The Sin Eater of the Senate
THE SIN EATER OF THE SENATE
By Deborah Long
Dear Mitch,
Although it seems that the ball is in the Democratic Party’s court, it’s really not. The ball is in your court. So, which is it going to be: going to the mattresses, or ending your career caucusing with what’s left of your beloved GOP – now an impotent rump party of your own making? Heads we win; tails you lose.
Your guy’s noodle is baked, and now you’re left with a pile of subpoenas in your lap because you chose to be Trump’s sin eater. Did the dead fish wrapped in the National Enquirer make you panicky? And that bloody horse-head – whew, that musta been a shocker. So, Mitch, pick your poison, because we read the Mueller Report – and you’re on the wrong side of history. You’re the chump who’ll be the crocodile’s last southern fried meal.
Yeah, we don’t know yet whether the Mueller Report is the climax of this epic tale - or whether this marks nothing but Act 2 in the Republican Party’s slouch toward a unitary state run by an oligarchy of fat-fingered grandees and their Gollum-like remoras. Remoras like Kirstjen Nielsen whose gaze is literally “blank and pitiless as the sun”. Or the kakistocracy of Faustian bargaineers that your GOP Senate confirmed for Trump in the last two years – nothing but a murder of crows who scavenge the weakened bodies of the powerless. There’s Steve Mnuchin, your Secretary of Treasury - known in the biz as the “King of Foreclosures”, a guy who pumped and dumped his way to a fortune as CEO of a bank that did nothing but foreclose on people who couldn’t pay their mortgages because of the recession of 2008. Dickensian greed and scavenging got him the honor as a made-man in the President’s family. Or there’s Wilbur Ross, your Secretary of Commerce, and former Vice-Chairman of the Board of Bank of Cyprus, known as the money laundering bank of choice for Russian mobsters. And lest we forget, there’s William Barr, Esq., your Attorney General and the most recent Republican capo to martyr himself as the Don’s hapless consiglieri. Made and made again.
We’ve been watching, Mitch, and your problems didn’t start with Donald Trump; he’s just the monster you created in your party’s zero-sum game of attrition with our 243-year-old constitutional democracy.
And if anyone thinks the Democrats lack the guts to fight - fuhgeddaboudit. They have all the cards: 4 to 5 excellent presidential candidates and a dozen highly skilled policy-makers who’ll set things right for America. Policies that speak to the interests of every American, regardless of party - and an ideological life raft that will save all souls on board.
But Mitch, it’s really up to you and your rump party whether it’s time to jump. If you buckle under the thumb of your Freedom Caucus, you die in ignominy after 35 years in the Senate. But, if you see the Mueller Report as the “get out of jail card” that it is, there’s a chance that you might restore your manhood. But you have a lot of work to do. You’re finally going to have to win elections the old-fashioned way: by earning them. Your party is going to have to learn to play by the book and not cheat to win. And your party is going to have to drop that White Supremacy thing, that Party of God thing, and instead of learning to love the bomb – learn to love the Americans who sign your paycheck. No more blowing up the deficit and learning to love the Chinese who extend credit to America. No more oil wars to grease the skids for Exxon and the boys. No more closing down the government for the sole purpose of building a wall that could only have been conceived of by Marvel Comics. No more parasitism of the middle class, and no more licking your lips afterward.
The Mueller Report is your get-out-of-jail card. It gives you the pretext to kill off the anarchists that bought up your party’s junk bonds.
And think about this, Mitch: We’re not sure whether we’ll let Mike Pence and Mother declare that our long national nightmare is over. You know, that Handmaiden thing and all. They’re very creepy, and nobody thinks he was lied to. We were lied to.
So, Mitch, your smartest move is to make the Goldwater trip to the Oval Office and tell the Don that he’s probably going to be a Guest of the State along with his underboss, Paul Manafort. And tell him that you can probably cut a deal with Chuck and Nancy for him resign and not prosecute his children as long as everyone cooperates. You know, RICO and all. The ball’s in your court.
Deborah Long is a Principal at Development Management Group, Inc. and founder of several non-profit charitable organizations. If you find her perspectives interesting, controversial, or provocative, follow her at: https://www.facebook.com/debby.long.98499?ref=br_rs
