Final Thoughts for me:
So. For the individuals who were confused by what I meant by NDP, I don’t keep up with Canadian politics and I wasn’t aware that ‘NDP’ was a thing there. I generally also don’t like diary police, but since I’m updating the diary anyway, I was like hey. It won’t kill me to change the diary title.
Two, for those who decried what the big deal was and why are we talking about this, yada, yada, yada. Well, it’s because it’s what we do here and I didn’t write the tweet, Alter did and speaking of him -—
Three, for the ‘diaryplainers’ who decried that since this scenario is so very highly unlikely, why are we talking about this, I say that the real question is why is Alter tweeting about it at all? Obviously the common knowledge here is that a Pelosi path to the POTUS is highly improbable even though half of the GOP seems to be in on the criminal end of the jig. Surely a Washington insider such as he would know how it works.
Lastly, for the ones who expressed some agreement with Alter’s hypothetical scenario — in the unlikely event that would find Pelosi in a position to assume the Presidency, appeasement is not an option for the Republican Party. She steps aside for a Republican to lead the country in order to — what, show bi-partisanship with a party who doesn’t have that word in their vocabulary, or, to stamp down violent resistance, or to avoid a ‘Constitutional Crisis’…., well hello.
When does the Republican Party show a sense of bipartisanship? Mitch McConnell wouldn’t even allow a confirmation hearing for Obama’s pick for the SCOTUS. He decided to play God, judge and jury by not even allowing the Senate (with a Republican majority, I might add) the opportunity to even hear what the man had to say for himself and then vote up or down. Clearly McConnell hasn’t met a Democrat that doesn’t already hate.
Worried about violence? That went out the window when we allowed 6 year olds to be gunned down in their classrooms and teenagers in their high school. It went out the window when we sat idly by to allow individuals to become violently radicalized, infusing racist, sexist, Neo-Nazi philosophies with the Second Amendment and the media giving equal voice to that.
Our Constitutional Crisis began in earnest when we decided to set aside Russian interference in our elections and Republican interference in American’s right to vote when they deemed it unlikely that the vote would not go to them.
So here are. Frankly Alter’s tweet was a bit irresponsible on the grounds that we haven’t even started the trial in earnest and already he’s jumped to Pelosi’s succession status. Why make it a thing if it’s so unlikely to happen anyway?
Unless he knows something that the rest of us doesn’t.
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So Wikipedia says that Jonathan Alter
... is a liberal / progressive American journalist, best-selling author, documentary filmmaker and television producer who was a columnist and senior editor for Newsweek magazine from 1983 until 2011, and has written three New York Times best-selling books about American presidents..
So why in the devil would he tweet such a thing as this??????
Is he nuts? Now while it’s way too soon to assume that this impeachment will, somehow, miraculously result in Trump and/or Pence being removed form office, without much context (or really ANY context), Alter drops this stink bomb on this twitter feed last night.
I read through some of the comments and while many thought the guy was off his meds or something, there were a few who engaged other commenters using the following line of logic:
Basically Nancy Pelosi should forgo the Constitutional line of succession for POTUS in the event both Trump and Pence goes down because it would ensure the Senate Republicans of political impartiality so that they can feel free to vote to convict Trump.
WTBF??????
So this is what I have to say to Mr. Alter. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or Les Parnas for that matter to see what’s going on here. Simply put, the corruption doesn’t end with Trump. There is a reason why the GOP is so ‘ride-or-die’ with this President and no it’s not because they are so scared of him either (but they may have very good reasons to be afraid of the Kremlin, however).
I don’t believe for one second that the DNC servers were the only one that has been hacked here. I also don’t believe that 7 GOP members of Congress just so happened to just jiggy on over to Russia on the Independence Day of OUR country because it was the patriotic thing to do (maybe for Russia, perhaps).
What we all don’t yet know is how deep in the rabbit hole this will all go at the end of the day. So it does NOTHING for the Senate Repubs’ ‘feelings’ if Pelosi announces that she would step aside for the sake of … what? Bi-partisanship?
I don’t know what planet Alter is on, but in my world, Kumbaya was buried with Dr. King, sorry to say. We have Senators who just swore to uphold the Constitution and be impartial jurors and many of them had their fingers crossed behind their backs while they held up their hands (so help them God) — not because of their loyalty to Trump, but because they are drunk with power and they aren’t trying to blithefully give up a $200K gig with benefits.
Let’s get real here.
Or maybe it’s me. Maybe I should have taken the damn blue pill.
UPDATE
So Alter is trying to dig out of one hole, while planting deeper in the other:
Thanks for those who flagged this. I thought he may have been being snarky. Apparently he’s dead serious about this thought. Jonathan — dude — I.really.don’t.care.how.the.Democrats.appear. Believe it or not, there are, like A LOT of Americans who can discern right from wrong and legal from illegal without tying every damn thing to political party affiliation. Also, with respect to your ‘’hypothetical’ scenario here, what makes you think Grassley’s hands are clean, or Grassley won’t be pressured to step aside for Pompeo? Then where the hell would we be?
Some things are just beyond politics now, even when the other side continues to waddle in it against all common sense and perseveration of their very souls.