In Part I, I introduced the basic problem for this series. In any institutional power structure, like, say, the US government, a reprehensible person might attain a position of power. However, the most reprehensible people are the least interesting people to study. The important ones to study are their enablers. The ones who put those reprehensible people in power, and keep them there.
So, consider the GOP congressional delegation. As I have been writing, over, and over, and over again, Trump will get away with it. Everything. Why? 2/3. That pesky constitutional requirement. The Democrats may have a slight edge for control of the House after the 2018 midterm elections, but I doubt they'd pass articles of impeachment, and even if they did, there is zero chance of reaching the 2/3 requirement for conviction in the Senate, because that would require Senate Republicans to go along with it. That won't happen. No matter what.
Those congressional Republicans are the enablers. The people who have decided that Trump gets away with everything, for a variety of reasons, and that's the point. If you aren't just a stone-cold sociopath (such people are uninteresting), how do you decide that a clearly corrupt person must be protected from any investigation or potential consequences of their actions?
The most expedient way is to convince yourself that there are no necessary consequences to impose. You are doing right by protecting the corrupt person because, whatever else that person is, that person didn't commit crimes. How do you do that, again, if you aren't a stone-cold sociopath?
There's a famous line from Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man [again with this...] to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
People are remarkably bad at processing information, particularly when they have incentives to not process it. If you know you have to acquit Trump, for example, you must convince yourself that blah, blah, blah, "fake news, HILLARY'S EMAILS," or something. NO COLLUSION!!! WITCH HUNT!!! Bigly hands! Don Jr.'s meeting with the Russians? Flynn, Manafort, Roger Stone, all of that? If you have to come to the conclusion that Trump and his people are all innocent and it's all "fake news," then you simply cannot process any such information. You have to refuse to listen or understand. Block out any discussion, shut down the Mueller investigation, or at least put a cloud around it with bullshit accusations about the FBI, and so forth. Then, only watch Fox, where they will never talk about the tangled web of connections between Trump and Russia, the disconnect between the Rosenstein letter and what Trump said about Comey to Lester Holt, etc.
I had some... fun at Devin Nunes's expense, but from the Upton Sinclair point of view, if your goal is to avoid understanding, the whole point of that kind of thing is the lack of factual basis.
If you begin with the premise that a corrupt person must be found innocent because you cannot bear the political consequences of removing that person from office, that's a helluva lot easier if you convince yourself that there is no crime by participating in a grand obfuscation to make it easier to avoid having to process any facts.
So is it any wonder the congressional GOP is letting Trump pressure Rosenstein into a bullshit investigation into the FBI? One of the most historically Republican federal agencies in existence?
The worst thing for any congressional Republican with any self-respect, from a psychological point of view, would be if Mueller, say, found the golden shower tape along with a tape of Trump promising Putin favors to avoid its release. Congressional Republicans would still defend Trump. They'd just really hate themselves for doing it.
That's why they have such strong cognitive incentives to avoid ever encountering any facts themselves.
It's easy for us to look at the clutter of bullshit and think that it's all about confusing the people Trump has duped among the populace, and that's a big part. The bigger part, to be sure.
Think about people like John McCain and Bob Corker and Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham, though. They'll all cave, no matter what. They're not sociopaths, though. They hate Trump. Voting to acquit when you have been presented evidence of guilt gets psychologically harder, though, the stronger the evidence gets.
That's why none of them want to see any evidence. Yes, the Senate panel at least admitted the Russians were trying to elect Trump with their meddling, making them somewhat less of a joke than the House panel, but there's still no willingness by Senate Republicans to look into Trump or his inner circle. And there never will be.
Where's this series going? Stay tuned. I've got some ideas! And coffee! Lots, and lots of coffee!
Mmmmmm.... cauuuffee...*
*Yeah, I had to spell it that way or your mental pronunciation would have been off. Funny how English works, right?
