uniform are fighting for…I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office.” Graham will now defend Trump with his last breath. Since Graham could not become commander in chief, he became hypocrite-in-chief.
So, House Democrats have spent weeks with televised congressional hearings. But to what end? It will not yield the desired result and could possibly provide Trump with the 2020 campaign talking point, “I was exonerated by the Senate, the call was perfect”.
So, here’s my point. While most Americans were dozing in and out of the “impeachathon,” House Democrats were supporting Trump actions and passing legislation to support the broader bipartisan neo-liberal agenda. America slept like the Whos in Whoville in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”
The socialist government of Bolivian President Evo Morales was overthrown by a U.S.-backed coup after Morales narrowly won a fourth presidential term in late October. According to Jacobin magazine, “Bolivia is currently ruled by an unelected president, Jeanine Áñez, whose government is now responsible for nearly two dozen deaths and hundreds of injuries after Evo Morales’s overthrow.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren supports this U.S.-backed attack on Bolivian democracy: “The Bolivian people deserve free and fair elections, as soon as possible…Bolivia’s interim leadership must limit itself to preparing for an early, legitimate election.”
She continues, “Maduro is a dictator and a crook who has wrecked his country’s economy, dismantled its democratic institutions, and profited while his people suffer…” Ahh, senator, the elections were free, fair and legitimate, just not to the liking of US imperialists such as yourself. To his credit, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) remains the only 2020 Democratic presidential contender to condemn Morales’ ouster.
Two weeks ago, Warren stated a similar position on the U.S.-backed coup in Venezuela: “Start with the fact that Maduro is obviously a dictator, he’s terrible, he’s stolen this election, it’s a nightmare for the people of Venezuela.”
The problem is President Maduro is overwhelmingly backed by the Venezuelan people. Also, only three Democrats — Reps. Ro Khanna, Tulsi Gabbard, and Sen. Bernie Sanders — have spoken out against the coup. Democratic leadership is pro-democracy in the U.S. and opposed to it every other place in the world. Especially if it means that we will not be able to exploit the labor and natural resources in the countries where it is being practiced.
Last week, 188 House Democrats joined the Republican caucus and passed the sweeping $738 billion military spending bill or 2020 NDAA. It includes funding for the Space Force as a sixth armed service and increases the Pentagon budget by $22 billion. Most House Democrats backed this obscene giveaway to the President after his ungodly $1.5T tax cut and after his administration introduced three proposals that would cut about 2.2 million U.S. households, or almost 4 million people, from the food stamp program, while also reducing benefits for another 3.1 million households. He has also proposed Social Security changes that could end disability benefits for hundreds of thousands and the Democrats are silent.
In passing the NDAA the House Democrats agreed to keep Guantanamo Bay open, remove the bipartisan amendment to stop the war in Yemen and the bipartisan amendment to stop an unauthorized, offensive war against Iran. Only 41 Democrats, voted against the NDAA. The “Squad” (Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan) and Barbara Lee did not while most of the CBC voted in favor of it (as usual). Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) chairman of the House Armed Services Committee hailed the measure as “the most progressive defense bill we have passed in decades.”
Finally, Democrats proudly announced that they passed the USMCA, the revision of the NAFTA trade deal with Canada and Mexico, which had been stalled on Capitol Hill. We are still awaiting the final analysis on this, but it looks like American labor loses and big pharma wins, again.
Democratic leadership tells us that they are morally obligated to move forward with impeaching the 45th President. They claim to be protecting the Republic and democracy as they should. After all, the mastermind behind President Trump’s nationalist ideology, Stephen K. Bannon, told us clearly the White House is digging in for a long period of conflict to transform Washington and upend the world order by deconstructing the administrative state.
Protecting democracy? Elitist Democrats are working with the administration and neo-cons to cut taxes for the wealthy and perpetuate the military-industrial complex. They are far from liberal. By implementing tax cuts on the backs of the poor and the working class, they have capitulated to the neo-cons and are implementing neo-liberal policies. That’s a frightening America.
Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast talk radio program “Inside the Issues” on SiriusXM Satellite radio channel 126. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us@yahoo.com. www.twitter.com/drwleon and Dr. Leon’s Prescription at Facebook.com
