According to a well-known account of a conversation occurring at the end of the last day of the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, when the members of the Convention had just finished hammering out the Constitution under which we live today (as amended), one of the grand ladies of Philadelphia society, Elizabeth Willing Powel, asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
According to the legend, Mr. Franklin replied:
“A republic, if you can keep it.”
By all indications, a Senate deal which would provide both stringent border protections favored by Republicans – controls, indeed, that I have seen reported as being much more rigorous than Republicans will ever secure in the future if in 2024 Democrats retain the White House and regain complete control of Congress — and aid needed by Ukraine to effectively continue its defense against Russia that enjoys bipartisan support, is about to be scuttled because former President Donald Trump has instructed his Republican minions in Congress to kill it. It appears undisputed – this is the crux — that Mr. Trump doesn’t want our border challenges to be addressed because he wants to be able to blame President Joe Biden for the chaos during the upcoming campaign. Republican U.S. UT Sen. Mitt Romney has called Mr. Trump’s action “appalling”; Republican U.S. NC Sen. Thom Tillis has called it “immoral” to reject a border deal to help Mr. Trump politically. Bowing to Mr. Trump’s bidding, MAGA Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson has declared that the bipartisan Senate arrangement will be “Dead on Arrival” in the House. After Mr. Biden expressed support for the Senate agreement late last week, Mr. Johnson sharply criticized the President, claiming that Mr. Biden should instead secure the border by executive order. (The irony here is particularly thick. Republicans have done nothing but accuse Mr. Biden of executive overreach ever since he took office; at the same time, Mr. Trump’s instructions could well politically backfire on him if Democrats have the savvy to run continuous reels, particularly in our southern border states, of Messrs. Romney, Tillis and their Republican Senate colleagues blaming Mr. Trump for the deal’s failure.)
I admit that I haven’t educated myself on immigration policy and issues over the last several years in the way I have intended; that said, it is clear even from liberal media outlets that — no matter whose fault it is, or what factors contribute to it — we face a human, security and logistical crisis on our southern border. A large segment of our people are highly exercised about it. Senate Republicans clearly think that the deal they have struck with their Democratic colleagues will markedly improve our current challenge. (I note that Mr. Romney said that the bipartisan bill would “solve” our border dilemma; I doubt any piece of legislation could do that.)
At the same time, I have for months been painfully aware that Ukrainians are fighting and dying daily to defend their homeland, that they’ve been running out of munitions, and that their ability to withstand any future major Russian onslaught will be extremely compromised without the aid that this bill would provide. It takes no prescience for anyone who has spent any time over the last 80 years considering U.S. foreign policy to understand that not only Western Europe but America will be less secure if Ukraine falls to Russia.
There is reportedly a solid majority in both Houses of Congress that would approve the Senate deal if it was allowed to come to a vote. If so, the fate of the suffering people at the border, relief for our fellow citizens whose lives are being disrupted by the onslaught of migrants, and the destiny of a Ukrainian people struggling to defend themselves (and the world’s democracies) against despotism is being hamstrung by the spasms of one old, evil, demented megalomanic.
According to accounts of Congressional Republicans such as Mr. Romney and former U.S. WY Rep. Liz Cheney, the vast majority of Republicans in the Senate and most Republicans in the House have nothing but contempt for Mr. Trump. They nonetheless kowtow to him because they fear losing their hallowed offices. In addition to rank ambition, a rationale sometimes offered for these Republicans’ shameless obeisance to Mr. Trump is their fear of MAGA physical retribution against themselves and their families. These are frankly pitiful attempts to rationalize a monstrous dereliction of duty by those who have intentionally sought and won membership in the branch of our federal government that has the Constitutional power to declare war – the power to send our men and women of the armed forces to fight and to die on behalf of America’s interests. Those in the military and their families don’t get the luxury of ducking their responsibility in order to preserve their positions and their physical safety. They have to follow whatever these craven blowhards decide is in their own political self interests.
I’m not sure whether I feel greater antagonism toward those MAGA officeholders who want to institute an American Apartheid or for those Republican officials who would support bipartisanship if they did not fear retribution. Frankly, it doesn’t suffice to call the latter group, “cowards.” People are fighting and dying for freedom in Ukraine, and they don’t have the guts to stand up. They are — I know what crass epithet comes to my mind as an apt description; but I leave that one to you.
Meanwhile, last week a jury found the MAGA Messiah before whom these Republicans prostrate themselves liable to E. Jean Carroll for over $83 million dollars for continuing to defame Ms. Carroll after a jury of three women and six men had earlier found that he had sexually abused her. (If you don’t know and still care to learn what Ms. Carroll testified that the former president did to her before the jury rendered its verdict, the substance of her account is readily available via internet search.) The New York Times reported that as he left the courtroom last week on the day before the verdict was rendered, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee loudly declared, “This is not America.”
I ironically agree with the former president’s aggrieved declaration – although obviously not with the lies he spews. The despicable, toxic posturing and pandering now occurring in the United States House of Representatives is not America – my America – a country in which, to use Historian Jon Meacham’s analogy which I particularly like, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan have been figuratively debating our best course over the last 90 years. The two have certainly had vigorous disagreements, and each in life was a wily politician sensitive to the moods of his people, but each always urged in good faith what he felt was best for our nation, believed that it was in America’s strategic interest to use our power to constrain despotism across the globe, and understood that compromise between divergent views held in good faith was the core of our system.
At this most perilous time, when I see a compromise that could provide vital benefit on multiple fronts sacrificed to ambition and fear, I hearken back to Mr. Franklin’s exchange with Mrs. Powel.
I wonder if we can keep it.
McCoy's Noise 