THE SATURDAY, TRUMP/QANON RALLY, SHOWED THE “REAL TRUMP”

 

                  …Trump,  wearing a QAnon lapel pin showed his real intentions

 

Trump repeated the QAnon saying: “The Storm Is Coming,” as a threat

 

Donald Trump’s weekend rally in Ohio, supporting J.D. Vance, had no shortage of dark and disturbing moments about him: He even mocked the GOP Senate nominee, J.D. Vance, by saying: “for kissing my ass,” and by calling for Singapore-style executions of drug dealers.  As usual, he also enjoyed a moment of ritualistic crowd adulation, set to what sounded exactly like QAnon’s theme song.  (Of course, Trump says: “It only sounds like the QAnon’s song.”)

But Trump also delivered a deeply serious message with real-world implications. He fully expects a GOP Congress to use its power to place him outside the reach of any and all investigations and prosecutions, now and into the future.

At the bottom of his meaning, this was an effort to strike a new kind of bargain with Republicans.  That being:: He delivers them his base, and they reward him by placing him beyond accountability and above the law.

At what became the Trump/QAnon Rally, Trump uncorked a long, angry rant about the investigations he is facing. The probes are scrutinizing his hoarding of national security secrets; his scheming to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power after his 2020 loss; and his incitement of more mob violence against the U.S. government.

“I’ve been harassed, investigated, defamed, slandered and persecuted like no other president,” Trump seethed, ripping into the “unhinged persecution” he supposedly faces. He also said:

“What they’ve done, the radical Democrats and the deep state, is a form of political repression unlike anything our nation has ever seen. It’s a disgrace.  And J.D., you gotta get it stopped.”

“J.D., you gotta get it stopped”  Trump repeated, and other versions of this formulation throughout his speech.

These are not idle Trump ravings. They are better understood as a directive to the crowd, and as a declaration of what Trump actually does expect a GOP-controlled Congress to do for him.  You will hear this more as Trump holds rallies for other House and Senate candidates

In this regard, Republicans will have many options in Congress in 2023, even if they control only the House. Most obviously, a GOP House could use hearings, employed in bad faith “under the guise of oversight,” solely to harass those conducting investigations or potential prosecutions of Trump. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has already offered this.

But there’s more. A GOP-controlled House could revive a House Rule enabling Republicans to target the salaries of individual federal officials,  Say, for instance, Attorney General Merrick Garland.  Or the groups of federal employees, in an attempt to subvert those investigations and prosecutions.

Such tactics would be thwarted by a Democratic Senate or a presidential veto. But House Republicans could target and push for government shutdowns to leverage targeted defunding of investigations or prosecutions. They could threaten any debt ceiling breaches, and the economic disaster toward that end.

In fact, Republicans are actively already preparing for such scenarios. When they call for “defunding the FBI” in retaliation for the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, they’re clumsily expressing a very real intention to use maximal congressional power against any investigative activity involving Trump.  Some Republicans have gone so far as to float specific defunding tactics.

This alone is good reason for Democrats to act legislatively in the lame-duck session to disable the debt limit for good, as political scientist Jonathan Bernstein suggests they do.

So the stakes couldn’t be higher this fall. And on last Saturday, Trump’s expectations of this implied pact with a GOP Congress were made absolutely explicit.

For instance, at one point, Trump noted that he’s outpolling other Republicans and sneered that without him on the ballot, “Republicans are not doing too well.” A translation of this: “Nice midterm candidates you got there, Republicans. Be it would be a shame, if my base didn’t turn out for them.”

Meanwhile, Trump cast the 74 million people who voted for him as victims of the investigations against him. The meaning is plain: “If Republicans don’t maximize efforts to derail those investigations, he’ll cast them as sellouts, and his base will respond accordingly.”

And Trump described investigations into his conduct by declaring that the United States has “weaponized its law enforcement against the opposing political party like never, ever before,” depicting this as a symptom of our “decline.” The implication is: “Efforts to hold him accountable are a sign we’re slipping into banana republic status.”

You want real banana republic stuff? Try Trump’s rampant corruption, his enlisting of the MAGA movement and large swaths of the GOP behind the destruction of democracy, and his efforts to remain unaccountable to the law via tactics such as old-fashioned, mob-speak threats of retaliatory street violence. As Shay Khatiri notes at the Bulwark, the bending of the law in the face of a strongmen’s threats is “the actual hallmark of banana republics.”

It is important that keeping the law at bay is exactly what Trump will demand of a GOP Congress.  All throughout his presidency, Republicans understood that they were tolerating or running interference for his racism, authoritarianism and corruption in exchange for tax cuts for the rich and the nomination and appointment of right-wing judges.  

Now, Trump is proposing a new bargain: “His base in exchange for his absolute impunity.”

More proof, due to Donald Trump, as to how close we are to loosing our democracy.

Copyright G. Ater 2022