Welcome to the Banana Republic

Well, they did it. As we knew they would. As they telegraphed they would on multiple occasions and as they confirmed with vehemence last Friday by denying evidence be admitted to trial. 52 United States Senators decreed today that we are no longer a democratic republic, no longer a representative democracy. Instead, in direct opposition to the will of the national majority, those 52 United States Senators welcomed the transition to despotism by giving the current president of the nation unchecked power, by removing any remnants of inhibition that might remain in his behavior.

The current holder of the office of the President, whose actual name I will not use today and whose name will, should we survive into history, become a synonym for corruption and cruelty, was impeached by the House of Representatives on only two counts. He could have been impeached on many more, as he has committed many more reprehensible offenses, but the two in question—abuse of power by extorting a foreign leader to tar a political opponent with made-up accusations and obstruction of Congress in covering that abuse up—were slam-dunks. The proof was overwhelming. He admitted it, repeatedly, on television. No attentive person with even a modicum of intelligence and understanding of the United States Constitution could reasonably deny that he committed these offenses.

52 United States Senators, however, found they could unreasonably deny it and pretend they were honorably upholding their principles.

President VonClownstick reacted to his faux-acquittal by immediately tweeting an animated graphic based on a Time magazine cover displaying his desire to remain in power in perpetuity. Some of the 52 Senators gloated, many of the wannabe-dictator's fans and cultists verbally bashed adherents to the rule of law as losers and, paradoxically, traitors. The wannabe-dictator's son attacked the only Republican Senator to side with the Constitution by demanding that Senator be expelled from his party and branding him a "member of the resistance," a term that in and of itself is troubling. (If there is a resistance, there must by definition be something to resist, and common parlance relegates "The Resistance," in political contexts, to oppressed populations opposing tyranny.)

Those 52 Senators will rue this day, presuming they live more than another few months. There is no question that our wannabe-dictator will continue to abuse his power, will continue to commit atrocities, will continue to show contempt for the Constitution, will continue to behave like the leader of the international criminal enterprise that he is. As House Impeachment Manager Rep. Adam Schiff put it, the odds of this are "one-hundred percent." Further details of the abuses already committed, including those the 52 Senators declared to be perfectly acceptable, will come to light soon. The political calculation these 52 people made will backfire. But will it matter?

We have one opportunity to reclaim the United States of America as the democratic republic it had been before this administration began tearing it down. 52 United States Senators have abdicated their responsibility out of fear of retribution from a vindictive man-child, out of their own corruption and lust for power, out of rank stupidity, and/or out of allegiance to foreign dictatorships. That leaves the electoral process as the only remedy left, and as we have seen many times before, too many American voters are easily-manipulated simpletons that can be tricked into voting against their interests.

It's crisis time. If this president is not defeated in this year's election, if the Senate is not wrested from the death grip of Mitch McConnell, then this country is finished. That sounds hyperbolic, I know, but it's not. This president is profoundly anti-democracy, profoundly dishonorable, profoundly corrupt—and profoundly fragile. He is so thin-skinned and insecure, so in need of utter adulation to fuel his ego, that he demands complete fealty. The danger is, to use one of his favored words, tremendous.

And 52 United States Senators do not care.