I realize that almost everybody is biased toward the members of their own political "tribe."
For sure, I am. I readily admit that I'm more willing to overlook transgressions of fellow Democrat politicians than Republican politicians.
But I deeply doubt that most Democrats would put up with all the crap that Donald Trump has done as president and post-president. At least, nowhere near to the extent that Republicans still bow down at the Altar of Trump.
If you're a Republican who disagrees with that assessment, here's a thought experiment for you to consider. Imagine this alternative reality...
In November 2016 Hillary Clinton confirmed what most pollsters predicted: she defeated Donald Trump and was elected president of the United States.
Right away, though, rough spots started to appear on her presidential image. Clinton claimed that the crowd at her inauguration was much vaster than it actually was. But her supporters brushed that mistake off, saying Clinton was just being Clinton.
Things got worse, much worse. Fact checkers documented how many lies Clinton was spreading. The Washington Post reported 30,573 false or misleading claims in four years, an average of more than 20.9 per day.
No problem for most Democrats. They excused Clinton's falsehoods, being much more concerned about her appointing three justices to the Supreme Court, assuring a liberal majority for decades to come.
Sure, there were lots of scandals in the Clinton administration. She appointed people to cabinet positions who were loyal to her, not because they had the experience and temperament needed to do their job.
But again, Clinton's Democratic base loved how she used the levers of government to increase taxes on the wealthy, combat global warming, assure equal rights for minorities, impose more regulations on corporations, and fulfill other aspects of liberal wish lists.
Nearing the end of her first term, Clinton was impeached by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives because she tried to get political dirt on a GOP presidential contender by withholding aid from a foreign country that supposedly could provide evidence of a scandal involving the contender's son.
She was easily acquitted by the Democrat-controlled Senate. Clinton viewed this vindication as a green light to do whatever she wanted in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, including using the White House as a prop for campaign events.
Sure, that was against the rules. Clinton, though, endorsed the adage, "It isn't a crime if the president does it."
Clinton mismanaged the Covid crisis when it hit the United States. That led to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, according to experts. However, neither Clinton nor her supporters cared about what experts said, nor what the mainstream media said.
Power was what mattered to Clinton, not rules, nor ethics, nor going along with how things always had been done.
It turned out, though, that American voters were tried of all the drama of the Clinton years. Her constant lying and grandstanding was wearing people out. So in November 2020 she lost to her Republican challenger.
Or so the headlines said.
Clinton refused to accept the outcome of the election. She filed 60 frivolous lawsuits claiming election fraud, even though there was no evidence of any widespread fraud. Even after losing all but one of the suits, Clinton kept on loudly asserting that she had won the election.
A mob of her Democratic supporters stormed the nation's capitol on January 6, beating police officers and looking for politicians they could harm, so great was their anger at the election supposedly being stolen from Clinton, and so strong was their belief that Clinton was correct in asserting massive voter fraud.
That led to Clinton being impeached a second time. And being acquitted by the Senate a second time.
President Clinton did leave the White House for her home in New York. But in a final defiant gesture, Clinton took many boxes of government documents with her, including top secret documents. When the FBI demanded their return, it took a subpoena for that to happen.
Turns out, though, that even though Clinton's lawyer swore that all classified documents had been returned to the government, a search of her property under a warrant signed by a federal judge turned up eleven more boxes of documents, some of them highly secret.
Per usual, Clinton lied her way through this post-presidential scandal. At first she claimed that the FBI had planted incriminating documents during their search.
Then a variety of other excuses were put forward, including that Clinton was so sure she was going to stay in office, she didn't start packing until a few days before she had to leave the White House and got the classified documents mixed up with other stuff.
Again, all this was no problem for most Democratic politicians and her supporters. They're eager for her to run for president again in 2024 so she and her fellow Democrats can punish Republicans for causing her so much grief during her first term as president.
If you're not OK with this alternative reality, Republicans, how is it that most of you are absolutely fine with Trump doing the same things?
Agreed. Look at the Al Franken example. At the very whiff of impropriety, he resigned. When was the last time a Republican did that?
Posted by: Heather | August 23, 2022 at 02:22 PM