Powerful stuff from Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447864/trump-critics-left-right-want-him-removed
Quote:And yet, for all that and more, Barack Obama certainly did not warrant articles of impeachment; he was not unhinged, nor did he offer any evidence of medical incapacity. He would not deserve to have his family smeared with jokes about incest or autism. Any Madonna-like talk of blowing him up in the White House would have been obscene, perhaps illegal, and probably grounds for prosecution.
We are now watching insidious regime change, aimed at removing the president of the United States not because of what he has done so far, but because of his personality and what he might do to the Obama agenda — and because for a variety of cultural reasons, our elite simply despises his very being.
And this from Kevin D Williamson who is clearly not a supporter of Donald J. Trump
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447826/donald-trump-banana-republic-brazil-impeachment-democracy?target=topic&tid=1707
Quote:The president has not been in office for a year, and already there is talk of impeachment.
He is a man of means, in his seventies, and accustomed to getting his way. He seems genuinely confused by the situation. He came into office after seeing off a corrupt and venal woman — one he had once supported — promising a new beginning, a restoration, an act of national salvation in which the good of the people was finally to be given precedence over the desires of the elites.
Immediately, there was trouble. There were relationships — and payments — that didn’t look quite right, and a hostile press gleefully digging into them. High government officials came forward with claims that the president had pressured them to do favors for political allies. The words “obstruction of justice” began to be spoken with some anger. There was talk of covertly recorded conversations, and federal authorities sought documents that might or might not establish presidential wrongdoing.
Congratulations, America: You have at last, after all these years, transformed yourself into Brazil.
Quote:The doings in Washington have a distinctly tropical feel to them, and it isn’t global warming. Republicans who rallied to Trump are now learning that it is very difficult to steer the ship of state with one middle finger. American institutions are very robust, and this moment’s banana-republic stuff probably can be digested, provided there is not too much more of it. But there is no sign that Democrats will be satisfied with paralyzing the administration — at the grassroots, it is plain they will be satisfied with nothing less than driving him from office, and maybe not even with that.
But that is not how constitutional, democratic republics work.
There's still time for the hysteria to dissipate and for statesmen and/or stateswomen to rise above this hot mess, but I'm not betting on it. This is going to be ugly all the way through, and either way that it is resolved, the nation will be more divided than it already is.
The Democrats and their MSM allies clearly don't care if the way they handle this really angers large swathes of the American people. They're not trying to convince those who voted for Trump that perhaps they made a mistake. They wrote those people off during the campaign and they haven't changed their approach now even though in large measure it cost them the White House. As noted, the Republicans made this mistake in pursuing Clinton's impeachment and perhaps it will backfire on the Democrats too, but I'm sure they are convinced that Trump's disapproval rating is climbing and won't stop doing so, that the tsunami of innuendo and unproven claims they've engineered will wash away not only Trump, but the Republican Party and millions of deplorable Americans.
Before I saw video of the unstoppable tsunamis that devastated Indonesian islands in 2004 and Fukushima Japan in 2011, I always envisioned them as mountains of roiling water falling on the seaside towns and villages in their path, as depicted in the iconic woodblock print
The Great Wave off Kanagawa by the artist Katsushika Hokusai. l learned though that tsunamis reaching as much as 100 feet in height are created, not by earthquakes, but more likely by volcanoes that hurl enormous boulders into the air that coming crashing back into the ocean (a la the giant tsunami that swept over a 100 ft lighthouse when Krakatoa literally blew it's top). The tsunami being created by Trump's opposition enemies is like one created by an earthquake. No spectacular towering crest crashing down on it's victims like the Great Wave off Kanagawa, but an incredibly powerful and deceptive juggernaut of ocean water sweeping enormous masses of mud and debris ahead of itself and destroying everything in its path.
I sure hope Mueller is the honest straight shooter so many claim him to be, but the last time I heard those accolades, they were about Comey; so I'm not sanguine about his impartiality. If this thing turns out looking like a purely political power grab, with no real
there there, this country is going to be in for a very rough ride.
I'm no huge fan of Trump, although I don't hold the level of animus towards him that Williamson does, but like Williamson, I think the whole thing reeks, and if Trump is deposed without clear and convincing evidence of wrongdoing that amounts to more than incompetence, lousy judgment and a very unpleasant personality, I will stand as an enraged citizen. What I can do about or will do about it, I've no idea at present, but I'm sure there will be those who will make convincing suggestions.
The argument that Bill Clinton's impeachment was nothing but a purely political power play doesn't hold much weight with me even if it is absolutely accurate. The Democrats may feel like they are owed the impeachment of a Republican president, but the country isn't. The voters are owed the president they elected and if he is truly and seriously unfit for office (and not because he's a crude and nasty s.o.b. who says mean things about people and won't advance the progressive political agenda) they are owed the proper working of the system to remove him from power.
