Can’t You Read: Russiagate and the 1st Trump Impeachment
Russiagate and the 1st Trump Impeachment
If I’m being entirely honest with you here, I must admit at this point that I’m so tired of writing about the “Russia” part of Russiagate that I could literally go the rest of my life without typing the words “Putin,” “treason,” or “Kremlin” again.
Despite being one of the earliest independent writers to identify the strong odor of bullsh*t in all of the most salacious claims of the scandal, I didn’t even bother to write the obligatory “declaration of victory” article when the Mueller report finally put two bullets into the back of this mad conspiracy theory’s head. Why? Well, because by that point I was just too f*cking exhausted to bother after literally two full years and change of refuting the same comically poor “evidence” that swine emperor Trump was a “Russian asset” each time the mainstream media repackaged it into a new variation on the still completely unhinged theme.
Unfortunately regardless of my general loathing of the subject, it remains utterly impossible to explain the severity of swine emperor Trump’s tinpot dictator turn in the Ukraine call scandal without being forced to discuss why this situation is in fact not “exactly like Russiagate” – an effort that is certainly not aided by the Democratic Party and “liberal” corporate media’s inexplicable insistence on bringing the matter up repeatedly; both to try and pile more damage onto Trump, and to attack heterodox candidates in the 2020 Democratic Party nomination contest.
As I wrote in the graphic above, there is literally no question whatsoever of whether or not Trump is guilty here – to quote Robert Reich in the October 5th online edition of the Guardian:
“There are only two questions at stake, and the answers to both are becoming more obvious to more Americans every day.
The first is whether asking a foreign power to dig up dirt on a political opponent is an impeachable offense. The answer is indubitably yes.
When the framers of the constitution gave Congress the power to impeach a president, one of the high crimes they had in mind was acceding to what Alexander Hamilton called “the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils”. James Madison argued for impeachment lest a president “might betray his trust to foreign powers”.
The second question is whether Trump did this. The answer is also an unqualified yes. In the published version of his phone conversation with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Trump asks for the “favor” of digging up dirt on Joe Biden.“
This is of course without even mentioning the fact that the Klepto Kaiser literally went on f*cking TV and did precisely the same damn thing he’d just denied doing, when he asked China and Ukraine to dig up dirt on 2020 Democratic Party nomination candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Frankly it doesn’t even matter that Biden’s son almost certainly did trade on his father’s name to get a position on a Ukrainian energy company’s board for which he was obviously wholly unqualified; if Trump wanted to go after Joe Biden’s possible corruption he has an entire Department of Justice for that – this was political persecution against a potential 2020 opponent; Herr Donald is absolutely guilty here regardless.
This case should be a slam dunk sell for Democrats, and yet it’s not – not even among the many millions of people who legitimately hate Donald Trump and know that he’s a literal fascist.
Sure part of that is mistrust of establishment power and the humiliation of having been tricked, however briefly, by the shittiest Austin Powers script known to humankind, but part of it is almost certainly also raw and fully earned animosity to the established neoliberal order. Mainstream Democrats and elite liberal influencers clearly have no idea the degree of damage they’ve done to relationships with their own voter coalitions by repeatedly gaslighting the American public and smearing anyone who opposed them politically as pawns of Vladdy Putin and the “KGB.” I’m not just talking about Republicans here, but even left wing activists have fallen under the assault of ruling class liberal McCarthyism; including Black Lives Matter protestors, Bernie Sanders supporters and Green Party voters.
Understandably, spending two years censoring left wing voices online and calling anyone who poses a threat to your control over the Democratic Party power structure a Russian troll bot, a “useful idiot” or “basically the same as a fascist Trump supporter” has not endeared the elite liberal establishment to labor class Democratic Party voters – even among those who know Trump is guilty of something in the Ukraine call scandal, there is little desire to help the rich abusive maggots running the Democratic Party wash all their crooked straight in the blood of a Trump impeachment battle.
Of course a responsible adult would suggest that for the good of the country, the party and the future of American democracy, it might be a good idea for Democrats to apologize or at least stop f*cking bringing the subject up every time the opportunity to shoot themselves in the foot appears again – but what the hell would I know, I’m not “the most qualified presidential candidate in American history” after all.
– nina illingworth
