Donald Trump demonstrated on global and political stages alike that the corporate and executive perspective on law is not of one of inviolate directive, but merely of systemic rules to be gamed for profit.
Also, that most of the right aisle on The Hill (and more on the left than there should be) largely feel the same; evidenced by decades of political posturing and media.
This should be remembered, as it is the precise methods and patterns used throughout business and government alike.
Trump is in trouble NOT for playing the game, but for making the methods and means visible to all of us.
Do not fool yourself for a minute nor moment that this is not precisely the kind of thing that happens regularly in campaigns and offices all over this country.
This televised committee has their media and message well honed. This is because it is the same machine they use for campaigning and this side of their bread is always, always, heavily buttered.
This televised committee presents but a sliver of a MUCH larger set of data, all of it tailored to their narrative: That this is all and only Trump.
This is because it totally was not, and the hope seems to be everyone will miss that this unfurled as merrily as any other theatrical debut and season (and with as much agentic aplomb) as ever.
The truly infuriating things to me:
- This scrutiny should have happened in 2016 and didn’t because no one wanted to reveal the flesh market under The Hill.
- Had we rebooted the 2016 election due to foreign interference, NONE of this would be our reality today.
- This is not an effort to ‘get Trump’; it is, in fact, an effort to help the Republican Party NOT implode due to its own, nearly pathological, usually terminal short-sightedness.
- This is also a concerted effort to keep the public away from the reality that there are still congressional seats in which seditious insurrectionists are sitting.
The idea of actual accountability must have The Hill trembling in its soft, cherished skin.
This election is being used to rebalance for the next round of more of the same. It is the election that the sitting 2nd and 3rd class (read: career) feared most and they are ALL more than happy to placate the waters (they think) by returning all but the power base seats.
It will not be enough. The miscalculation is fatal.
As we are about to see.