This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

It’s one of those enlightening moments, like stumbling through a dark room and finding the light switch. Only to discover the room is not as you remember it was. Former Trump advisor Peter Navarro had a part of his defense stripped away by the court. It should sound some familiar by now. “I was just following orders, mine commandant.”

Navarro thought he shouldn’t have to testify before the January 6^th committee because he was just doing his job. “So, executive privilege and I ain’t got nothing to say to you Coppers.” But here is where you’ve heard this before as Mark Meadows also pleads, “I was only following orders.” So, it comes down to when is breaking the law a part of your job description? For Navarro, it means the legal strategy didn’t work and that could also be an indicator for Mark Meadows.

The lights are on boys! You’ve been caught red handed. This is the largest political scandal in American history, and you can’t honestly believe they’ll just let you go on a technicality of law. Some are still living in the dark, while the rest are coming into the light.

Republicans in Georgia came up with a clever plan (Snicker, snicker guffaw) “We’ll just defund Fani Willis, and no one will be any the wiser!” Why sure, that would look great! A good old fashioned good old boy southern political thumb on the scales of justice. “Yuk, yuck, yuck.”  

Jon Burns the Georgia Speaker of the house said the defunding of ongoing criminal investigation “flaunts the idea of separation of power, if not outright violates it.” Translate: “not on my watch.”

 “Unfortunately, we continue to have a few members of the General Assembly making misleading or false claims about the General Assembly’s lawful powers regarding an ongoing criminal case before our Judiciary.” – Jon Burns

Forget about it! It ain’t gonna happen. Mr. Burns is in column B. He sees the lights are on and can read the tea leaves of history. He’s not going to step in front of a moving freight train trying to stop it barehanded. Why should he risk his career trying to save a dead emperor? Dragging the corpse of his dead movement around with him.

Trump is politically dead; he is still a force to be reckoned with and still has influence. But as a candidate for President is no longer viable. Every day more and more Republican politicians wake to discover the lights are on. Why should I stick my neck out for a dead idea? Trump as the Republican nominee is a hideous thing that would go down in history as an Edsel size failure. An Edsel hitting an iceberg while approaching the mooring mast at Lakehurst sized disaster.

How would it look for a major American political Party to put forward a candidate facing numerous felony charges marked like chicken pox? Looking more everyday like a conviction is likely. Pretty hard to motivate a crowd under those circumstances. And Republicans are finding fund raising a little harder every day. No one wants to fly this turkey into the ground. Money troubles equal enthusiasm troubles.

“Look America! This is our best man! Remember him? Wouldn’t you really rather drive an Edsel?”

The lights are on, and the new reality is setting in. Affiliating or ingratiating yourself with Donald Trump and company is a BAD idea. Somes are going to jail, and others face ruin. The good times are over, and a dark future is coming. And it is a future that can’t be stopped for the Republican Party or whatever be left of it and a future Donald Trump will not be in.

Trump’s approval numbers went down by 6% in a week. The rank and defiled will still swear allegiance, just not as enthusiastically as before. But the money boys and the Party ideologs can see that the lights are now on. Trump is about to be devoured and dismembered by the court system and rightfully so. But potentially for Republicans, a dumpster fire of a political campaign if they decide to nominate Trump.

The only issue for Republicans is Trump. Only 50% of Republicans approve of Trump and the sides are firmly polarized and unlikely to move. More than 50% of Republicans say they won’t vote for Trump. That spells certain defeat. Right out of the box it becomes obvious that Trump mathematically cannot win the election.

The Republicans will stay home in great numbers either because their Messiah has been crucified or because of Trump fatigue. The dawn of the realization that this affair is dragging around the corpse of a dead emperor.

An idea whose time has come and gone like disco music, McCarthyism or riding mechanical bulls. Like Nixon or Reagan, just a memory now. It’s all over but for the crying. Donald Trump faces a dark storm of political bad news.

Georgia’s case looks bad for Don, what with the tape-recorded phone conversations and the governor’s testimony about dodging the President’s phone calls. Who has ever heard of dodging the President’s phone calls before? “Tell him, I’m not in. Tell him, I’m in the can and I’ll call him back.” The question of was Trump trying to unduly influence the Georgia Governor is answered succinctly by the dodging of the Presidential phone calls.

These are the days of futures past and the recollection and retelling of the sting of the tail (tale). The realization that the days of Trump and Trumpism are numbered and in decline. As one by one the lieutenants are taken down. One by one the ploys and legal machinations fail. Prosecution is coming and there is no way around it and the evidence looks severe.

How long will they carry the effigy of Donald Trump? An idea which cannot win and no longer really exists as Trump is clearly using the Party for his own purposes. This is a tired old man playing a null hand against the house. Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 and again in 2020. What do the tea leaves tell us about 2024? A political hijacking and threatening to crash the Party into the ground if Trump doesn’t get his way.

The scales are shifting for Republicans and not in favor of Trump’s scorched earth policy. They will all be forced to choose eventually. Waking from their Stockholm syndrome sleep they must either abandon ship or play in the orchestra as the ship takes on water. The nascent beginnings and green shoots of a post Trump Republican Party born out of necessity and self-survival. The emperor is dead!  

“To defend the oppressed against their oppressors, to plead the cause of the weak against the strong who exploit and crush them, this is the duty of all hearts that have not been spoiled by egoism and corruption.” ― Maximilien Robespierre