The Sudden Storm

The storm that swept across the political landscape this week had all the elements of the dramatic tornadoes that sweep across the midwest, or the hurricanes that sweep across the East Coast, or even the firestorms that sweep across California.

Nice images. I like them. But, take a minute to think about it, and you will realize there is a lot more going on here than some dramatic words and images.

The political storm roiling our nation and the real storms that turn the world upside down for the people they hit have lots of things in common.

They are predictable. They are incredibly powerful and disruptive. And, they change things, sometimes permanently.

Powerful, no doubt. Something has shaken our political establishment to the bone. Look at the angry crowds at Trump rallies, just looking for other people to blame for their problems. They are organized, and they are wrong.

Then look at the Bernie Bros, the people who were right in saying that the last time the Democrat picked a president the field was tilted against Bernie Sanders, and they were right. Now, they want revenge. And, they are wrong.

Storms are like that. Lightning flashes down, and illuminates the landscape. The strikes show us things that were there all the time, but that we tend not to see until they are brilliantly brought to life by a flash of light.

The Democrats in Congress who pushed for impeachment - who threatened to shred the fabric of the party unless they got their impeachment - haven’t said a word publicly about their bad timing.

Not even one “I’m sorry Nancy. You were right, and I was wrong.” That might have cleared the air a bit.

The Republicans who are now being exposed for moral cowardice for not voting for impeachment for reasons as obvious as the nose on their faces didn’t have a sudden lapse of character.

When they all stood in line and did nothing while the President’s men stole hundreds - maybe thousands - of children from their families, put the kids in cages, and then said they couldn’t find the records to reunite those families, it was a marker.

They all stand tall for family values, providing the family looks like them. Nothing else. Moral cowards all, and we ignored it in the whirling landscape of Washington until this storm pointed out their flaw, right there for all to see.

Can you imagine the Republican Party shifting its own formidable weight against Mitt Romney because he really believes that an oath to God carries moral weight? Boom. Crash. Flash.

Well, that’s the obvious. Now, let’s look a little closer at some of the other things illuminated by this impeachment.

First, like any storm, it will eventually blow away. Here on the East Coast, storms usually blow out to sea, or to others states. We look at paths on the weather map and know their course.

Now we have a map of the primary season, where it will be going next. New Hampshire, Super Tuesday when a third of the Nation will hold primaries, then New York and New Jersey and everywhere else.

By then, of course it may all be over. If California and Texas come up with the same candidate on Super Tuesday,  it well may be. Or not.

I look at the future and see chaos.

Boom. Crash, Flash again. That might not happen. One candidate might just pick up the 1,990 pledged delegates needed to be nominated on the first ballot.

But I don’t think that will happen. Instead, California and New York and Alabama and Hawaii and all the other states my not pick a single winner, which means someone will have to get 2,376 votes in later ballots after those delegates are released.

That means we are heading toward that most unthinkable of things in modern politics, a political convention where no candidate is inevitable. 

There will be floor fights and backroom deals, made by people who offer to swap their delegates if you agree to make Vice President, or Secretary of State or put them in your cabinet.

You know, those terrible appointments made to insiders. Just the way Donald Trump put people in those posts. And Barack Obama, and Lindon Johnson. And Abraham Lincoln. Well, not quite Lincoln. The system was different then. Team of Rivals explains it well, if you care to read it.

The question is, would it really be so bad if all those squabbling Democrats had to get together and figure out just who they really represent, just what they hope to do if they get elected and what their priorities for the nation are?

What if they agree some kind of universal health care for all should be available in the United States, just as it is in every other industrial nation, democratic or socialist or even communist?

What if they all agree the environment should be protected, and that food and shelter should be available to anyone who works at a low paying job, or who can’t work at all?

Hey, these things cost money. I know where we could get a quick trillion dollars. It involves reversing the Trump tax cut, that added that much debt to our economy every year.

What if a Democratic majority, along with a Republican minority, actually got together in Washington to hash those things out, talked about it, reached some conclusions?

You might call that a golden age of politics. I would call it a caucus.

Flash. Crash. Boom.