#NotMe

By Calvin Hill

After 8 years of racial and demagogic opposition to the presidency of Barack Obama and his policies on the environment, the economy and civil liberties, more than three dozen Republicans have opted out of public service after having wrested total party control of the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. As we watched the dangerously erratic Donald Trump threaten many of the core principles of our fragile democracy and its institutions, with full knowledge that a collective intervention would be necessary to abate this narcissistic march toward autocracy, a large irresponsible swath of Republicans are saying, “Not me!”

And as another large contingent of irresponsible Republicans are aiding and abetting this White House coup over our representative democracy, orchestrated by Vladimir Putin, the GOP leadership and their underlings have decided, “Not me,” when confronted with living up to their oath of office to protect and defend the United States. Most surprisingly joining the #NotMe exodus out the front door is the person 3rd in the line of succession to be President of the United States, Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan – using the age old rubric, “to spend more time with his family.” Such an excuse is rather mendacious sounding when considering Ryan would never have come to this decision were this Mitt Romney’s second term and not Donald Trump’s first. Nowhere is his failure as Speaker more evident than in his total lack of will and courage to protect and defend the Constitution from the domestic enemies to our system of justice that sit on the House Intelligence Committee and their conspiratorial allies in the Freedom (Tea Party) Caucus.

Led by the allegedly “recused” Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes has been allowed to run roughshod over facts, spin fallacy and innuendo as truth, and demand investigations of non-existent criminal acts in an attempt to coverup his own conflict of interest as a member of the Trump transition team wherein he may have witnessed collusion with the Russian state, a criminal conspiracy with WikiLeaks and knowledge of the many clandestine, unexplained meetings that were conveniently forgotten and/or lied about. Assisting Nunes in the illusion that, somehow Hillary Clinton commissioned the Mueller investigation are Jim Jordan(R-Ohio) and Mark Meadows(R-NC). Almost every televised answer to a question about Donald Trump by these two becomes an evasive, filibuster laced screed against Hillary Clinton, the FBI, the Special Counsel, the Attorney General and Rod Rosenstein. They exact the kind of responses one expects from the spokespersons of political hacks – not the hacks themselves. And like the current President of the United States, they seem violently allergic to the truth.

Not so, are the brave, courageous and bold middle and high schoolers of the #NeverAgain and #Parkland movement. The teenage students who witnessed the mass execution of their fellow students and members of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas faculty came together with a clear, specific, non-partisan goal in mind. What also became clear, from the verbal sword wielded by Emma Gonzalez in the immediate aftermath of the senseless carnage that had befallen her school, partisan political rhetoric and those attached to it were not needed and not welcomed. Those politicians sympathetic to their cause and were willing to speak on their behalf, in exchange for an endorsement, were met with a polite, but derisive, “No thanks!”

It is unfortunate that the Congress of the United States is lacking in accepting the seriousness of their concern over sensible gun control as students, mobilized by social media and sick to death of active shooter drills, are staging coordinated walkouts by schools governed in states red, blue and purple. The latest walkout occurred on the infamous anniversary of the Columbine massacre. Those born by the 1st anniversary of Columbine and now witness to Parkland, among others, are now eligible to vote. As these students, without fear or favor, seek men and women of conscience willing to challenge the lobbying juggernaut of the National Rifle Association, pledge their lives, their as yet unmade fortunes, and their sacred honor, they are met with too many politicians the likes of Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan who answer, “Not me!”

When asked why President Trump cannot seem to say one negative word about Vladimir Putin in the face of Syrian aggression against innocent civilians, sponsorship of Iranian influence in the Middle East, and our intelligence community’s incontrovertible evidence that Russia continues its plans to infiltrate our democracy, the Washington, DC establishment just scratches their head in stupefying wonderment.

Trump has bankrupted several businesses. You cannot go to your neighborhood kiosk and purchase Trump Magazine. You cannot go to your local grocer, supermarket or shopping chain and purchase Trump water or steaks. And in spite of his limited television success and the Trump brand, American banks stopped lending him money. American banks, that are willing to set up card tables outside of colleges to offer students, many already in the throes of student loan debt, the opportunity to go into credit card debt – but declined to lend money to a real estate magnate whose name adorns skyscrapers throughout the world. Enter Deutsche Bank, allegedly the money launderer of choice of Russian mobsters and oligarchs. And, allegedly, Donald Trump’s go to guys for a cash advance. The level of financial intricacies aside, the mere surface of Trump’s affinity for Putin appears a lot less stupefying than it does obvious.

Of the many lies Donald Trump has told over the past two years was the campaign falsity that he would show his tax returns if he won the nomination. Two years hence, he is willing to tear down and destroy any facets of American government that dares take a peek at how Trump properties sold for twice their market value, or how often the non-profit Trump Foundation paid his bills, and, if he wrote those self dealing withdrawals off as personal. And when less stupefied members of Congress and the media seek to protect the legitimacy of an investigation, an entire chorus of irresponsible Republicans cry, “Not me!”

Explicitly galling is watching Trump and his favored media artists, who revel in false hype, call for the prosecution of career law enforcement officers for, allegedly, leaking classified information. But as Donald Trump continues to parrot, “No collusion,” he nor his TV and radio collaborators can explain his own classified information dump to the Russian ambassador in the Oval Office – or his son-in-law’s treks to foreign countries after having viewed classified intelligence briefings and after having mysteriously received millions of dollars in loans. In the age of cyber terrorism, and after continuing to rail about Hillary Clinton’s private server and deleted Emails, rather than even attempting to feign concern over collusive Emails, clandestine meetings with Russians, and the lies about them, Republicans are running for the Congressional exits. Neglecting to defend the republic from an all out assault on the truth, the poor, the working class, immigrants, the rule of law and the right to vote, the GOP, in their silence, complicity and escape, to the consternation of the memory of Ben Franklin, are unwilling to “keep the republic.”

Even Speaker of the House, Republican golden boy, Paul Ryan, who has spent his career feigning concern about the America we will leave to our children and grandchildren, having golden parachuted his sizable pension away from taxation, has decided that challenging a female abusing, mendacious, bigoted and narcissistic chief executive is too big a job and much too difficult for him. So he has made the decision to leave the responsibility of the well being of American democracy to the high schoolers.