The Gift

So, all across our great nation, the headlines blared and the announcers announced and the pontificators pontificated - No Collusion.

A long investigation by Robert Mueller had finally come to an end, and - the new attorney general said - it proved President Trump did not collude with the Russians to win his election.

That’s a bit of an oversimplification. But there is truth to it, and I will get back to that later. First, let’s put this all in perspective.

The Republicans got a gift, but not exactly the one they expected. The Democrats, too, got a gift, but not exactly the one they wanted. And both of them might just hear the words a lot of little children heard from their parents as they were given some foul-tasting medicine - this will be good for you.

First, let’s look at the sweet gift - a sugar-coated report that new Attorney General William Barr said showed that no charge of collusion could be brought against Donald Trump.

His four-page letter is a little technical (remember that the Devil is in the details) but says, essentially, that there was no way to legally prove that the President’s actions were linked to a specific action by the Russians to obstruct a specific investigation by the justice department or (and this is implied, which is subjective) to rig the election for Donald Trump with his knowledge and approval of any specific act.

You see how sweet that is when you start to unwrap it. No Collusion. But that gift comes with an assumption that this will all go away now and we can get back to normal, with normal meaning rile up the base and win some elections.

After all, Republicans know that once an investigation is over, you move on to something less unpleasant. But, wait, you don’t. Remember Hillary’s e-mail investigation. Remember Benghazi. Remember…well, there have been too many endless Republican investigations of Democrats to remember. That part won’t be fun.

But there is the Mueller Report to fall back on, the one that Barr said showed “no Collusion,” which they can wave around to show the Democrats are blowing smoke. Of course, they can’t show the full report, because parts of it will be redacted. You can’t bring up things that are still under investigation, or that violate grand jury secrecy.

So, they will ask that we take the report on faith. Just like that report by a former British spy that has been under attack by Republicans since it drifted into our consciousness was supposed to be taken on faith when the Democrats wanted to believe it. The Steele dossier on Trump and Russia (yes, the one alleging the “pee tapes”).

That won’t be much fun either. Maybe we could lock Hillary and Trump up at the same time and make everybody happy.

Now for the gift part that the Democrats won’t like, at least at first. The issue of impeachment is just about gone. I can’t see the Republican-led senate doing anything about that.

It will sure take the angry energy away from Democrats for the next two years or so, but when that dark cloud finally blows away, they might just look at their gift and see what’s still in the box.

And, that’s just about everything. For every farmer who can’t plant their crops because of really unusual weather, there’s a political debate about climate change to be held. For every store or factory manager who can’t find workers, there’s a debate on immigration to be held. For every family who can’t afford to go to the hospital or even to buy their drugs, there’s a debate on health care to be held.

In short, the rising taxes on the middle class, the crumbling infrastructure across our country, our overstrained military, and the cost of college education and the failure to fill vital jobs in our government are all topics for a real political debate.

All the Republicans will have is a leader who insists that everything is great, has never been better and that he is the smartest man in the room,  smarter than the scientists, smarter than the generals, smarter than the economists and all those people running the courts and the colleges.

I’m sure those new reactions to our nation’s growing problems will play out well for his base. Just as I’m sure the base is getting smaller, and the swing voters who wanted to try his brand of government are losing patience.

Like I said, the Mueller investigation isn’t over, it’s a gift that will just keep on giving and giving. For a long, long time,