A cold shower

This year, tens of millions of politically aware Americans watched tens of millions of other Americans get a political cold shower. The latter were vulnerable to the icy downpour because of their indifference to government and their school-board-approved knowledge of American history. Only those who were congenitally apathetic or locked in a medieval bubble were oblivious to the countrywide shock treatment.

The therapeutic effects will probably wear off in less than a decade, but for the present, more Americans are aware of their political condition than at any time in my life. Here are some of the thoughts that populate their new wakefulness:

• Gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and the variable ratio of senators to constituents have given us something quite different from the America of fable. Put another way, omissions and flaws in the Constitution have put the majority at the mercy of a minority. Americans do not live, nor have they ever lived, in a representative democracy.

• The minority ruling us has made vivid the harm a minority government can do. There may be such a thing as a beneficent minority, but that seems a desperate speculation considering the moral bankruptcy of this one. Constitutional-size remedies are needed.

• The legal definition of treason, as given in the Constitution, is so constrained that almost no traitors are guilty of it: Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. So you have to be at war with the United States, which presupposes a Congressional Declaration of War. Or you have to be giving assistance to an enemy. But who might that be? Do we have a way of identifying an enemy other than by declaring war? It’s as if a murderer could only commit homicide if the victim were on an Approved Kill List.

• The number of things that don’t qualify as treasonous is astonishing. For example, removing or undercutting affordable health care while asserting that everyone is better off. Or pursuing tax policies that widen the gap between rich and poor while proclaiming the economy to be a powerhouse. Or degrading water and air purity and while judging the environment to be cleaner than ever. Or pulling out of an international treaty on managing climate change. Or understaffing government institutions to the point of making them unworkable, or putting ignorant plunderers in charge of them. Or making secret lucrative deals with foreign governments in exchange for their help in influencing elections. Or denigrating a free press to make government propaganda more palatable.

• Party and presidential loyalty have become so consuming to Congressional Republicans that they routinely break their oath to “protect and defend the Constitution.” They have ignored and abused their powers, implied in the Constitution, to oversee the Executive Branch and its agencies, and investigate where necessary.

• In their allegiance to the gun lobby, Congressional Republicans failed to protect and defend the people who gave them employment. For this alone they should forfeit their seats.

• In a number of states, Republican office holders maneuvered shamelessly to suppress the Democratic vote.  In Wisconsin, lame-duck legislators voted to curtail the powers of the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general. Nary a thought to the voters whose wishes were curtailed at the same time.

• The core of Trump’s supporters — 30% of all voters? —  cannot be led to the light with careful listening and friendly, patient conversation. Their reality is aggravated by facts and reason, not penetrated by them. It’s a waste of time to speculate about the thunderclap that might penetrate their reality. Only time and the passing of generations will dent their number; that is, if the rest of us persist in valuing a free press and evidence-based decision making.

The momentum of the new wakefulness will continue to grow in 2019. Trump will be impeached; only his conviction is in question. Whatever the outcome, the Republican Party is doomed in 2020. Their eradication would be no surprise.