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The Democratic Party is currently in a tizzy trying to agree internally on the best way to be rid of U.S. president Donald J. Trump. A faction of the party's Congressional Representatives in the House want to impeach Trump, even though there is no hope of getting the Senate to vote to convict Trump and thus remove him from office, since this requires a vote by two-thirds of the members in that body, and virtually no Republican Senators can be expected to vote to convict their party leader, who is overwhelmingly popular with Republican voters. (Republicans currently are a majority in the 100 seat U.S. Senate.)
The other faction among the Democrats say the only way to remove Trump is by victory in the 2020 presidential election. But that too is problematic. There are 25 Democrats vying for the party's nomination, which surely will create confusion and result in a nominee lacking great stature. Plus, the GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) consistently steals elections, for president, senators, state governors, by underhanded and illegal means. They have even resorted to assassination to grab control of the Senate, as occurred with the murders of Paul Wellstone and Mel Carnahan.
This subversion by the GOP of what little democracy there is in the U.S. has been going on for two decades, and the Democrats never make a peep about it or lift a finger to counter it. Instead they have spent the past three years promoting the gigantic hoax that Russia had a major influence on the 2016 election, that it massively interfered, and that it constitutes an ongoing "threat to our democracy."
Can a political party get any lamer than that?
So with impeachment not a viable method to remove Trump from power, and the Democrats' sorry record in electoral politics, one must consider other alternatives.
So herein, A Modest Proposal.
I was musing on the life of another headstrong and ambitious individual who ruthlessly grabbed the top rung of power in an empire: Julius Caesar, Emperor of Rome.
Caesar, a ruthless general who slaughtered an estimated million people in his conquest of Gaul, committing innumerable atrocities to facilitate the Roman Empire's seizure of the area and the subjugation of its people by such methods as chopping off all the hands of male inhabitants who dared resist being conquered, made himself Emperor by marching into Rome with his army, "crossing the Rubicon" river, as the phrase memorializing his power grab has it.
A group of Roman Senators decided to eliminate this dictator, and did so by luring him onto the Senate floor, where they dispatched him with daggers. The story goes that with his dying breath he rebuked one of the assassins whom he had considered loyal, with the words "Et tu, Brute?" ("And you, Brutus?" by which Caesar meant, even you?)
I thought: what a classy way to free the nation of Trump if Senators would emulate their Roman counterparts of two millenniums ago!
Just imagine the scene: Trump, lying on the floor of the Senate like a beached whale or mortally wounded buffalo, his blood oozing out in an expanding puddle on the marble floor, his killers standing over his body in their expensive suits, observing their handiwork.
If he has any sense of classical history- and he went to "good" schools, so he should- the words on Trump's dying lips could be, "Et tu, Mitch?"
But no way Republican Senators would turn on Trump, whom they fear. Their "base" would surely avenge such treachery against their idol. And they have guns, lots of guns.
So what would Trump gasp out as he lay dying? "Et tu, Chuck?" That makes no sense. He doesn't expect loyalty from Schumer. And Schumer, being a Democrat, is far too timid and compromised to take bold action, ever. So we wouldn't get the wonderful historical bookend, the reverberation from millenniums past, that would make this so satisfying. Besides, the Democrats are renowned for their cupidity, so surely that would stay their hands.
I suppose we'll just have to see if the Democrats let the Republicans steal another presidential election through chicanery, voter suppression, and the like, as they did in 2000, 2004, and 2016.
And if the Democrats "lose" again, they'll just pretend that RUSSIA did it! BLAME IT ON RUSSIA!! THEY'RE UNDERMINING OUR DEMOCRACY!! In fact, they are already preparing the ground to blame an upcoming loss on Russia, running around saying that the "threat" is "still there," and that Trump is "doing nothing to protect our democracy." Various media propagandists and secret police types peddle the same lurid threat-mongering.
It's contemptible and pathetic.
The other faction among the Democrats say the only way to remove Trump is by victory in the 2020 presidential election. But that too is problematic. There are 25 Democrats vying for the party's nomination, which surely will create confusion and result in a nominee lacking great stature. Plus, the GOP (Gang Of Plunderers) consistently steals elections, for president, senators, state governors, by underhanded and illegal means. They have even resorted to assassination to grab control of the Senate, as occurred with the murders of Paul Wellstone and Mel Carnahan.
This subversion by the GOP of what little democracy there is in the U.S. has been going on for two decades, and the Democrats never make a peep about it or lift a finger to counter it. Instead they have spent the past three years promoting the gigantic hoax that Russia had a major influence on the 2016 election, that it massively interfered, and that it constitutes an ongoing "threat to our democracy."
Can a political party get any lamer than that?
So with impeachment not a viable method to remove Trump from power, and the Democrats' sorry record in electoral politics, one must consider other alternatives.
So herein, A Modest Proposal.
I was musing on the life of another headstrong and ambitious individual who ruthlessly grabbed the top rung of power in an empire: Julius Caesar, Emperor of Rome.
Caesar, a ruthless general who slaughtered an estimated million people in his conquest of Gaul, committing innumerable atrocities to facilitate the Roman Empire's seizure of the area and the subjugation of its people by such methods as chopping off all the hands of male inhabitants who dared resist being conquered, made himself Emperor by marching into Rome with his army, "crossing the Rubicon" river, as the phrase memorializing his power grab has it.
A group of Roman Senators decided to eliminate this dictator, and did so by luring him onto the Senate floor, where they dispatched him with daggers. The story goes that with his dying breath he rebuked one of the assassins whom he had considered loyal, with the words "Et tu, Brute?" ("And you, Brutus?" by which Caesar meant, even you?)
I thought: what a classy way to free the nation of Trump if Senators would emulate their Roman counterparts of two millenniums ago!
Just imagine the scene: Trump, lying on the floor of the Senate like a beached whale or mortally wounded buffalo, his blood oozing out in an expanding puddle on the marble floor, his killers standing over his body in their expensive suits, observing their handiwork.
If he has any sense of classical history- and he went to "good" schools, so he should- the words on Trump's dying lips could be, "Et tu, Mitch?"
But no way Republican Senators would turn on Trump, whom they fear. Their "base" would surely avenge such treachery against their idol. And they have guns, lots of guns.
So what would Trump gasp out as he lay dying? "Et tu, Chuck?" That makes no sense. He doesn't expect loyalty from Schumer. And Schumer, being a Democrat, is far too timid and compromised to take bold action, ever. So we wouldn't get the wonderful historical bookend, the reverberation from millenniums past, that would make this so satisfying. Besides, the Democrats are renowned for their cupidity, so surely that would stay their hands.
I suppose we'll just have to see if the Democrats let the Republicans steal another presidential election through chicanery, voter suppression, and the like, as they did in 2000, 2004, and 2016.
And if the Democrats "lose" again, they'll just pretend that RUSSIA did it! BLAME IT ON RUSSIA!! THEY'RE UNDERMINING OUR DEMOCRACY!! In fact, they are already preparing the ground to blame an upcoming loss on Russia, running around saying that the "threat" is "still there," and that Trump is "doing nothing to protect our democracy." Various media propagandists and secret police types peddle the same lurid threat-mongering.
It's contemptible and pathetic.
Trump better hope past is not prologue. Sometimes bullies end up badly.
The Wise Emperor Takes His Bodyguards With Him To The Senate
Beware the Ides of March, O Emperor! (Or of April, May, June, etc.)
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