 |
The late Helen Gahagan Douglas. Who was she
and what does she have to do with all of this?
Keep reading.
|
I promise, I’ll offer my answer to the question of what to do about Trump and his bunch in time. But first, let’s step back into history.
Here are two quotes:
“Our people would again be polarized in their opinion.” And furthermore “Richard Nixon and his loved ones have suffered enough.”
Those seem to be the two best excuses that President Gerald Ford could come up with when he pardoned Tricky Dick Nixon, on September 8, 1974, for the various crimes known as Watergate.
Never mind that from the very beginning of his career, long before Watergate, Nixon was a merciless bully who, for example, thuggishly maligned the woman he ran against for the Senate, Helen Gahagan Douglas, an actress turned politician.
The big smear
Nixon attempted to smear her, all but called her a subversive traitor “pink down to her underwear,” and had others launch anti-Semitic memes against her because her husband, the actor Melvyn Douglas, was Jewish. In fact, she was nothing more nor less than a New Deal Democrat. But the lies and innuendos worked. He beat her.
Never mind that during Watergate he tried to cover up a patently illegal burglary aimed at seeing what he could get against the Democratic party.
The poor baby "had suffered enough." And besides, prosecuting him for his criminal activity might polarize the nation all over again.
And so, Nixon retired in shame, but very comfortably, to his estates in San Clemente, California, and Saddle River, New Jersey until he died, meanwhile making a handsome living writing books. Like many depots and would-be despots, he never saw the inside of a prison, although he most assuredly belonged in one.
Have we learned our lesson yet?
Except in times of World War, this nation is always polarized to a greater or lesser extent. And the cure for it is not to pretend it doesn’t exist, or that it will go away if only we don’t lock up the bad guys. The cure is to prosecute the people whose crimes caused the polarization, so that others will be less tempted to follow their example in the future.
It’s now looking increasingly as if the House will impeach Donald Trump, even if it knows the Senate is not at all likely to convict him.
In time, the political makeup of the United States will change, as it always does. Whether it’s next year, or half a decade down the road, the pendulum will swing again. And when it does, the best inoculation against more of what we have today is to set an example by making sure that the petty thugs and bullies around Donald Trump, and Trump himself, do some serious prison time for the damage they’ve done to the United States of America and to the body politic.
With that in mind, in addition to impeaching Donald Trump, Congress ought to hold in contempt all the stone-wallers who contemptuously defied Congressional committes, starting with Corey Lewandowski. Maybe Attorney General Will Barr will refuse to enforce the contempt citation — grounds for Barr himself to be cited. But when the tables turn, perhaps the first step a Democratic attorney general might take would be to enforce the citation. Let that hang over their heads for a few years.
And when, whether by election, term limits, or a surprise removal after impeachment, Donald Trump is no longer President, let us not hear a word about how the poor baby has suffered enough. Instead, I hope, law enforcement should instead find a way to insure that he dies of old age in the slammer, along with the sycophants who enabled him and blocked for him.
