CT Blue

In my younger years, I spent many happy hours wallowing in Watergate, and I must confess that today’s news about Sean Hannity revived those happy feelings, if only for a while. But that was then, and this is now, and no thinking person can sustain a good wallow.

This is mainly because back in the days of Watergate, anyone with a brain knew that it was going to end up in satisfying fashion. Once I heard that Nixon had been taping himself, I knew with certainty that 1) the tapes would be wrested from his grasp, 2) they would prove beyond doubt that he was guilty, and 3) he would be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate, or, (and I really preferred he be impeached), he would resign. I’ve compared it in the past to a Greek tragedy. You know from the start that things are fated to go bad for the protagonist; it’s only the details that the play explores.

I’m not claiming that I was specially insightful. I think lots of people could see how it would play out. But the key point is that we could be certain that the votes to convict in the Senate would be there, even though that meant a number of Republicans would have to turn against Nixon. In those days, while Republicans were still the bad guys, they were not (at least not all of them) the evil guys, and there were many of them that wouldn’t hesitate to put their country over their party. So it was a sure thing that once the facts were in (because everyone knew Nixon was guilty) he would have to go, and he would be made to go.

Similarly, we all know that Trump is guilty of something, in fact, of a lot of things. It’s better than even odds that he and his gang conspired with the Russians to tamper with the election. (Good article on that here) Beyond that, we know that he was involved in all manner of other illegal activities, with money laundering being pretty much a sure thing. On the surface, at least, things are spinning out of control for him, and if ever there was a time to wallow, this is it. I’ll admit, on days like this the urge to wallow is hard to resist, but something always pulls you up short from a truly complete wallow. When Nixon fired his prosecutor, the reaction, even from his own party, was such that he was forced to appoint another one as dogged as the one he fired. That won’t happen when Trump fires Mueller. Sure, people will take to the streets, but Trump will ignore them and the Republicans will, almost to a person, observe that really he shouldn’t oughta have done it, but what can you do? His criminality will go unchecked, and even if the Democrats take over the Congress and Senate and summon up the guts to impeach him, it’s highly unlikely that a single Republican will vote to convict. 

So, this is not going to end up well. At this point, we can only hope that it doesn’t end up as badly as it might. So, wallowing just isn’t the pleasure it was in the good old days.