The Republican Party has become a smash-and-grab operation
President Trump’s former campaign chief (not the one arrested Thursday) Paul Manafort was convicted of multiple felonies, as was Trump’s former deputy campaign manager Rick Gates, his former lawyer Michael Cohen, his former fix-it man Roger Stone and his former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Trump, according to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign, engaged in at least 10 categories of conduct that contain elements of the crime of obstruction of justice. The Senate Intelligence Committee believes that Trump lied in written answers given under oath about his discussion of WikiLeaks with Stone. The Manhattan district attorney (who won a big victory on Thursday regarding Trump’s objections to a subpoena) is investigating Trump for financial crimes.
Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association has been accused of misusing donors’ money, and its longtime executive director, Wayne LaPierre, has been accused of using the foundation’s money for his own benefit. Jerry Falwell Jr., who headed Liberty University, was recently put on leave after sharing a photo with a young woman (not his wife); both had their pants unzipped.
Given that the right wing has become a coven of crooks and con men, it was not a surprise at all when former Trump campaign chief Stephen K. Bannon was arrested Thursday on a boat (by officials from the U.S. Postal Service, which sounds like an over-the-top plot point in a bad movie) on suspicion of bilking people out of money for a private build-the-wall scam. (Trump’s fear-mongering that we needed a border wall, constant lying about how much has been built and snatching money from the Pentagon to fund part of it are not criminal acts. But they are evidence of the disdain with which the right wing and the Republican Party specifically hold their fellow Americans who have bought into the xenophobic tripe the far-right peddles.)
What is Fox News (disclaimer: I am an MSNBC contributor) other than a propaganda machine trying to con viewers into believing in a parallel universe in which Ukraine has the Democratic National Committee’s server and Trump is the victim of the deep state? What are right-wing columnists and talk show hosts — who know better but recycle Trump’s exaggerations, conspiracies and bigotry — other than snake-oil salesmen who figure their fans will buy just about anything they say so long as they slam liberals and play to the White grievance mentality that has replaced conservatism as the GOP’s animating force? (Imagine waking up every morning to defend a president who embraces Confederate symbols, QAnon and Russian propaganda.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/08/20/republican-party-has-become-smash-and-grab-operation/
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