Alternet "The Fix Is in -- Republicans Are Showing the Dark Truth about Their Party"

[NRaleighLiberal]

by John Stoehr | February 11, 2021 - 8:45am

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-stoehr/95257/the-fix-is-in-republicans-are-showing-the-dark-truth-about-their-party

I know what Mitch McConnell said, but I'm not a fool. Neither are you. He continues to leak information about "his thinking" to reporters who in turn tell us the Senate minority leader believes a vote for Donald Trump's guilt or innocence is a matter of conscience in his party, not a foregone conclusion anyone with eyes can see coming.

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This is hard to square with a couple of things. One, that McConnell has said openly he's not an impartial juror. Two, that he and all but six Republicans said moving forward was unconstitutional. It does not matter how persuasive the Democratic impeachment managers are. It does not matter how much proof they marshal in support of their allegation. The fix is in. Mitch McConnell is pretending it's not.

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Kevin Cramer, from North Dakota, said opponents of the impeachment trial won't likely change their minds. "It's going to be a hard mental trick to convince yourself that, on the one hand, this is an unconstitutional exercise and, on the other hand, I should be open to conviction. That's a pretty tough turn for smart people to make."

Yeah, it's not, though. Smart people who are engaging morally and democratically in a republican government predicated on the universal principles of equality and freedom—in that order—ought to be able to subordinate themselves to the will of the majority. A smart person whose mind is truly open to the world should find little, if any, tension between believing in an answer strongly and conceding that the question is settled.

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last paragraphs

There is one last thing they could complain about. Castor and Schoen exposed a kind of authoritarian thinking that should be detrimental to Republicans trying hard not to appear authoritarian in a republic increasingly hostile to authoritarianism. Castor and Schoen were unpersuasive. Yet 44 Republicans make-believed they were. That tells us they came to a preferred conclusion—that the Senate can't prosecute Trump—and were seeking means of rationalizing their way back toward that conclusion. Castor and Schoen failed to provide that means, revealing 44 Republicans as intellectual frauds.

It's more than dishonesty, though. In refusing to concede to settled questions—whether it's the constitutionality of prosecuting a former president or whether Donald Trump should remain president—the Republicans are being antidemocratic but also disrespectful of things everyone else respects. They don't recognize the authority of a democratic majority, of a democratic process or of empirical reality itself, because they won't. They refuse to. The authority they recognize is theirs. They are hard at work acting like they believe in this thing called a republic. You don't have to believe it.

[Harker]

1. Rigged trial!

That's the only way there's an acquittal.