November 14, 2017
As a fifth woman came forward to tearfully recount Roy Moore’s attempted rape of her when she was only sixteen, Republican Senators finally fled Moore’s toxic side like rats leaving a sinking ship. Although it was a palpable relief to hear Mitch McConnell say flatly, “I believe the women,” his call for Moore to step aside is much more about naked political calculation than principle. Lest we forget, Moore was a lawless homophobe before he was revealed to be a disgusting sexual predator and no Republican found that to be disqualifying.
The sudden emergence of a Republican conscience has been brought on by fear of the shrinkage of their razor thin Senate majority. The word is that they are considering the Hail Mary pass of Jeff Sessions as a write-in candidate, since it is too late to get Moore off of the ballot. This would have the added partisan benefit of giving Trump the chance to appoint a new Attorney General who would not be recused from the Russia investigation and could fire Bob Mueller.
Yet, while we have all been distracted by the circus freak show in Sweet Home Alabama, Trump, aided by complicit Congressional Republicans, is hastening our transformation into an autocracy. First, as the New York Times reported this weekend, Trump is appointing federal judges at a rapid clip not seen since the Nixon administration. He is filling the courts with deeply conservative judges who are overwhelmingly white and male. Some of these nominees have expressed truly abhorrent views, such as comparing abortion to slavery, as John K. Bush did, or recommending electric shocks as punishment for certain crimes, as Stephanos Bibas did (Source: “Trump is Rapidly Reshaping the Judiciary. Here’s How,” by Charlie Savage, The New York Times, 11/11/17).
Although many of the nominees have traditional credentials, the most recent nominee to sail through the Judiciary Committee is both unqualified AND unethical. Thirty-six year old Brett J. Talley has never tried a case and was rated, “not qualified” by the American Bar Association (Source: “Trump Nominee for Federal Judgeship Has Never Tried a Case,” by Vivian Wang, The New York Times, 11/11/17). On Monday, we learned that Talley had failed to disclose his marriage to the Chief of Staff for White House Counsel Don McGahn on his Senate questionnaire, (Source: “Trump Judicial Pick Did Not Disclose He Is Married to a White House Lawyer,” by Matt Apuzzo and Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times, 11/13/17).
Secondly, Jeff Sessions announced yesterday that he was contemplating the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the Clinton Foundation’s involvement in the Russian uranium deal, in a desperate attempt to curry favor with his mercurial boss. This baseless investigation of a political opponent has no place in a democracy (Source: “U.S. To Consider Special Counsel in Uranium Deal,” by Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman, The New York Times, 11/14/17).
The degradation of our judiciary and the use of government prosecutorial power to pursue political adversaries is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. Make no mistake, Trump’s efforts to remake our democracy would be impossible without the enthusiastic participation of Congressional Republicans. They are willing accomplices in Trump’s intentional destruction of the pillars of our democracy and they don’t deserve any credit for drawing the line at child rape.