Cagle World

Despite a few points in her testimony in dispute, the narrative laid out by former White House assistant Cassidy Hutchinson concerning the events of Jan. 6, 2021, presents a chilling portrait of a furious president desperately clinging to power surrounded by advisers offering outlandish legal theories to block the certification of Joe Biden as president.

Hutchinson, a 26-year-old former assistant to then White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, offered a compelling tale to the congressional committee investigating the siege of the Capitol, depicting President Trump as the central figure in devising a plot to remain in office while refusing to intervene to halt the mob swarming the Capitol.

While most congressional Republicans were either muted or vague in their reactions, they must have cringed inwardly at her description of senior executive staff aware in advance of the storming of the building and the potential for it to turn deadly yet failed to act.

In the most surreal recounting, Hutchinson told the committee Secret Service agents responsible for Trump’s safety informed her the president attempted to wrest control of the armored vehicle in which he was riding after the driver refused his order to be taken to the Capitol at the height of the assault.

Her story was immediately challenged by Secret Service officers who said the incident never occurred, while Republican critics accused her of peddling outrageous secondhand hearsay as solid evidence.

The committee attested to her credibility while Republican critics ratcheted up their characterization of the panel as a one-sided partisan political show trial that had predetermined conclusions before the first witness was heard.

Her testimony will have no significant impact on the congressional midterm elections, in which voters are more concerned with $5 a gallon gasoline than whether Trump berated his security detail.

But the steady drumbeat of testimony revealing an administration obsessed with remaining in power and seriously debating skirting the law to do so have nicked the former president and led some national Republicans to distance themselves from Trump without renouncing him altogether and earning the wrath of his followers.

While Trump continues to tease a 2024 presidential candidacy, there is a growing body of opinion that the cumulative effect of accounts of his involvement in the Jan. 6 upheaval will weigh heavily on voters’ decisions and a criminal case against him would doom his chances.

His volcanic temper is legendary as is his history of relying on his own instincts – frequently with damaging results – while disregarding the counsel of more experienced and level-headed advisers, most notably those who warned that interfering in the certification process came dangerously close to criminality.

Party leaders justifiably fear that candidate Trump will use a campaign platform to re-litigate his 2020 loss and continue to promote unfounded conspiracy theories of massive voter fraud.

With Biden’s approval rating plummeting to the mid 30 percent level and Americans battered by unprecedented inflation and potential recession, Republicans sense a genuine opportunity to recapture the White House while controlling the House and possibly the Senate.

The party dream of unified control is within reach but could be buried by a Trump presidential candidacy based on an imaginary political cabal that cheated him of victory four years previously.

Americans are yearning for a leader to replace a Biden administration that seems incapable of dealing effectively with punishing cost of living increases, an immigration crisis, crime ridden cities and shortages of everyday living necessities while embracing left-leaning social welfare ideas.

Doubts are seeping in that Trump is that leader.

His candidacy would become a daily reminder of his erratic and chaotic four years, capped by the storming of the Capitol which his Administration encouraged and stood by as the violence spun out of control.

Cassidy Hutchinson’s portrayal of the Trump White House has emboldened Republicans to begin to move from beneath Trump’s shadow.

The path is a narrow one, a delicate balance between recognizing Trump’s grip on his political base and the imperative to rise above the din and uproar exemplified by the former president and appeal to the concerns of American voters.

It is time to accept the road to the Oval Office does not run through Mar-A-Lago.

–

Copyright 2022 Carl Golden, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University in New Jersey. You can reach him at cgolden1937@gmail.

As the Congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U. S. Capitol heads into its final public hearings phase, early indications are that – despite compelling testimony – the needle on the public opinion meter has barely budged, and the impact on the congressional midterm elections as well as the 2024 presidential contest will be minimal.

In short, despite predictions the much-hyped committee’s findings would shake the nation to its core, it’s been neither a mind changer nor a game changer.

National Democrats overwhelmingly continue to demand former president Donald Trump be held accountable in a court of law for his role in egging on his supporters to storm the Capitol and prevent the certification of Joe Biden as the next president. Meanwhile, Republican leaders for the most part are adamant that the committee is a blatant politically-driven effort to blame their party for an assault on democracy itself and prevent Trump from seeking to regain the office in 2024.

The competing versions are locked in, and any hope one side can persuade the other to come around to its way of thinking is futile.

While a clear public majority supports a congressional inquiry into the events of Jan. 6 and what role Trump, his associates and staff played in them, other polling suggests it is not a top of the mind issue that motivates significant voter turnout.

With the president’s approval rating plunging to less than 40 percent and a stunning 70 percent of Americans believing the nation is headed in the wrong direction, Republicans are on the cusp of seizing control of the House by a handsome margin and a slim Senate majority is within reach.

The deliberations of the Jan. 6 committee and the revelations of misbehavior and persistent falsehoods at the highest level of the executive office will have little influence on the election outcome.

Biden and his party’s congressional majorities were brought to the brink of a seismic loss of power by the ravages of unprecedented inflation, erosion of wages, shortages and soaring costs of essential commodities, gasoline crossing the historic $5 per gallon threshold, and rising rates of violent crime.

All have exacted a personal toll and continue to do so, undermining public confidence in the ability of the administration to deal effectively with them. Increasing speculation that the nation will tumble into a recession has exacerbated the disquiet gripping the country along with rising pessimism that the administration is adrift and lacking a sense of urgency.

As horrific as the assault on the Capitol and its aftermath of lies and deceit have been, voters will respond on their individual experiences and hardships and a belief that a massive reappraisal is necessary to restore economic vitality.

Nearly 18 months ago, millions of Americans watched in real time as mobs breached the Capitol, fought with law enforcement, trashed offices and sent members of Congress fleeing to safety.

Trump, to his everlasting discredit, stood by, refusing all entreaties to urge the protestors to withdraw and leave the building. He continued to baselessly insist he had won re-election and was cheated out of his victory by massive voter fraud.

He spent months pursuing one avenue after another to delegitimize the election, culminating on Jan. 6 by demanding Vice President Mike Pence reject the state electoral outcomes, an act for which there exists no constitutional or statutory basis.

Trump’s actions, according to the committee, were part of a broad conspiracy to stage a coup, overturn the election, and remain in power.

He relied upon sycophantic advisers who played to his belief that the election was rigged while ignoring those who attempted to convince him his arguments were fantasy and warned that continued efforts to change the outcome risked crossing into criminal conduct.

Whether the committee will deliver criminal referrals to the Department of Justice is a matter of internal dispute at the moment.

But, for the Democratic Party to overcome the funk into which the nation has fallen by relying on tales of widespread misconduct by the previous Administration – no matter how egregious – is equivalent to the toils of Sisyphus in pushing the boulder up the mountainside.

Being crushed by it appears to be a foregone conclusion.

–

Copyright 2022 Carl Golden, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University in New Jersey. You can reach him at cgolden1937@gmail.

When the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning the constitutional right to an abortion was leaked to the media last month, it tore through Washington, D.C. with the force of a category five hurricane. The draft set off a mad scramble to pronounce the dynamic of the congressional midterm election had been irrevocably altered and the Republican wave momentum blunted.

Despite it being a draft document – a working opinion subject to change – peddlers of conventional wisdom promoted it as the inevitable outcome of the court’s deliberations and the 50-year-old abortion rights ruling was about to be discarded, returning decisions on regulating the procedure to the states.

Abortion rights would, pundits intoned, become the turning point in national campaigns – an outcome, they said, that largely favored Democrats.

More than a month has elapsed since the leaked disclosure and it appears the hair on fire pundit-outrage machine was wrong. Again.

Now that the dust has settled, it’s clear voters – while supporting access to abortions – are focused on individual economic issues, motivated to turn out on election day to vote their self-interest and express dissatisfaction with the administration’s ineffective response to record inflation and punishingly unprecedented cost of living increases.

And that largely favors Republicans.

The president and his party have been slowly circling the drain for months, gaining speed and intensity with the release of one dismal public approval poll after another.

Democratic strategists agree the party faces a messaging problem, that if only the administration can break through with a powerful cogent narrative touting its accomplishment, popular fortune would turn in its direction.

The public perception, though, is of an administration that is increasingly befuddled, unsure of what steps to take while gasoline prices teeter on $5 a gallon, grocery staples rise by double digit percentages, and working men and women fall further behind as inflation erodes their income.

Initially, the White House dismissed inflation as “transitory” – a temporary hiccup in the economy that would soon vanish despite warnings to the contrary.

The spike in gasoline prices was, the administration said, caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, disrupting the global oil supply. Costs had begun to rise steadily before the outbreak, however, suggesting that the blame Russia’s President Vladimir Putin narrative was specious at best.

There seems to be no understanding by the administration of those millions of Americans who lie awake each night mentally balancing their checkbooks seeking relief they can make it through until the next paycheck.

Upgrading to a newer or larger home is out of the question while paying for repairs to keep the eight-year-old car on the road is the only alternative to purchasing a new one.

Commodity shortages, like the unconscionable scarcity of baby formula, were blamed on “supply chain issues,” a catchall default position from those without answers.

It’s no surprise that a great number of Americans have concluded the administration is inept, that no one of substance is in charge, the well of ideas has gone dry or it is so frighteningly out of touch that drifting aimlessly is preferable to acting at all.

It is unfortunate as well that the loss of public confidence has fueled increasing and painful doubts about the president’s cognitive powers, whether his ability to fully and incisively grasp the seriousness of the national condition and act decisively to meet the moment have eroded to a dangerous point.

It is the perception that the administration doesn’t know how to proceed, that it cannot lead at a time of national risk. According to the Real Clear Politics polling average, for example, an astounding 70 percent believe the nation is heading in the wrong direction.

It is this belief that will be the dominant force in the midterms, driving voter turnout and expressing discontent and frustration with the party in power.

While preserving the right to an abortion may be at issue in select individual congressional contests, it’s impact across a wider band of the electorate will be minimal.

The rush to political judgment created by the court opinion disclosure is merely another lemming-like stampede by self-appointed opinion influencers that turns out to be at odds with reality.

–

Copyright 2022 Carl Golden, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University in New Jersey. You can reach him at cgolden1937@gmail.

President Biden and those around him have a fondness for using historical disasters as points of comparisons to raise the level of outrage over outbreaks of violence and unrest that have plagued the nation for much of the last eighteen months.

When confronted by images and news accounts of extreme behavior, their first reaction is to reach for superlatives like “worse than…more dangerous than…more horrifying than…more insidious than…a horrible reminder of…”

There follow comparisons to the Civil War, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and slavery, for instance, casually tossed about to convince the American people that what they’ve witnessed surpasses anything in history.

As despicable and horrific as the Jan. 6 assault on the U. S. Capitol, is it truly comparable to the loss of nearly 3,000 American lives when terrorists crashed hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center twin towers in Manhattan and the Pentagon in Washington?

More than 2,500 American military personnel lost their lives in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Should it be mentioned in the same breath with a bunch of conspiracy theorists attired in camo who believed they could change the outcome of the presidential election?

When Border Patrol agents on horseback used their mounts to prevent immigrants from entering the country illegally, was it truly comparable to the inhumane brutality of slavery?

Are voter identification laws analogous to the disgraceful Jim Crow laws which denied African Americans their basic civil rights to purchase a home, sit at a lunch counter, attend schools, obtain employment, ride public transportation, drink from water fountains or use rest room facilities?

The rhetorical overreach compulsion to draw an equivalency between dark and tragic events in history and contemporary incidents of violence is misplaced and undermines the credibility of those who engage in it.

It is tempting for elected leaders to engage in hyperbole, some more inflammatory than others, to signal the depth of their indignation.

Biden gave in to the temptation recently with his remark that “this MAGA (the Trump logo) crowd is really the most extreme political organization that’s existed in American history.”

Critical reaction was swift (not merely from the MAGA crowd) that the president had crossed a line by insulting and questioning the beliefs and patriotism of millions of Americans merely for opposing his administration’s policies.

Former President Trump was an aggressive practitioner of the art of overstatement. His 2016 victory was a landslide, his inauguration day crowd the largest in history, the 2020 election the most crooked in history – all bogus claims.

Trump was addicted to most, greatest, largest, worst, smartest, dumbest to describe anything or anyone that caught his attention.

It was part of his persona, honed during his reign as New York City’s premier real estate developer, casino tycoon, and television personality. It was his schtick and it didn’t damage his credibility because he had so little to begin with.

Exaggeration and embellishment have been a part of the political process since the Republic’s founding. Most of it is dismissed for what it truly is, excused as ordinary behavior and quickly forgotten.

Applying those qualities, though, as comparisons to the tragedies of terrorism, death and war is to enter risky political terrain.

The Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers 21 years ago were witnessed by hundreds of millions of Americans as it unfolded in real time. They understood what they were watching and were repelled and appalled by images that would stay with them forever.

Newsreel footage of the Pearl Harbor attack and the savage treatment of American citizens who desired nothing more than to exercise their rights have been seen by generations.

These moments of great trauma in our history speak for themselves. Today’s leaders should let them.

There is neither need nor justification for using those images to advance political ends. Continuing to do so minimizes the memories and courage of all who endured the pain and heartbreak those incidents inflicted.

There is no shortage of vocabulary at the disposal of political leaders to emphasize their opposition or discomfort.

An updated thesaurus is easily available.

–

Copyright 2022 Carl Golden, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University in New Jersey. You can reach him at cgolden1937@gmail.

With public approval lodged for months between 40 and 42 percent and facing a midterm election anticipated to be a seismic disaster, President Biden has endured an almost Pavlovian response from consultants, strategists, academics and party leaders – sharpen the communications, hone the message and sell it to the American people.

From Barack Obama (a winner) to Hillary Clinton (a loser), the advice has been: “We have a story to tell, go tell it.”

The two are not the only voices tumbling incessantly from cable television talk shows and op-ed pages – all singing from the same partisan hymnal.

It’s the iconic line from “Cool Hand Luke” uttered by the southern chain gang warden just before his prisoner is gunned down: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Pinning the dismal election outlook – a loss of upwards of 40 seats in the House – on a messaging failure has become the default position. It’s simple, portrays its proponents as insightful strategists to be heeded, and doesn’t require any substantive thought.

Several years ago, a similar scenario was posed to Clinton campaign operative Paul Begala. Asked to account for a gap between rhetoric and performance, Begala responded succinctly and devastatingly direct: “The Titanic didn’t have a communications problem; it had an iceberg problem.”

In other words, it is performance that matters, not sloganeering and political spin.

With Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the helm of their administration’s Titanic, they guided the ship into one iceberg collision after another while assuring the American people to ignore the vessel taking on water.

Consider their messaging:

– The withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan was a resounding success.

– Inflation was transitory, wouldn’t last long and only afflicted the wealthy.

– The $2 trillion Build Back Better infrastructure proposal would cost “zero dollars.”

– The surge of illegal immigration across the southern border wasn‘t a serious issue.

– Gasoline prices exceeding $5 a gallon is the fault of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

– Responsibility for unprecedented increases in violent crime in large cities belonged to his predecessor.

– The COVID-19 pandemic is behind us.

The Titanic sails on, though:

– Inflation reached 8.5 percent, the largest increase in 40 years, and is expected to continue.

– The Department of Homeland Security estimates that 18,000 to 20,000 immigrants will stream across the border daily with the repeal of Trump-era restrictions.

– Build Back Better – the centerpiece of the Administration’s legislative agenda – lies in ashes.

– The military withdrawal from Afghanistan left American troops dead and Afghans who aided the U.S. stranded at the mercy of the Taliban.

– Gasoline costs rose to $4 a gallon in the months before Russia invaded Ukraine, after the administration assurances the amount of oil imported from Russia was negligible and shutting it down would have no impact.

– As homicide rates soared in cities across the country and video highlights of smash and grab burglaries of high end establishments dominated television and internet sites, the administration insisted overall crime had declined.

– The administration’s premature declaration of victory over the COVID-19 pandemic was followed by an outbreak that sent hospitalizations and deaths to previous levels.

It is not, as strategists and consultants insist, a failure to communicate, but a skeptical and deeply discontented public that sees for itself the chasm that has opened between reality and deception.

Americans are reminded every day the administration’s Titanic is clanging off one iceberg after another while the captain and first mate insist all is well and can be explained away easily.

Only the willfully naïve and terminally gullible accept the Administration rationales, explanations that are patently absurd and highlight the massive disconnect between the Administration’s rhetoric and the everyday experiences of Americans.

It is, perhaps, overly harsh to accuse the Administration of deliberate lying; rather, it is an effort to disguise a politically damaging landscape by concocting a narrative insisting the situation is less worrisome than it appears.

Biden’s occasionally erratic performances, though –forgetting names and events and uttering remarks only to be rescinded later – undermine public confidence in him as a spokesperson.

Begala’s Titanic – built to be unsinkable – lies on the seabed beneath the North Atlantic. Biden’s may come to rest on the floor of the Potomac.

–

Copyright 2022 Carl Golden, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University in New Jersey. You can reach him at cgolden1937@gmail.

In the history of the Watergate scandal of 1972 – arguably the most egregious instance of government corruption in the nation’s history – one of the consistent narratives involves the cold political calculation reached by embattled President Richard Nixon that he was shielded from impeachment because Congress was horrified at the prospect of a President Spiro Agnew.

Nixon is said to have characterized his vice president as “my insurance policy,” telling close associates and his White House staff that for Congress the political risk of elevating Agnew to the presidency was greater than the risk of opposing impeachment proceedings.

Nixon’s insurance policy was cancelled when Agnew resigned from office in October of 1973 after pleading no contest to income tax evasion charges. Facing certain impeachment, Nixon resigned less than a year later.

Substitute President Biden for Nixon and Vice President Kamala Harris for Agnew and the parallels are similar.

Obviously, Biden is not threatened by impeachment nor is there any evidence that he shares Nixon’s “insurance policy” belief, but the growing concern over his misstatements and verbal blunders has re-ignited speculation over whether his cognitive abilities have declined to a dangerous point, casting doubt on his serving his full first term or seeking re-election in 2024.

Departing office prematurely would turn the office over to Vice President Harris, who would lay claim to the Democratic nomination in 2024, an outcome that keeps Democrats awake at night.

In recent weeks, Biden’s communications staff and Cabinet members were propelled into frantic damage control mode to clarify or rescind his comments and reassure allies that his pronouncements did not represent changes in American policy.

From his remarks that the United States would respond “in kind” if Russia deployed chemical weapons in their invasion of Ukraine, or his suggestion that Russian President Vladimir Putin should be toppled from power – an argument for a policy of regime change – Biden’s responses to the war in Ukraine have been a rhetorical minefield.

While Harris shattered the glass ceiling of race and gender, her tenure as vice president has been a rocky one. Her public speeches and responses to media questions have often been disjointed ramblings. She frequently appears unprepared and unsure of herself, lapsing into nervous laughter at inopportune moments.

Her public approval polling numbers have fallen below even those of Biden’s and she is not associated with any major initiatives or administration successes.

Early in the administration, she was tasked with dealing with the immigration crisis at the southern border and with shepherding voting rights legislation through the Congress – contentious issues that defied solutions and were guaranteed to reflect poorly on her.

Her relationship with the president’s staff has been described as testy, and her involvement in developing major policy initiatives as insignificant.

Granted, the vice presidency is a subordinate position and its occupant must tread lightly to avoid upstaging the president.

In the event the Republican Party, as anticipated, sweeps the midterm elections and regains control of the House and potentially the Senate, the Biden legislative agenda is dead in the water come January 2023.

With a punishing rate of inflation driving the cost of living to unprecedented levels, voters are expected to unleash their anger on the president and his party. If a gallon of gas continues to cost more than a pound of ground beef, a grassroots rebellion is inevitable.

In the absence of a Biden candidacy, the Democratic Party leadership will confront an extraordinarily difficult choice – coalesce behind a candidate or acknowledge that Vice President Harris holds a legitimate claim on the nomination despite their belief she is not presidential material.

The roster of Republicans eager to make a serious run at what they perceive to be a wounded administration without accomplishments or deep national support will be a lengthy one.

The political environment clearly favors Republicans and a Harris presidency or candidacy enhances the prospect of a White House they occupy and a Congress they control.

Biden is certainly not Nixon and Harris is just as surely not Agnew. And, while the analogy may not be perfect, the landscape is familiar.

–

Copyright 2022 Carl Golden, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University in New Jersey. You can reach him at cgolden1937@gmail.

Virginia Thomas, wife of U. S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, is free to hold whatever opinions, thoughts, judgments or impressions of politics and public policy she desires.

And, like any other American, she may express them without fear of censorship no matter how zany or repellent others may find them. Her views are hers. She owns them.

However, her husband sits on the the nation’s highest court, which determines the validity or constitutionality of matters which she has publicly commented or groups she is closely allied with, whose activities may come before the court.

In a series of text messages she exchanged with Mark Meadows, chief of staff to former President Trump, following the 2020 election, Mrs. Thomas expressed her belief it was riddled with fraud, that Trump was cheated of victory and intense efforts should continue to overturn the results. She also repeated bizarre conspiracy theories that border on sheer lunacy.

Despite her conviction Trump’s re-election was stolen, swapping emails messages with the top White House staffer in the naive belief they would never be revealed was a serious error in judgment, one bound to turn back on her and the Justice to create a public relations and political nightmare.

In Washington – where secrets last as long as it takes one person to tell another – her correspondence with Meadows was sure to emerge publicly.

Not surprisingly, the messages – included in documents Meadows turned over to the Congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U. S. Capitol – were leaked by committee members or staffers who routinely elbow one another aside in their zeal to get to reporters first.

The leaks – a way of life in the overheated partisan environment suffocating the nation’s capital – are not the issue; Mrs. Thomas’ judgment lapse and the impact on her husband are.

Congressional Democrats joined private self interest pressure groups in demanding Thomas recuse himself from participating in any further court proceedings touching on the presidential election.

Others predictably went into their customary indignation overdrive, calling for Thomas’ impeachment despite a lack of any evidence of misconduct or unethical behavior.

They warn that driving him from office is necessary because he may, might, potentially, possibly, perhaps vote favorably on a court opinion upholding a Trump campaign inspired challenge.

By one report, Thomas has participated in nine election-related cases without recusal, a step taken at the discretion of a justice who decides on his or her own whether to step aside.

The sole response from Ginni Thomas was that she never discusses Supreme Court matters with her husband and her longtime political activism has not impacted the Justice’s responsibilities or influenced his actions.

There is, according to her, no “How was your day at the office, honey?” dinner table conversation in the Thomas household.

Her assurances, though, are difficult to accept, even by those who may sympathize with her view of election fraud.

It requires a colossal leap of faith to accept the notion that husband and wife occupy the same home, engaging in mundane conversation about the weather or the latest movies while tip-toeing around an issue that has dominated politics and government for some 16 months.

The nation should be excused for its skepticism, not because it feels either Thomas is deliberately lying, but because in real life experience such an explanation is not credible.

While impeachment is a non-starter, a product of self-serving individuals who see the controversy as an opportunity to grab a slice of the political and media attention, recusal appears a logical and sensible response.

By standing aside Thomas would spare himself from a continued torrent of partisan abuse and allegations of unethical conduct while reinforcing judicial independence and the reputation of the court as an institution immune from political pressures and rooted firmly in the rule of law.

Going forward, Justice Thomas should exercise recusal by acting prospectively in the handful of election-related cases that may reach the court.

His wife’s emails constituted partisan political activism. His recusal will give meaning to the words chiseled above the doors of the court “Equal Justice Under Law.”

–

Copyright 2022 Carl Golden, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University in New Jersey. You can reach him at cgolden1937@gmail.

Nearly 48 years ago, President Gerald Ford granted a “full, free and absolute pardon to Richard Nixon,” shielding the former president from prosecution for conspiring to cover up the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office complex in 1972.

According to the document signed by Ford, the pardon covered “all offenses against the United States which Nixon committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from Jan. 20, 1969, to Aug. 9, 1974.”

The pardon unleashed a firestorm of media and partisan outrage and, according to many observers, contributed significantly to Ford’s narrow loss to Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Ford justified his decision, writing: “The prospect of a trial will cause prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office of the United States.”

The evidence against Nixon was so overwhelming that Senate conviction on impeachment charges was certain. Resignation was his sole option.

The Congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, siege on the U. S. Capitol is reportedly poised to issue a criminal referral to the Justice Department accusing former president Donald Trump of participating in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. The decision by Attorney General Merrick Garland whether to pursue an indictment against Trump will be the most politically momentous in modern history.

Congressional Republicans have already begun to frame the debate around the validity of the committee itself, characterizing it as a brazen political attempt by Democrats to construct a criminal case against Trump without regard for evidence of illegality.

The committee’s findings and recommendations, Republicans argue, are forever and fatally tainted by crass political motives.

Ford’s warning of a “prolonged and divisive debate” over Nixon’s criminal culpability seems almost polite and courtly compared to the poisonous partisan atmosphere blanketing today’s political discourse.

A criminal referral will unleash an acrimony never before experienced.

The committee Democrats, by leaving the decision to prosecute or not up to Garland, have immunized themselves somewhat by claiming they merely gathered evidence and will look to the Attorney General to assess its strength and viability.

Republicans, though, have threatened an all-out take no prisoners war, including a warning that if they take control of the Congress in this year’s midterm election, they will immediately investigate business dealings involving the president’s son, Hunter, and the president himself for actions he took as vice president.

Garland must tread a fine line, exercising care to avoid the perception that his department has caved to political pressures while at the same time remaining aware that declining to prosecute will, in effect, be interpreted as a victory for Trump and a repudiation of the committee’s findings.

Democrats fret as well that if criminal charges are filed and dismissals or acquittals result, Trump will claim vindication and validation of his contention the committee spent millions of dollars on a political witch hunt.

The committee has alleged that Trump’s insistence that the 2020 election was stolen from him, promoting a narrative he knew to be false, and his attempts to halt official congressional certification of the results were proof of participation in a conspiracy that rose to criminal level.

It will fall to Garland to determine if Trump’s actions went beyond the assertions of a candidate unwilling to accept defeat and attempted to impose his beliefs and obstruct an official proceeding of Congress.

A prosecution will drain the oxygen from the political environment in the short term, affecting campaigns and elections, while a final disposition could consume years.

In the interim, political polarization – already at an unprecedented level – will intensify, further dividing the American people and creating an unyielding rigidity of opposing beliefs.

Nixon left office voluntarily in the face of certain impeachment; Trump left kicking and screaming while insisting he was victimized by a corrupt system.

Ford took a political risk, choosing to spare the country the ignoble spectacle of a former president in the dock.

Nixon was pardoned; Trump was defeated. It will be Merrick Garland’s task to determine whether rejection by the voters is punishment enough.

–

Copyright 2022 Carl Golden, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University in New Jersey. You can reach him at cgolden1937@gmail.

It took more than a year, but Congressional Democrats, facing the prospect of losing their majorities, have concluded the most effective way to mitigate disaster during the midterms this November would be to erase the public perception that it is controlled by far left socialism.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled she understood the political imperative to break with her party’s vocal progressive wing with a blunt declaration that defunding the police – a core progressive principle – is not a Democratic Party position.

Pelosi deliberately chose rejecting the most visible and most destructive policy position of the left to attract maximum attention to her remarks and highlight the seriousness with which the leadership views as the greatest threat to Democratic candidates.

Pelosi’s “it’s not the party position” assertion was quickly met with a rebuttal from Missouri Rep. Cori Bush who said, in effect, “oh, yes it is” teeing up what may be a continuing running intra-party battle over its direction.

While defunding the police was blamed by establishment Democrats for the dismal showing in the 2020-21 election cycle, it was merely one in a series of issues that created the image of a party that had lurched too far to the left and embraced an ideology out of step with Americans.

The progressives’ support for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), relaxing illegal border crossings, closing Federal prisons, ending deportations, dismissing dramatic and tragic increases in violent crime, eliminating cash bail even for repeat offenders while refusing to prosecute lower level offenses, minimizing civil unrest, and pouring trillions of dollars into untested social programs all combined to portray a fringe party rather than a broad-based appeal to moderate and centrist voters.

It is not an agenda around which large numbers of Americans can rally, particularly at a time when income-robbing inflation shows no signs of abating and cost of living increases inflict daily punishment on middle class families.

Pelosi took the lead in moving toward offloading the left’s ideological baggage and pulling her party back to mainstream thought.

Hillary Clinton joined in support with a warning that Democrats should pay greater attention to addressing issues with a chance to win voters over rather than clutching an ideological purity that turns voters away.

The progressives, however, have been clear they will not fold or go quietly, insisting the party, rather than going too far left, failed to go far enough and suffered losses because of timidity and a lack of conviction.

They’ve thrown support to primary election challengers against their incumbent colleagues and, in an unprecedented and astonishing act, one of their number will deliver a rebuttal to Biden’s State of the Union speech, highlighting and exacerbating party divisions.

Combined with President Biden’s public approval mired in the low 40 percent range and below in some surveys, Democratic angst is understandable — a record 30 House Democrats have announced retirement rather than seek re-election — and has produced a late game strategy re-set.

Rather than confront an all out Republican assault and defend the drift to the left, Democrats have been advised to promote the Administration’s successes, emphasizing the multi-trillion-dollar rescue plan that sent cash directly to Americans to help weather the COVID-19 devastation and passage of a $1 trillion infrastructure program to rebuild roads and bridges across the country.

They’ve been urged to call for approval of the Build Back Better social infrastructure package and voting rights legislation, even though both have failed in the Senate.

Former president Donald Trump will remain a target with Democrats reminding voters of his chaotic four years, his evidence-free insistence that he won re-election in 2020, and his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U. S. Capitol by his supporters.

Republicans are convinced Democrats are vulnerable on the cultural issues embodied in the progressives’ agenda as well as the boiling controversy over parental involvement in public education.

The stars are in alignment for massive Republican gains in November, sufficient to control House and Senate for the first time sine 2014.

And, despite intra-party upheavals of their own, victory has a way of smoothing over differences.

–

Copyright 2022 Carl Golden, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University in New Jersey. You can reach him at cgolden1937@gmail.

That hissing sound heard all over Washington, D.C., recently was the air escaping from the MAGA 2024 balloon after Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell delivered an unmistakable message to his party that it’s time to separate its future and fortunes from those of ex-president Donald Trump.

Describing the Jab. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol as “a violent insurrection” by a mob of Trump loyalists determined to overturn the presidential election outcome, McConnell made the clean break from Trump that many in the party hoped for.

After enduring and ignoring Trump’s coarse and abusive remarks addressed at him for months, McConnell spied his opening when the Republican National Committee ,in an unfathomable act of self-immolation, defended the Jan. 6 rioters as engaging in “legitimate political discourse.”

Recognizing this was his moment, McConnell pounced: “We saw it happen. It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next.”

In thirty-two words, McConnell rejected Trump’s promise to pardon any rioters should they be convicted and drove a stake through the former president’s evidence-free claims that the election was stolen from him.

A cannier politician than Trump could ever aspire to be and who is far superior at “reading the room” – judging the mood of the electorate – McConnell understood the peril to Republican candidates in the midterm congressional elections if they stood silently while the ex-president controlled a narrative that was untenable and strategically unsound.

The National Committee’s censure of two House members – Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois – for serving on the committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot and also produced backlash from a number of congressional Republicans, who were aghast at its damaging impact.

But it was McConnell’s blunt comments and the implicit warning they conveyed to the party that were far more telling. His public call for putting distance between them and Trump may have been overdue, but it is now on the record – running as a member of the cult of Trump foreshadowed disaster and jeopardized regaining control of Congress for the first time since 2014.

But it was the three words – “legitimate political discourse” – that overshadowed all else, including the censure of two sitting members of the House.

Tens of millions of Americans watched – transfixed and horrified – as a howling mob smashed doors and windows, assaulted and fought with police, broke into offices, stole personal property, and sent members of Congress fleeing to safety.

The American people did not see legitimate political discourse. Rather, they saw the unthinkable – fellow countrymen descending on the nation’s symbol of democracy, vandalizing it while demanding a free and fair election be overturned.

It was the stuff of dictatorial governments determined to cling to power at any cost. It couldn’t happen here. Until it did.

Democratic congressional candidates will use the legitimate political discourse language as a blunt instrument to pummel their GOP opponents and demand they either condemn or condone it. For Republicans, it will become a case of “when you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

McConnell understood all too clearly the danger facing the party’s candidates, and set out to inoculate them from it as effectively as possible. And that meant a clean and public break from Trump – no more bending the knee in the direction of Mar-A-Lago.

To be sure, the ex-president will retain a bloc of party loyalists and continue to issue verbal rockets from his Florida redoubt. He’s raised significant sums of money to spend on himself and favored candidates. He cannot be completely discounted.

At stake, though, is the soul of the Republican Party, one that still glimmers despite the assault on it. McConnell’s rejection of Trumpism is a major step toward that end.

–

Copyright 2022 Carl Golden, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Carl Golden is a senior contributing analyst with the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Stockton University in New Jersey. You can reach him at cgolden1937@gmail.