September 23, 2019

MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH

Donald Trump no doubt regards impeachment as a challenge that he can beat. He has already employed his standard operating procedure of deny, deny, deny, spin, divert and then scurrilously attack his opponents. As an icon of corruption, it is a testament to his pugilistic and propaganda skills that he can vilify his opponents as corrupt when he is the creature swimming in a cesspool of corruption, treachery and lies.

And of course, he revels in playing the victim, which his base of white grievance acolytes relates to.

What he is attempting to do now, turn Ukraine-Gate into a full-bore attack on Joe Biden, is exactly what he did with “lock her up” Hillary Clinton. The Democrats don’t have the chops to counter such fierce hypocrisy and cunning, so they are left, as Clinton was, to endlessly be on the defensive.

BuzzFlash has written two commentaries on the need to impeach Trump or doom the US to full-fledged fascism, as Trump’s corrosive violation of the rule of law becomes more and more emboldened. The Ukraine-Gate episode is a testament to how far along we are in this hideous totalitarian administration. It remains to be seen if Pelosi will actually hold Trump accountable by demanding the “urgent” whistleblower report be handed over to Congress or let Trump off the hook with the release of the July 25 phone call transcript that he will claim is exoneration, as he did with the Mueller report.

The reality is that there was enough evidence of obstruction of justice in the Mueller report for Pelosi to proceed with impeachment, but as is par for the course for Democrats in positions of power, she went cautious as Trump went unscrupulously combative and spewing out “alternative facts.”

Trump followed his normal strategy in response to Ukraine-Gate that he employs when his malfeasance, breaking of the law, grifting, racist incitement, etc. is exposed. First he denies any accusation of responsibility. Then he slowly walks the denial back with a spin of acknowledgement. Then he diverts attention from the initial wrongdoing by attacking an opponent virulently and scurrilously. That is what he is doing to Joe Biden even as this commentary is written. Roy Cohn, who schooled Joe McCarthy on smearing the reputations of law-abiding Americans, would be proud of his protege.

Trump manages to gaslight the media every time. Some press may be critical of his “mistruths.” For instance, with Ukraine-Gate, he first claimed that he withheld the funding to Ukraine because, Trump erroneously claimed, of corruption there that Joe Biden’s son was involved in. Yesterday, he changed his story to say he held up the funds because he wanted Europe to contribute more to helping out Ukraine. Short of impeachment, the DC press corps appears more interested in transcribing Trump’s deceitful pronouncements than in ferreting out the truth. They let Trump change his story daily, usually without challenging him.

Even with impeachment, Trump will remain a dangerous venomous snake.

CNN’s Brian Stelter warned in his morning email alert:

In Trump’s attacks on Biden, Democrats see a worrisome reprise of 2016. Matt Viser and Isaac Stanley-Becker report: “Biden’s campaign released videos last weekend to supporters and memos to reporters attempting to debunk the unsubstantiated claims Trump is promoting about Biden, his son Hunter and Ukraine’s freshly minted celebrity president. … But in a worrisome sign for Democrats anxious about reliving the party’s woes in 2016, the campaign’s counterattack is being drowned out by a pro-Trump network on social media and cable news that kicked into gear over the weekend, leveling accusations against Biden that have scant factual basis. The skirmish illustrated how ill-equipped Democrats, busy battling one another in the fight for the nomination, are to compete with Trump’s online megaphone, which includes not just his own Twitter feed and that of the Republican National Committee’s leadership, but also a regiment of conservative talking heads and highly active Internet trolls who have closed ranks around the president.”

To wit: Trump kept his focus on Biden at the U.N. on Monday. Sitting next to the Polish president, he claimed to reporters that, if Biden was a Republican, the media would have him in “the electric chair by right now.”

Trump has brought us to the brink of totalitarianism and the dismantling of the rule of law. Our last hope is the impeachment process. The Senate we all know will never convict him, but the impeachment process, if Nancy Pelosi allows it to follow where the high crimes and misdemeanors lead, offers us the chance of reasserting the rule of law and rewriting the public narrative about Trump, exposing him as a con artist, law breaker, threat to national security, grifter and stealer of elections. That is if the GOP investment in packing the Supreme Court and federal bench with partisan hacks doesn’t save Trump from justice.

May the House Democrats find the inner strength to restore our Constitutional balance of powers and legal accountability to all citizens, even those who are masters of corruption and lawlessness in the White House.

Trump is not going to let up with his scathing and violence-tinged attacks on his political opponents, in this case Biden. The Daily Beast reports that his lackeys, including Steve Bannon and the infamous and farcical Rudolph Giuliani, are in the midst of trying to tie Hunter Biden to a China scandal. Hillary Clinton is familiar with Trump’s game plan.

The House Dems will need to find a strong backbone to overcome Trump’s thugishness, mendacity and evil cunning. The fate of our democracy depends upon it.

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