What a bunch of hypocrites congressional Republicans are proving to be, that is, with the exception of Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham who, in this particular case, must be given at least some credit. I don’t know why but so far these two men have refused to blindly protect President-elect Donald Trump. I doubt that their stance against Mr. Trump has anything to do with statesmanship because as I mentioned in a number of other articles that I have posted to this site, elected Republicans deserted statesmanship a long time ago, at least since the time that President Barack Obama was elected.
It amazes me – although perhaps it should not, that these Republicans’ can be such blatant hypocrites yet constantly evoke the name of the American people when talking about what Americans want and what they will not tolerate! Allow me to provide you with two of the latest examples where, though they have tried to couch it by way of obfuscation, their hypocrisy has been revealed like the magic trick gone bad of an amateur magician performing his first trick at his first show where the smoke and mirrors effect completely fail. I will provide these two prime examples by way of the actions of the two top GOP leaders; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Senate Majority Leader McConnell is an old, cunning highly experienced politician and as such, has become very comfortable with and accustomed to showing no shame as long as what he is saying or doing serves the political purpose for his actions. House Speaker Ryan is not quite as bad; however, it is only because he is not yet quite as comfortable as Senator McConnell is at showing, and apparently feeling, no shame. That is likely because he hasn’t been around as long as the Majority Leader has. But give him time; with the way that he is conducting himself now he will soon fit the typical politician mold and quickly morph into a Mitch McConnell.
Both Senator McConnell and Speaker Ryan have President-elect Trump’s back despite the fact that they know that he is badly damaging America’s image and credibility domestically and abroad. Senator McConnell opposed President Obama on everything from the day that he was elected and still opposes him now. Recently, he droned on about how the Democrats should stop complaining, grow up and quickly confirm President-elect Trump’s nominees like he and the rest of the Republicans did with President Obama’s nominees. What he failed to mention was how they stonewalled President Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland, stole that Supreme Court slot like a thief in the night and fenced it to President-elect Trump for so many pieces of political silver.
According to an article in Chron, back in 2014, Speaker Ryan criticized President Obama for not receiving his daily intelligence briefings in-person rather than reading them because of how important they are to America’s security. He said; “I have a hard time comprehending [why he would read his daily briefings rather than receive them in-person], because the primary job of the commander in chief is to keep the country safe. And you need to get from your intelligence community, your defense community – especially when we have troops in harm’s way – what’s going on. “Yet – according to that same article, when recently asked whether he had full confidence in U.S. intelligence agencies after President-elect Trump questioned the believability of the data gathered by America’s intelligence community and appeared to believe Vladimir Putin over that data, Speaker Ryan qualified his response when he replied; “Well, they (the intelligence community) don’t always get everything right. We’ve seen that clearly. But I do have faith that our men and women in our intelligence community are doing an incredible job, sacrificing for our country. But there’s always room for improvement.”
Based on this qualified response, Speaker Ryan’s straight forward and succinct response regarding the importance of intelligence information to a president in the case of President Obama is diametrically opposed to his response regarding the importance of that same kind of intelligence information when it comes to President-elect Trump. There are only a few reasons that I can think of as to why this would be the case and they are partisanship, political ambition and cowardice. Possibly it is a combination of the three.
The great author, poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou once said “when someone shows you who they are, believe them…”. I have used this quote many times before on this web site and will likely continue to do so because it is not only relevant in most situations when someone is striving to assess a person’s character but it is timeless. There is no doubt that it is applicable and warrants reference and serious consideration whenever anyone finds themselves flummoxed while struggling to understand Mr. Trump and to separate the actual truth from Donald Trump’s truth, which in far too many cases amounts to fiction.
President-elect Donald J. Trump and Representative John Lewis have showed us who they are. President-elect Donald Trump showed us who he is in the way that he has conducted himself throughout his adult life and during the 2016 primary and general elections. Unfortunately, many Americans did not believe him and so voted for him to become president and lead our great country. Representative John Lewis showed us who he is during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s when he was beaten to within inches of his life for standing up for all Americans and what he believed to be right and in his service to America as a congressman. He showed us then, and he is continuing to show us now.
So when President-elect Donald J. Trump decided to denigrate this great statesman and civil rights icon by saying that “Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk – no action or results. Sad!”, I had no problem in picking the person with whom I choose to stand. I don’t know about you but I choose to stand with Representative Lewis. I choose to believe who Representative Lewis has showed me that he is rather than who President-elect Trump says that he is. President-elect Trump is the one who is as unstable as nitroglycerin (and potentially just as dangerous) and is yet an unproven quantity in terms of being the man that he says that he is: but he has certainly proven himself to be the man that he has showed us that he is.
President-elect Trump’s apparent infatuation with Vladimir Putin and his seemingly blind desire to ‘get along with Russia’ at all costs is astonishing. His desire is so strong that he is willing to disparage America’s intelligence community and ruin their reputation in the eyes of Americans and the world, he is willing – while he is still President-elect – to go against the decisions of President Obama and side with Vladimir Putin and Russia, and he has allowed his transition team to initiate and hold conversations with the Russian Ambassador although those conversations have the appearance of being inappropriate and raise questions by many concerned Americans.
We have yet to experience what a Trump Administration will be like. But in two days, whether or not we are ready to embark upon that journey, we will begin to experience life in Trump’s America. Based on who he has shown us that he is he will continue to behave just as he did during his life as a real estate mogul and during the primary and general elections. This means that this journey for many Americans, as long as Mr. Trump is president, will be erratic and filled with stress. We know that he is thin-skinned and easily provoked so we can only hope that those around him will, to the greatest extent possible, handle him with kid gloves whenever they disagree with him. But if this does not suffice then all Americans – whether we are Democrats, Republicans or Independents must do our duty as citizens and hold our elected officials to account. We must stand up for America and do our part to assure that our democracy remains as secure as it has always been and that we remain one nation: a nation which will always espouse and demand liberty and justice for all.
Eulus Dennis – author, Operation Rubik’s Cube and Living Between The Line