I see you watching the proceedings, eyes blinking, jaw working slowly back and forth. I see your eyes scan the sea of bored faces, pens dipping into crossword puzzles, heads nodding until an elbow to the ribs pops them back up again like a reverse game of whack-a-Russian-mole. It’s a chore, all this, isn’t it? Having to sit through the pantomime of a trial when the Republicans have already made up their minds feels like a spectacular waste of time.
The procedural tug of war over new evidence and witnesses seems to be doing very little to prevent it slowly leaking out regardless. Anything Lev Parnas has to say may well never enter in to the official testimony but the narrative is rapidly careening out of control, with Trump’s usual “I never met the guy” defence once again crumbling in the face of the facts. The Democrats have been thorough and meticulous. Even without the key witnesses needed to serve a truly airtight case for the direct allegations of a quid pro quo in Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, the charge of obstruction is utterly undeniable. The man himself even bragged about it on television. The second article is just as impeachable as the first, regardless of Alan Dershowitz’s about-face on the legal interpretation of ‘high crimes and misdemeanours.’
That it will make no difference whatsoever to the outcome is not the result of brave Republicans rushing to the defence of the Constitution, even in the face of an uncouth and unconventional President. It’s not the result of a Senate majority and GOP cowed by a man who has them utterly in his thrall, either. It’s a conscious choice by a willing party of complicit accomplices actively participating in Trump’s smash-and-pussygrab on the mirage of American freedoms and decency.
That we have a President defended in the Senate by Jeffrey Epstein’s lawyers, one of which is himself directly named in sexual assault allegations, feels about right for the reality-TV apocalypse of truth America are currently subjecting themselves to. The naive are getting fucked by the rich and powerful once again, Mitch McConnell, and you’re the madam holding the receipts.
The Republican defence is shaping up to be an absolute circus of noise and distraction focusing entirely on Hunter Biden. Trump himself is throwing himself at every headline he can grasp, stoking up the pro-life and gun rights fanatics he so desperately needs to cling on through 2020. With just seven pages of broad points to work from submitted into the record so far, there’s bound to be some hilariously ludicrous bullshit yet to come our way from Rudy Giuliani’s farce-finding mission in Ukraine. That the Republicans even have the nerve to cite nepotism and political corruption over Burisma as their defence shows a brass neck so polished you can see Ivanka and Jared’s faces in it.
This is the dystopian nightmare you unleashed when you decided to hitch yourself to Trump’s crazy-train, Mitch McConnell. In every conceivable way, you’re as much to blame as he is for all of it. Hell, you’re probably worse, given the fact you actually have the intelligence to understand the consequences of every one of his petulant, short-sighted and brazenly self-serving decisions. Your desk is now so thoroughly stacked with stalled bills from the House that it forms a top-heavy Jenga tower more precarious than Mnuchin’s economy. It’s all just a question of how much damage it all does when it inevitably comes tumbling down.
And you, Mitch McConnell? You’ll keep working as you always have, slowly, meticulously, shameless and pathetically corrupt as you nibble away at the cabbage of liberty. There’s a darkness coming, Morla McConnell, The Nothing that follows the rabid clanging of a fettered animal’s chains. You’ve turned a blind and sleepy eye to so very much, content to pretend it was all somehow happening without you. The swamp has been slowly filling up with effluence for years now, the responsibility for finally draining it now resting on a clutch of Republican senators wrestling with the tiny pinprick of conscience they’ve been feeling since swearing their oath.
Fat chance of them doing a fucking thing, mind. Best we’ll get is a raised eyebrow from Mitt Romney as he sells America down the river.
I see you, Mitch McConnell. I fucking see you.
