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Saturday, August 27, 2022

The Trump Tipping Point - Stolen Documents Turn The Tide

During Watergate, it wasn't clear whether  Nixon would be able to ride things out or not until the Senate Watergate Committee played the secret tapes Nixon recorded in the Oval Office.  That was the turning point.  The point when Nixon supporters stopped supporting Nixon.  

Trump supporters are a different breed. Some will never stop supporting him, or at least the idea of Trump.  But lots of Republican politicians only support Trump because they fear losing 'his base' and his support at election time.  Others also fear the damaging information Trump has on them.  

But the top secret documents - their existence and the realization of what Trump likely plans to do with them, or already has done with them - feel to me like the turning point.  Even if Republican politicians don't publicly voice their opposition, the public, combined with the wave of energized pro-choice voters, will make their opinion known in November.  

But I want to remind folks that with Watergate, resolution didn't happen quickly.

Back in May I compared the January 6 hearings to the Watergate hearings, which I listened to/watched live at the time.  I also tried to put the timing from the Watergate Break-in to Nixon's resignation into perspective.  From that post: 

  • The break-in occurred May 28, 1972 (50 years ago).  
  • Nixon was reelected in November 1972
  • Alexander Butterfield testified about the existence of the White House tapes  before the Watergate Committee on July 16, 1973.
  • Nixon resigned August 9, 1974.

These events just plodded along.  Here's a detailed timeline.  

My point was that these things take time and that it was never certain that Nixon would actually be ensnared in the scandal.  Until he was.

In hindsight, it appears that the country's mood changed when we learned that the White House taped all the Oval Office conversations.  It was clear that once we heard the tapes, we'd know who had been telling the truth and who had been lying, about what Nixon knew and when he knew it.  (And the president lying to the American public mattered back then.)

And when the Watergate committee started playing the  tapes live on national television, those who were supporting Nixon knew the jig was up.  But if you look at the timeline, it was over a year between the public revelation of the existence of the tapes and Nixon's resignation.  

The Tweet below is the kind of indication I'm talking about in terms of people's understanding of the seriousness of the classified documents in Trump's possession.

For tens of millions, there were enough infractions to impeach, prosecute, and imprison Trump long ago.  But for other United States citizens, treason is the unforgivable transgression.

This Tweet suggests to me thatt the revelations in the last ten days tip the scales.  People are beginning to realize that not only did he illegally take all these documents, but that these highly secret documents have lots of information that could jeopardize US national security.  

Despite what we already know about Trump, the Tweeter is only now having his real Aha moment.

It's starting to sink in that Trump not only was probably planning to use these documents to raise funds, but that there is a good chance he's already shared some/much of the information to foreign nations that are not particularly friendly to the US. 

People have asked why would Saudi Arabia 'invest" $2 billion in Jared Kushner's investment company.  The documents give us a plausible explanation.  And now there's a timeline that shows Trump talked to Putin, then asked for list of top spies, and then US experiences big loss of informants.



We don't know yet whether these killings of US confidential informants happened because Trump provided the documents to some foreign government(s), but even if he didn't, his possession of these documents is more than serious.  And there is no evidence that Trump has any moral principle other than "me, me, me."

This is not another scandal that should get a -gate tagged onto the end.  This is SO MUCH BIGGER than Watergate.  This will require a whole new vocabulary to do it justice.  Benedict Arnold and Judas will be replaced by Trump when people want to accuse someone of treason.

But don't hold your breath for Trump to be indicted, let alone tried, or even put into prison.  It will still take a while, if it happens at all.

Nixon saved the country a lot of time and grief by resigning.  As vain as Nixon was, he was a great president in comparison to Trump.  Under his watch we got things like The Freedom Of Information Act, The Privacy Act, and a slew of environmental laws like the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Act.  And Nixon unlocked the door between China and the United States.  Mind you, I thought then and do now, that he was a vile man and did great harm to the US (think prolonging the Vietnam War among other things).  But he understood history and had enough sense of honor to not wish to be an impeached president.  So he resigned.

Trump, as he has done with every disagreement he's been involved in over his adult lifetime, is going to stall, threaten, counter attack, drag out, and everything else he can think of to tire out his opponents.  But it appears that he's now having trouble hiring a decent attorney.

The tides do seem to be turning.  Trump is scrambling but there isn't much firm footing under him.  And while the people who continue to answer his text exhortations to send him money will probably put up Trump figurines and candles in their homes, his less cultish supporters are going to have to figure out how to shift alliances.

But I expect there won't be any indictments until after the November midterm elections.  Then there will be fights over how to try an ex-president, how to get a fair jury, whether trying him will enrage his base (as if they could get more self-righteously enraged) and whether NOT trying him would enrage the rest of the country.  

We've got at least a year or more of this drama.  How will all this affect Trump's health?  His dad lived to 93, but was a much thinner man with a lot less stress.  And the Trump cultists will continue to work out their own personal social and mental problems by worshipping their fallen hero.  

So, while we're at a big turning point in the Trump saga, it's going to take a while yet.  And if Republicans win the House and/or Senate, it's going to take even longer.  If the Kansas abortion vote wasn't a fluke, and the same forces vote for Democrats in November, then it will move along faster.  


1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the ghastly memories, Steve. I watched some of the hearings and my extreme dislike for Nixon and rethuglicans has been a constant since then.

    Nixon henchman, George Gordon Battle Liddy must have heen a role model for so many drumpf magats toiday.

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