Of Hypocrisy, Demagogues and the Goofball

by Joseph DeMaio, ©2022

(Jan. 13, 2022) — The distilled hypocrisy and intellectual vacuity of the Goofball at 1600 was in full, flowery display on Jan. 6, 2022.  The numbing vacuum of the marionette’s Statuary Hall speech was surpassed only by his anti-filibuster rant five days later in Atlanta. 

There, he delivered remarks – not infrequently edited and corrected by English-speaking grammarians in the official White House transcript – on the importance of the right to vote and why, purportedly, the Senate filibuster must be destroyed in order to pass S.2747 – the “Freedom to Vote Act” – and H.R. 4  –  the “John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.”

These two proposals arguably present the most dangerous and sinister threats since the founding of the Republic to the rights of the States to establish their own rules regarding elections conducted within their borders and as guaranteed by the Constitution as well as by the 9^th, 10^th and 12^th Amendments thereto.  And the fact that the septuagenarian is prepared to incinerate his prior staunch defense of the filibuster when a Republican was in the White House simply confirms the fact that the only principle to which he adheres – besides personal greed – is Machiavellian expediency. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said it best: the Goof’s Atlanta screed was “profoundly unpresidential” and served only to “pull an already divided country farther apart.”  He also correctly observed that the Goof’s mindless – forgive the redundancy – pogrom to destroy the filibuster in an attempt to cram the two bills through the Senate and onto his desk was the best advertisement for preserving the filibuster he had recently seen.  Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley echoed those observations.

That reality aside, the actual contents of the two bills should give every freedom and liberty-loving citizen nightmares.  Both bills completely and totally disregard the recommendations of the 2005 report of the bipartisan Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform – co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter (D) and former Secretary of State James Baker III (R) – proposing, among other things, a uniform system of requiring a government-issued photo ID in order to vote in U.S. elections. 

The report also asserted that the widespread use of voting by mail and absentee ballots made voting fraud more – not less – likely.  Both bills skulking in the Congress essentially forbid States from enforcing their own voter identification and mail-in ballot laws, substituting federally-mandated rules which will only further incentivize voter fraud potentials…., right up the Democrats’  historical alley. 

Lamentably, but right on cue, the Goof has the audacity to label those who would resist and oppose such methods and policies as being “domestic enemies” akin to George Wallace and Bull Connor.  The Goof neglects to mention, of course, that both of those “white supremacists” were Democrats staunchly opposed to civil rights laws.  Go figure. 

Then again, since the Goof considered once-Ku Klux Klan Exalted Cyclops Robert Byrd (D. W. VA) to be his “friend, mentor and guide,” his comparisons of normal Americans to the likes of Wallace and Connor is not surprising.  

And his references in Atlanta to persuading former Senator Strom Thurmond to vote for the 1964 Civil Rights Act were priceless.  The Goof stated: “The last year I was chairman [of the Senate Judiciary Committee], as some of my friends sitting down here will tell you, Strom Thurmond voted to extend the Voting Rights Act.  Strom Thurmond.”  Someone in the audience exclaimed “Wow.”  The Goof responded: “You can say that again: ‘Wow.’  You have no idea how damn ha- — how darn hard I worked on that one.” 

Seriously?  Give me a large break.  Who, exactly, is researching what the Goof offers up as reasons for killing the filibuster?  Or, more likely, is he just “winging it” à la his “Corn Pop” anecdotes.  Yikes.

The truth, as discussed here, is that following invocation of cloture after a 54-day Democrat-led filibuster of the 1964 Civil Right Act – that’s correct, Virginia, Senate Democrats used the filibuster to try and kill the Republican-sponsored 1964 Civil Rights Act – then-Democrat Senator Strom Thurmond (D. S.C.) changed his party affiliation and became a Republican.  Thurmond stated that “[t]he Democratic Party has abandoned the people,” adding that “[i]t has repudiated the Constitution of the United States. It is leading the evolution of our nation to a socialistic dictatorship.” (Emphasis added).

Loathe as your humble servant is to link to “open source” sites like Wikipedia, the section captioned “Passage in the Senate” contains some interesting insight into how Democrat senators felt about guaranteeing civil rights, including the right to vote, to black Americans in the past. 

In addition, it is noteworthy that one of the most ardent supporters of the filibuster against the bill was Senator Richard Russell (D. GA).  Senator Russell commented on the bill: “We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our [Southern] states.” 

Ummm…., so where are the cancel culture troglodytes demanding that the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. – where scores of Democrat politicians now squat in opposition to the filibuster – be either renamed or burned to the ground?  Huh?

Is it just me, or does anyone else see a pattern of hypocrisy here?  Democrats George Wallace, Bull Connor, Strom Thurmond (pre-epiphany), Robert Byrd and Richard Russell favored the use of the filibuster to frustrate and oppose securing voting rights to black Americans in 1964, and now the Goof screams that the filibuster must be eliminated to ram through S.2747 and H.R. 4?  And labeling those who oppose his lunatic elections power grab as “domestic enemies” does not help.  One is tempted to invoke the rallying cry sweeping the nation focusing on NASCAR race driver Brandon Brown. 

But the really, really sad fact is that even with his overall job approval ratings plunging to the low 30’s, it means that there remain tens of millions of people who think the Goof is doing a good job.  Double-yikes.  Stated otherwise, if one calculates one-third of the some 180 million who voted in 2020, it means that at least 60 million people think he is doing OK.  Really?

The bottom line here is that the Goof, burdened with the title of being the worst – by far – marionette president in the history of the Republic, has no option left but to try to ensure that Republicans and rational Independents will never again be able to be elected to office.  The only way to achieve that objective is to federalize elections as contemplated under S.2747 and H.R. 4 so that only Beltway denizens and their kin in blue jurisdictions will hold office – and thus, iron-fisted control over the populace – in perpetuity…, or until the Republic collapses.  That would be an outcome not to be welcomed. 

Ergo, the filibuster must be preserved.

And, by the way, the Goofball’s recent Supreme Court defeat should serve as a message to him that he needs to abandon his efforts to “work around” the Constitution. 

The smart money says that the Goof and his marionette-masters will learn nothing from this development.  Clowns can be really slow on the uptake.