Fatigue is setting in. No, not on the
part of Donald Trump, who continues to display the kind of manic
energy that was classically displayed by terminal tuberculosis
patients in 19th Century opera... and certainly not on the
part of the Mueller team, who are determined to see this thing
through to the bitter end. (I understand they take energy drinks
intravenously.) And not by the opposition, or Resistance, either,
who continually tap into new energy reserves (not to mention funding
from various anonymous donors with globalist tendencies) in order to
fuel their crusade against Trump. And not on the part of Trump's
hard-core supporters, who continue to wait in long lines and show up
at rallies, knowing – on some level – that he is their last, best
hope to be heard amidst the din of liberalism and globalism. (Trump
could, if he were a student of history, expropriate Louis XV's line,
“Apres moi, le deluge”, and he would be accurately describing the
reaction of his supporters to his – at this point inevitable –
impeachment.)
No, the fatigue is clearly showing in
the faces, body language, and actions (or the lack thereof) of the
mainstream Republicans – not just the “never Trumpers” but
pretty much all of them. They never accepted this quaint notion that
an elected president automatically becomes the head of whichever
party nominated him; the Republicans are perfectly satisfied being,
and remaining, headless. (And lacking certain other body parts has
never bothered them either.) And so many of them campaigned against
him when he was running – being quite explicit about their
preference for Hillary over Trump – that we can't expect them to
have changed their minds in the meantime. In fact, they are the
prime candidates for the great desertion that will accompany the
impeachment, and which – if it turns sufficient members of the
Senate – could actually make it a success.
There are other aspects to this. To
the extent that Trump is winning anything – succeeding in
implementing even the slightest tidbit of the platform on which he
ran – they are shying away from jumping on the bandwagon and
sharing any credit. The image they want to project is that Trump's
very few achievements were accomplished in spite of, and not because
of, them – and that they would have been perfectly happy with a
third Obama term. In other words, he is the lone gun who rode into
town in the best Clint Eastwood tradition, challenged the corrupt and
overweight sheriff, and started cleaning out the bad guys, while the
polite citizens retreated into their homes and pulled down the
shades. The problem is that Washington, D.C. is a big town, and the
bad guys, AKA the Deep State, are everywhere. A single gunfight at
the O.K. Corral might be on people's minds as the ideal, but it's not
going to happen. I imagine that the last time a Deep State of any
sort was thoroughly liquidated was when the Khmer Rouge took over
Cambodia – but do we really want that? (Some might – but they
can dream on.)
Then there's the fact that the
Republicans are much more comfortable being in the minority, as they
are about to be in the House of Representatives, where they can sit
in leather chairs and collect their pay but not be held responsible
for anything that happens. It's been said about the
recently-deceased George H. W. Bush that he was “a good loser” –
referring to the election of 1992 and his gracious and gentlemanly
response to having lost (which could be a lesson for certain
characters in Florida and Georgia). And it's true – Republicans in
general are good losers because they tend to adhere to traditional
notions of manliness and gentility, and they have a sense of
proportion, whereas Democrats are lousy losers because they are
revolutionaries, for whom there is no place in their theory for
losing. For a Republican, losing an election is a humbling
experience, but no more; the Republic will survive, and the people
have spoken. Whereas for a Democrat, losing an election means that
some crime has been committed, and an immediate investigation is in
order, along with any number of lawsuits and court orders, and an
unlimited number of recounts (during which additional ballots will
turn up in the darndest places, and turn out to be – amazing! –
overwhelmingly Democratic votes). Their metaphysics will simply not
allow the possibility that they could legitimately lose – as
witness Hillary's reaction to losing in 2016, and the reaction of
many lesser lights to losing in 2018. After all, aren't they the
voice of “the people” (the real people, that is, as
opposed to the “deplorables” who are nothing more than haters and
therefore don't count)? Don't they care? Haven't they shown their
compassion in the way they govern cities like Chicago, Baltimore,
Detroit, Philadelphia, St. Louis, etc.? (Paradoxically, these are
the people who constantly cry “Count every vote!” and yet they
are the first to fly into courtrooms when the count doesn't go their
way. Democracy is only a good idea when you win, apparently.)
But if the Republicans are good at
losing, and are more comfortable being in a perpetual minority, then
they are acutely troubled by winning, and – as has been shown by
Congress over the last two years – constitutionally incapable of
taking advantage of it. I have often marveled, in the case of either
house of Congress, that when the Democrats are in the majority they
act like it, and run roughshod over the Republicans, whereas when the
Republicans are in the majority the Democrats are still in
charge, and still run roughshod over the Republicans. Sometimes
gentlemanliness can be carried too far. Not only do the Republicans
get cold feet and go belly-up, they start apologizing for being so
reactionary, stuffy, and mean-spirited. It's actually a miracle they
ever get elected to anything any more.
So... now that the 2018 election is in
the history books, more or less, we see that, far from fretting over
their loss of the House, the Republicans actually seem relieved.
Finally they can relax a bit, and they won't have to pretend to
support Donald Trump's agenda because it won't make any difference.
Of course, they still have the Senate, but that's not going to mean
much when the Democrats unsheathe their long knives in the House next
month. We are in for a marathon of investigations, hearings,
indictments, and prosecutions that will make the Mueller bunch look
like the J. V. team. (The good news if you're a libertarian is that
this will bring all other Congressional activities to a screeching
halt – great if you subscribe to the idea that pretty much any
governmental activity or program means a further loss of citizens'
freedom.)
So what we are seeing, and will see, is
some relief of the fatigue factor when it comes to the Republicans,
and they can settle back into their usual leisurely life style.
After all, politics should not be a job, or a career – what sort of
parasitic thinking is that? It should be a gentlemanly affair, take
it or leave it, etc. – and leave the bomb-throwing to the radicals
within the Democratic Party (of whom there is a new bumper crop as
the result of the recent election, Alexandria O-C only being the most
high-profile example). Of course, a party that so readily gives up
power and is so addicted to the good life is unlikely to do well in
future elections; expect the Senate to flip in 2020, for
example. (And if Trump is still in office at that point he would be
very well advised to cut his losses and go back home. Plus, c'mon
dude, if half the American public thinks you're a reincarnation of
Adolf Hitler, that's gotta be a tough row to hoe.)
And besides, what will the Republicans
have to offer in 2020? A recycle/retread of the same sorry no-faces
that Trump managed to squash in 2016? Good luck with that. The
Democrats, on the other hand, have a veritable army of young radicals
and unapologetic socialists, who will be marching behind one of two
banners, either that of the Queen of the Night (AKA Hillary) or that
of Lenin's brother by another mother (AKA Bernie).
Collectivism/totalitarianism only seems to be an idea whose time has
come and gone; it keeps coming back to life like Frankenstein's
monster, to mesmerize a new generation of believers. If prostitution
is the world's oldest profession, then socialism is the world's
oldest political delusion; it is at once the very embodiment of
concupiscence and the antithesis to Natural Law.
But in the meantime, Trump will
continue to cause some fatigue and distress among Republicans as long
as he remains in office (because, after all, it's their party and he
was never invited), and will continue to energize the opposition to a
level of hysteria and paranoia formerly confined to mental
institutions (before the blessings of Thorazine and Prozac). And as
such he will be doing us all a favor in that he will be preventing
the opposition from pursuing more “constructive” endeavors. But
they never tire, and neither does he, apparently. So starting in
January we're going to be treated to the spectacle of one man against
what will appear to be the world, with the Republicans snoozing on
the sidelines. And of course the world will win, sooner or later,
and the Republicans will be back to the sort of lifestyle they know best –
permanent minority status and permanent powerlessness. It is only
their delusional system that protects them from humiliation and
shame.
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