Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

A Nation at War With Itself
Townhall.com ^ | April 26, 2019 | Pat Buchanan

Posted on 04/26/2019 4:11:13 AM PDT by Kaslin

President Donald Trump has decided to cease cooperating with what he sees, not incorrectly, as a Beltway conspiracy that is out to destroy him.

"We're fighting all the subpoenas," Trump said Wednesday. "These aren't, like, impartial people. The Democrats are out to win in 2020."

Thus the Treasury Department just breezed by a deadline from the House Ways and Means Committee to deliver Trump's tax returns.

Thus the White House will invoke executive privilege to deny the House Judiciary Committee access to ex-White House counsel Don McGahn, who spent 30 hours being interrogated by Robert Mueller's team.

Thus the Justice Department is withholding from the Oversight Committee subpoenaed documents dealing with the decision to include a question on the 2020 Census about citizenship status.

Across the capital, the barricades are going up figuratively as they did physically in the 1960s and '70s. Once more, it's us against them.

Cognizant of the new reality, Trump seems to be saying:

These House investigations constitute a massive political assault, in collusion with a hostile media, to destroy my presidency.

We do not intend to cooperate in our own destruction. We are not going to play our assigned role in this scripted farce. We will resist their subpoenas all the way to November 2020. Let the people then decide the fate and future of the Trump presidency -- and that of Nancy Pelosi's House. 

In response to Trump's resort to massive resistance, Rep. Gerald Connolly said: "A respect for the limits of your branch of government, a respect for the role of other branches of government, is sort of the oil that makes the machinery work. ... Absent that this breaks down. And I think we're definitely seeing that."

Connolly is not wrong. But the requisite mutual respect between the Democratic House and the Republican White House simply does not exist. It broke down a long time ago.

The campaign of 2020 is on. And the stakes are huge. Not only are the first and second branches of government in play, so, too, is the third, the Supreme Court. Many Democrats, refusing to accept the success of the 50-year conservative long march to capture the court, are determined to pack an expanded court with liberal justices to overturn the conservatives' victory.

With Republicans having won two presidential elections in 20 years, with fewer popular votes, Democrats are also resolved to rewrite the Constitution and abolish the Electoral College.

Not only ex-convicts but felons in prison must now be allowed to vote, says Bernie Sanders, even if that means the Boston Marathon bomber.

Under the Sanders reform, if someone murders you, he is still entitled to an absentee ballot. The right to vote is apparently more sacred than the right to life. Truly, this is the divination of democracy.

Trump's defiance of House subpoenas will fire up his base, which sees the world as he does and has never cottoned to what President Gerald Ford cherished as "the politics of compromise and consensus."

Whatever may be said about the "deplorables," they are not obtuse. They do not believe that people who call them racists, sexists, nativists and bigots are friends and merely colleagues of another party or persuasion.

Trump's defiance of subpoenas, however, will force the more moderate Democrats to join the militants in calling for hearings on impeachment in the House Judiciary Committee, which is where we are headed.

The media are already salivating over the possible removal of a president they have come to loathe more than their great nemeses of the 20th century -- Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon.

And the media will reward those who echo the call for impeachment.

This week, two more Democrats running for president, including Sen. Kamala Harris, came aboard. Soon, the House will capitulate to the clamor and the stampede will be on.

The problem for Democrats?

Attempting to overturn the election of 2016 and remove a president who has the passionate support of a third of the nation will sunder the Democratic Party base as surely as it will unite the Republicans.

Should impeachment succeed, a wound would be inflicted on the American body politic that would take years to heal.

In the longer run, however, the question being raised today goes to the long-term health of the republic itself.

America surely does not lack for diversity. Its diversity -- racial, religious, cultural, ethnic, ideological, political -- is visible and ever-growing. What is missing is the concomitant of unity.

Moreover, it is the more racially, culturally, religiously, ethnically, and ideologically diverse of the parties, the Democrats, that seems the more splintered than a Republican Party that is supposed to be afflicted with the incurable and fatal disease of Trumpism.

The questions raised by the present state of our politics, which might fairly be described as an American civil war without arms, are these: How does a nation so divided stand united in the world?

And if it cannot stand united in the world, how long does it remain a great nation?


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: 2020election; civilwarii; patbuchanan; presidenttrump
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

1 posted on 04/26/2019 4:11:13 AM PDT by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Taxpayer funded opposition research. The LEFT can’t get enough of it.


2 posted on 04/26/2019 4:18:14 AM PDT by joshua c
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

We aren’t a great nation anymore; we are a really big outlet mall.


3 posted on 04/26/2019 4:28:47 AM PDT by cdcdawg (If white, western culture makes you feel out of place, THAT IS BECAUSE IT IS NOT YOUR PLACE!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
How does a nation so divided stand united in the world?

It doesn't. Say what you will about Pat Buchanan, but he called this, correctly, 20 years ago.

4 posted on 04/26/2019 4:40:49 AM PDT by workerbee (America finally has an American president again.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cdcdawg
Yes we are, but the left want's to destroy it and we must not allow it.
5 posted on 04/26/2019 4:42:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

THIS COUNTRY IS ONLY UNFAIR TO THOSE WHO DO NOT WANT TO WORK FOR IT AND WANT EVERYTHING GIVEN TO THEM FOR FREE


6 posted on 04/26/2019 4:51:09 AM PDT by ronnie raygun
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: joshua c
Does not the United States Senate still have the power of subpoena?


7 posted on 04/26/2019 5:16:39 AM PDT by nathanbedford (attack, repeat, attack! Bull Halsey)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Can’t tell what Buchanan’s point is, I do think he is part of the GOP. I think he misstates that Trump only has a third of the country supporting him. I gauge Trump’s support at about 60 percent based on a hunch. I think Pat is part of the swamp and don’t trust his comments as being anything but manipulative.


8 posted on 04/26/2019 5:30:31 AM PDT by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

The HOR Dems are trying to drain Trump’s staff financially. This is their tactic of choice. The DOJ/FBI weasel dicks told us that.


9 posted on 04/26/2019 5:34:07 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cdcdawg
we are a really big Chinese surplus outlet mall.

Fixed it.

10 posted on 04/26/2019 5:34:39 AM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin
I say good for Trump. Standing up to the RATS out to eat him alive.

Finally, a Republican who fights back at the relentless attacks by the democRATS and their media partners.

I disliked GW Bush remaining silent while the opposition pummeled him. He claimed it was beneath the presidency to fight back. So he remained silent and continued taking the RATS blows. To me, it made him look soft and weak.

But Trump's a fighter and I love that.

He's making it clear to the democRATS that they have had their turn trying to unseat him and it failed.

Now it's his turn to go after the ones that tried to get rid of him.

11 posted on 04/26/2019 5:45:26 AM PDT by HotHunt (Been there. Done that.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

I am perfectly willing to have some states secede. Everybody will be happier if we separate.


12 posted on 04/26/2019 5:57:20 AM PDT by FLT-bird
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: nathanbedford
The Dems don't like current American voters, so they importing another electorate.

This cannot continue or there will be civil war.


13 posted on 04/26/2019 6:14:43 AM PDT by Travis McGee (EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: joshua c
Taxpayer funded opposition research. The LEFT can’t get enough of it.

Like PBS and NPR.
14 posted on 04/26/2019 10:12:46 AM PDT by Old Yeller (Auto-correct has become my worst enema.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: HotHunt; Kaslin
"Trump's a fighter and I love that.

He's making it clear to the democRATS that they have had their turn trying to unseat him and it failed.

Now it's his turn to go after the ones that tried to get rid of him.

________________

Yep

"Now it's his turn to go after the ones that tried to get rid of him."

15 posted on 04/26/2019 11:09:26 AM PDT by a little elbow grease (... to err is human, to admit it divine ...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

Now the liberals can maybe understand why the rest of us were against Obama. The difference between then & now is that Pres. Trump is trying to build up our country; not tear it down.


16 posted on 04/26/2019 8:12:23 PM PDT by oldtech
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kaslin

“Under the Sanders reform, if someone murders you, he is still entitled to an absentee ballot. The right to vote is apparently more sacred than the right to life. Truly, this is the divination of democracy.”

That is why this nation was founded as a constitutional REPUBLIC, NOT a “democracy”. The founders warned against the evils of democracy but we, as a nation, do not understand the wisdom of the founders. Millions upon millions of Americans imagine that they are superior in intellect to Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and their like. They could not be more wrong.


17 posted on 04/27/2019 7:25:16 AM PDT by RipSawyer (I need some green first and then we'll talk a new deal!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: FLT-bird
I am perfectly willing to have some states secede. Everybody will be happier if we separate.

IMO, you really don't understand lefties.

18 posted on 04/27/2019 8:57:38 AM PDT by gogeo (Liberal politics and mental instability; coincidence, correlation, or causation?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: gogeo

Oh I understand Lefties. They want to impose their will on everybody. That said, most of them - at least the ones here wouldn’t be willing to go to war with a foreign country to do it. They’d just sneer and act snotty.

If they and we separate so they can go off and engage in all their insanity to their little hearts’ content, they’d surely be nasty toward “redneck America” as they would call it but that would be it. For our part, we’d expel a cancer from the body politic.


19 posted on 04/27/2019 9:15:41 AM PDT by FLT-bird
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: FLT-bird
If they and we separate so they can go off and engage in all their insanity to their little hearts’ content, they’d surely be nasty toward “redneck America” as they would call it but that would be it. For our part, we’d expel a cancer from the body politic.

They aren't interested in going off on their own, or they would be there already. They can't survive on their own. They need a host.

You would see the migration we talk about now. You would have a steady flow of refugees from their area. Those obtuse new arrivals would then proceed to outvote the rest of us. They have no interest on being on their own.

20 posted on 04/27/2019 10:36:22 AM PDT by gogeo (Liberal politics and mental instability; coincidence, correlation, or causation?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson