The Brilliance of Mitch McConnell and other Reflections on Trump’s Impeachment
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The drama of Donald Trump’s second impeachment is over and it’s interesting how the criminal courts are going to deal with the people who were responsible for the insurrection. For what it’s worth, the trial has laid bare two very different kinds of communication and leadership. On the one hand, we have the Democrats under Nancy Pelosi, who are consistently missing on every opportunity to get a home run in their messaging. On the other hand, we have the uncannily brilliant performance of Mitch McConnell, who somehow made it appear to the world that he is taking the right stand, when he clearly isn’t taking any. Bill Stierle and Tom discuss these events that reflect the larger trends of division within the Republican Party and ineffective messaging on the part of the Democrats. So, what happens now? The weeks and months that will follow will surely be interesting.
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Bill, the impeachment saga is over.
We are done with the impeachment. It’s going to be interesting to see how the criminal courts are going to take up the actions, and what’s going to happen to the different followers. The people that follow the leadership, depending on the political persuasion that a person has. Either they’re responsible for not listening to the president or they’re responsible for listening to the president. We’re going to see what the court does with that because that’s one of the things that Mitch McConnell said. These people need to be responsible. He even said that the president needs to be responsible. “The president is not out of the woods,” he says. The question is, “Out of what?” Is he going to be a convicted person? Is that what Mitch McConnell is thinking? That’s up for the criminal courts to decide. They’re going to hold him liable outside the constitution. Mitch McConnell has done a wonderful job of being a brilliant person regarding time and non-action, or not taking a stand. He’s done a wonderful job throughout his career doing that.
That’s what we should shine a light on here. Mitch McConnell was brilliant. How he planned and played this entire process from January 6, 2021 through to now. He managed to play it both ways and escaped being a party to convicting the president. He escaped having to vote to convict the president, and somehow, at the end of this, he has come out looking to the majority of America like he did the right thing, and the truth has come out. He’s been able to avoid making the hard vote.
The status quo is not conservative. That’s where there’s a belief bias that’s in place. The status quo is not necessarily conservative, but it’s played into a conservative narrative. It’s that I want things the way they are. It’s having a belief that sits in a bias and in a place of “non-action is good action” is not always the thing to do. If you’re taking an action, then you’re going to be able to step into accountability for what is in front of you. Harry Truman would never say, “We’re going to wait on World War II. We’re not going to drop the bomb.” The buck stops here is not available for the politicians to execute now because of the way the voting system and the donors and the money is flowing right now. The buck cannot stop anywhere because the money is telling us to keep things the way they are, and they’re paying for that. That’s hard.
You had Mitch McConnell and a lot of Republicans on January 6, 2021, with the vote to certify the Electoral College. There were 99 members of Congress that voted to not certify the Electoral College, and Mitch McConnell, not being one of them. He was one of the first to acknowledge that Joe Biden won the election and he would become the next president. You had corporate donors coming out on January 6, 2021 saying, “All you people that did not vote for the peaceful transition of power by certifying the Electoral College are not going to receive money from us.” Mitch McConnell knew that. He was playing to the money more than to the people he represents.
In a real quick sense, let’s recap what Mitch McConnell did. After January 6, 2021, the House was quick to impeach Donald Trump for a second time. They moved swiftly. Mitch McConnell-controlled senate says a number of different things, “There’s not enough time to get a trial in before the end of Donald Trump’s term. We don’t have time to do it. It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s going to be out of the office in a couple of weeks. It’s not going to have much of a point.”
He does everything to avoid having a second impeachment trial under his watch before the inauguration, and then brilliantly after the inauguration when he’s no longer in control of the agenda, and Chuck Schumer is, he pushes this narrative of, “It’s not constitutional to have an impeachment trial of a president who’s no longer president,” which was his narrative. He gives cover an off-ramp to all these Republican senators to vote to acquit, even though Mitch McConnell on the day they voted to acquit Donald Trump, he acknowledges that Donald Trump is guilty of what he did. There is no question. That isn’t why we voted to acquit. We voted to acquit because the process is unconstitutional and it’s not the way to deal with it.
The truth is like hail. There's a little particle of truth in the middle that the rest of the ice congeals around.
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Donald Trump can still be held accountable in the normal courts of the land as a private citizen. He was masterful in how he was able to have it both ways and somehow appear like, “We haven’t lost the opportunity for Donald Trump to be held accountable, but this wasn’t the way.” To Donald Trump’s face, Mitch McConnell could say, “I and we Republicans who voted to acquit did not vote to acquit Donald Trump,” which is what the extreme Donald Trump base wanted to make sure the Republicans did not vote to convict Donald Trump.
There are many needs that are wrapped up in what the base is voting for. The base is voting for their guy because their guy represents something. Donald Trump represents something to them. He represents, for some people, a strong leader. For another group, he represents a tax cut. From another group of people, he represents getting rid of abortion. For another group of people, he represents somebody that is a successful person. For some people, he is a rich person, and a rich person is clearly smarter than a not rich person. Some people push that bias in his direction. For some people, he is a religious figure. He was sent by God.
All of these different people make up of the voters that then believe what he says next. The truth is much like a hailstorm. It’s like there’s a little particle of truth in the middle, the little particles of sand that the rest of the ice congeals around. All of a sudden, it’s hard and you’re going like, “I’m getting pelted by this, but it’s this little small piece that I’m building my loyalty and my allegiance to.” Meanwhile, when it hits the ground, it melts because there’s not a lot there. That’s the hard part of it. The only winner winners that won were the 1% that got the tax breaks. Those are the ones that were the real winners from the Donald Trump presidency. A lot of the other folks, whatever they said and did, some of those things are being rolled back and being undone and coming back in the other direction. That’s the thing that’s disheartening because there can’t be a safe discussion about how we do a middle ground on some strong black and white issues, which is hard.
While there was a large tax cut which did impact maybe the majority of Americans, and the little guy got a little bit of a tax cut, a little bit of help for a period of time, it was out of proportion compared to what the wealthy people in the big corporations got in the tax cuts. Technically, there was this tax cut for most people, but it did not have a lasting impact on the majority of people. The lasting impact was on the wealthy and corporations.
That’s the thing that’s disheartening because when we do the needs of the few, instead of the needs of the many, there are some real problems there from time to time. The needs of the many are what people in the military service do all the time, “I’m giving up my life or my individuality to be in this military group for the good of the many.” The military has this one right, “The needs of the many. This is what the nation is standing for. This is what we’re protecting.” When it comes to taxes, it’s the other way around. It’s the needs of the few over the needs of the many. That’s the level of discipline that we need to act or move into action. Are there ways to build a tax system that fosters economic growth like the way they sell it, trickle-down and stuff like that? Can a business do something with this revenue in this wealth that they get instead of shifting it to, “How can I protect this? How can I save it? How can it not be taxed?” It’s unsettling because it’s not the needs of the many over the needs of the few. It’s not designed that way.
First, it’s about the needs of the one me. It’s the way most people view taxes. I met somebody who is a real estate investor. This woman is married to now a US citizen but grew up as a French citizen, someone from France. As his wife has started this real estate investing business and fund it, he was evaluating the whole tax liability of the business. He’s working the numbers and she’s saying, “No, we don’t have to pay that. We have this loophole on that loophole. The tax code is made for real estate businesses first. We don’t have to pay all those taxes.”
He had this attitude like, “I don’t understand. Why are you trying to pay less taxes? It’s our duty to pay our taxes to help for the greater good for the government.” The perspective and the mentality he has coming from a different country that has a longer history than the United States, and a different perspective on the needs of the many over the needs of the one. He has gotten a lesson here from his wife and from America. In America, the taxpayer is out for himself or herself, not in general to do the needs of the many. It’s interesting that the conversation I had over dinner with this woman about her husband shined a light on what America does.
The mindset that goes with that and how we’re not positioned to that. The government has taken a beating ever since the Reagan years. The worst sentence ever is, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” It’s like, “You tuck a SWAT at the social fabric. You took a SWAT at the foundation of the collective good.” All of a sudden, that becomes inspirational. That is not the strongest inspirational thing to take place, that message. Like a good actor, he sold it. He lived into it.
That’s not at all unlike what Mitch McConnell has done here. Although he’s not a trained professional actor, he was brilliant and put on somewhat an incredible performance. By contrast, I’m disappointed and disheartened at the job that the Democrats did in combating this. In particular, you have to look at Nancy Pelosi. Did you see her outrage as Mitch McConnell voted to acquit, and then the speech Mitch McConnell gave to acknowledge the president is responsible for what happened on January 6, 2021? He admitted, “I voted to acquit the guy, but he did it.” Nancy Pelosi was angry on the podium. It seems to me, that anger was not effective.
Regrettably, anger is as effective as a short-term scare, but not as a long-term strategy or a long-term message. Anger will burn.
The way I talk about anger is anger is very much like a flame thrower. It comes and throws a bunch of fuel, ignites it and singes people. People get scared and want to run away from it rightfully so because you’re going to get singed by that. The passion is the laser. You could change your language to make it passionate, but also make it truthful. If I was Nancy Pelosi, it might sound like this, “I respect Mitch McConnell.” Can you imagine her starting the sentence there?
There will be a lot of chins dropped in the room.
It’s like, “Where is she going?” Mitch McConnell did have some brilliance to it. It wasn’t fully truthful, but it was brilliant. All of a sudden, she inserted doubt and skepticism where she needed to. In the next sentence, when the house manager showed up on X date to deliver the impeachment to Mitch McConnell back in January 2021. When they delivered it, he did something protective and smart for his party. He started down the process of giving them an off-ramp. They needed a place to go because the president did something that was illegal. It was a part of the insurrection that he caused and the pain that he caused, not just the people that he motivated to do the things, but the rest of the nation and the social fabric. He gave his party and the people that voted for Donald Trump an off-ramp as well as secured for his party the votes from the Donald Trump base. It was the one thing that he could do to protect his party.
Regrettably, it didn’t meet the need for integrity and truth about what the president did. We’re still horrified by the video and a few seconds here, a few seconds there, a wrong turn down the hallway here, a wrong turn down the hallway there, people and elected officials could have died. Police officers did die protecting our elected officials. What’s missing from Mitch McConnell’s message is accountability in the field of time. He chose to pass on accountability. He’s done that for a while over his tenure. He’s good at it. He stalls things, talks things out, pretends to be partisan, bipartisan but not. He’s done a good job of stalling government over his leadership. You could call that conservative, but what I value most because about conservatism is when you create a stable base for the working families of the United States to make a living wage.
I have enough safe spots to do that. That’s the stability that we would like to go for. Conservative is not about saving money for the government so that the common people have to carry the burden. Stability would look like a $1,400 check to keep our capitalist economy afloat. That’s a better idea. It would be nice if the Republicans can come up with ideas instead of stalling or not being willing with or running out the clock. I wish integrity could come back so that we could make the hard choices because isn’t that the key for responsibility? It is when you make a hard choice. Isn’t that what parents do with their kids? Parents make hard choices for their kids and their kids don’t like it. Instead, if you let the kid have their way, they throw a tantrum. Some people might say they might tweet a message.
Regrettably, anger is as effective as a short-term scare, but not as a long-term strategy. Anger will burn.
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You as Nancy Pelosi called Mitch McConnell out as a liar, lacking integrity and as a bad parent, and then also somehow you got to dig in there to Donald Trump with his tweets. Donald Trump is the child in that sense. What’s obvious and the point we’re trying to make here is that the Democrats missed a huge opportunity. They stepped up to the plate and it was a swing and a miss.
It was a swing and they grounded out. They do this. They get up there. They got the best batter, and they got all the evidence. It looks like it’s a miss, but what happens is it’s a single that only gets to first base and they never score the run. They never hit the homerun because the language that they’re choosing to play with or utilize doesn’t allow them to hit the run. It doesn’t. The language that Mitch McConnell uses is he’s leaning his elbow on the Constitution where he needs to be setting precedent with the Constitution and say, “Just because there’s something not written there, it doesn’t mean we can’t do what’s right. Just because there’s a void there, I’m going to exploit the crack.” Just like every other person making a deal based on no rule being there, there’s no law there.
It’s like getting rid of a regulation. If I get rid of a regulation. If I’m a Republican and call it conservative to get regulation on inspecting chickens and salmonella comes through. It saved the company $100,000 but it caused three deaths. I just shrug my shoulder and go like, “The economy ahead of people.” That’s a little problematic if we are in a government position, which is designed to protect the people. Capitalism can run fine, just so it doesn’t kill anybody or hurt anybody, and take “too much” advantage of the people. You and I both know businesses that do take advantage of people, and do sell somebody a bag of sand when they’re thinking it’s fertilizer. It’s not, you got sold sand and you paid a high price for the sand. It’s not going to grow anything.
We can take the chicken analogy and go to Purdue Pharma that sold Oxycontin to all these people and overprescribed it. That’s a good example.
There’s another example. There are hundreds of these. It’s not one bad apple because that’s what they do. They sell it as minimal when there’s a mistake. That’s a bad actor. They even did it with the writers, “There were a few people that did things.” That’s not what was happening. We could debate on the size, but the size is not as important. There were thousands of people. There were hundreds of police officers trying to keep out thousands. They were there on the president’s behalf. How do we know this? It’s because they said it. They’re going to face a legal trial that they’re going to get some kind of sentence and some financial payment. I feel a great deal of certainty that Donald Trump will not show up and pay any money for their court cases or get help to get them off. He might do it for one person to say that he did it. We might as well put that in the field of time and see if that comes true. He might do it because that’ll be a great PR piece for him if he saves and pays for one person because then he can say, “See, I’ve followed my promise.”
In the aftermath of all this and the impeachment trial, you’ve still got the Democrats missing a huge opportunity with messaging, with language and how they’re talking about it. This is interesting because I saw a report where a US congressman, or maybe it was a journalist, was asked by a foreign journalist because they didn’t understand when the vote happened on Saturday and 57 senators voted to convict and 43 did not, why Donald Trump was not convicted. They didn’t get that. They had to explain to them the rule that it takes a higher majority of 67 people to convict. You have a majority of senators voted to convict former President Donald Trump of incitement of insurrection, a minority don’t.
Interestingly, this is another stat that I learned, is that of all the senators that voted to convict those 57, they represent 76 million more Americans, than the 43 senators who voted to acquit do because they’re all from much smaller states on the whole. This was a cognitive dissonance for this foreign journalist who was trying to understand and report on this, “What do you mean?” What’s happened here is the president has gotten off on a technicality. That messaging is lost. No one’s talking about that.
The technicality, they’re calling it. The official word is that he’s acquitted. When somebody doesn’t spend time in the legal space, that means he’s not guilty. Notice how the truth gets muddled because the vocabulary and the definitions aren’t fully played out in the person’s mindset, and it’s easy for the person that’s listening to use their belief about what the word means. That’s how truth gets purchased away is that it means that he’s not guilty. It means that he won. It means that the Democrats are wrong. They’re going to fill in the meaning, but they’re only looking at the top half of the word. They’re not looking at where the root of the problem was, which was when you say to a group of people, “I love Pennsylvania Avenue. We’re going to march down there and I’m going to be there with you,” you’re immediately accountable as a leader that they are going to follow you.
He did not say, “Break into the White House.” He said, “Let them be heard. Let those people inside the building be heard.” If you want to let your voices be heard, make sure that they hear you. He’s meeting a fundamental need, a young need that a child needs growing up, which is the need to be heard. He’s tapping into a youthful brain inside his followers. Developmentally, the need for being heard is somewhere between 2 and 6, where we repeat things to children, so they practice the language. Parents don’t know that that’s one of the fundamental things you do with a young person is repeat what they said to you, so you help them practice their language. You then modify or add in after you have repeated things, so they start practicing the language.
If you have a leader that’s in touch with people not getting their need for being heard met and say, “Make your voice be heard.” He’s got a bunch of 2-year-old and 6-year-old mindsets walking forward and throwing a tantrum. Donald Trump does know vocabulary because he is a marketer and he is a brander, and he does sell things. He sells himself and his property. He is practiced at making simple messages that are inspirational to get people to buy things. He’s masterful at that. He’s good. He gives them a reward. He creates anticipation and then he takes it away so that they want it more. That’s what he does. He sold them to go down there. He didn’t tell them to break the door and go inside, and go get it. He said, “I hope Mike Pence does the right thing.” All of a sudden, his followers are saying, “Mike Pence is going to do the wrong thing.” All of a sudden it’s like, “We’re going to get Mike Pence.”
He’s saying, “You’ve got to show strength and you’ve got to fight like hell. If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Whipping people up into that frenzy, what does fighting like hell look like? It looks like pretty much what happened at the Capitol.
They fought like hell. Their belief, their bias, the fallacies that they were following. I’m sure that there was a certain amount of voter fraud that took place, but not at the expense of certifications. Those people are bound to the certification in the county of things. People might say, “Bill, you’re repeating media bias. How do you know that there are things?” Those people would be taken to court if the irregularities were as big as what was needed to make the election go in the other direction. The irregularities would be extraordinary. There would be hundreds of lawyers swimming around that looking for their piece of the pie to be able to sue the federal government for not doing their job, but all of that stuff evaporated. This is what attorneys do. It’s find fault and get money for fault. There’s money that’s involved here to prove that elections are faulty, not belief. You’ve got to prove it.
The biggest false equivalencies that I’ve seen is I read a Facebook post. One of my Facebook connections said, “Am I the only person that has a problem with this commission now that Congress is establishing to investigate the insurrection on January 6, 2021, and to get to the bottom of everything that had happened that day, but nobody is getting a commission in place to investigate the voter fraud on the 2020 election?” That’s now a false equivalency that people are using to say that they’re trying to bring what happened on January 6, 2021. The insurrection we all saw and the voter fraud, which this person says led to that insurrection on January 6, 2021. Why isn’t there a commission going on to investigate that?
What they missed and facts don’t matter as we’ve often said to people when you’re trying to convince them, but the reality is that there were 60 court cases throughout the country that investigated this and reviewed the evidence or lack of evidence there was. There was nothing there. There is not as much to go after. While I agree with you, we have to acknowledge that there were some fraudulent votes that I’m sure took place in the 2020 election. There probably is in every election we have in the United States, but not to the level that would have changed the outcome in any of the states or that would have been found. If that evidence existed, it would have been presented and it would have come to light in the months after the election, but there’s not enough. It’s being proportionalized by some to be equivalent to the shocking events that happened on January 6, 2021 at the Capitol.
It’s hard. I received a PDF saying we have two sides of the illegality of November 3, 2020. I’m looking at the stuff on the fair and I’m looking at the stuff on the stolen side of lessons. I’m looking at it and it’s not proportional. The one that’s on the stolen side has absolute proof, but each one of those things is not specific and/or they’re minimal. The thing that’s unsettling is that this amplification of an event of a mistake, “Nevada posts errors. Weren’t those vetted in court?” The answer is yes, they were vetted in court. “They posted errors.” I know they posted errors. They were vetted in court. They didn’t amount to the number to make the vote go in the other direction. They were vetted. They’re looking at, “Here are the line items in the field of time,” but they’re not pursuing truth all the way through to what happened with that line item. That line item was dispelled in this court by this time. They’d rather leave the line item as proof rather than, “Was this line item resolved?”
They leave the line item out there as an allegation that casts doubt and skepticism on the final result.
Changing votes on foreign servers. Was that vetted? It was. How was that resolved? This is how it was resolved. As soon as you say changing vote on foreign servers, the person can say, “That’s an example.”
That’s a problem they would think. It’s a problem if it’s true.
It’s a problem if it’s true. The question is, was it true? Was it vetted? How did it finish? How was it tested? I remember the guy from Georgia going like, “We took every single complaint and accusation. We took them all the way to the finished and resolved it. There were some things, but we followed every vote to resolution, but yet this PDF is going to show up in my inbox.” I’m going like, “I see that you’ve listed things. I see your perception and your perspective, but it doesn’t mean it’s true.”
Now, that PDF is probably being used to solicit donations more than anything.
That’s the way it works. The PDF then says, “Check out these stations, check out OAN, check out Glenn Beck, check out Newsmax.” I’m going like, “I have.” They are presenting a perspective and a perception of truth. They’re allowed to promote that. I prefer if it was framed more as an opinion show than a news show, that’s problematic. For me, it can’t be called or present or have the effect of a news show the way it is. It’s not that. It’s unsettling because people’s perception and perspective is that this new show is the same as this new show. I know there’s sloppy language on the left and there’s sloppy language on the right. I’ll call out sloppy language. You and I experienced that. We watched a video clip of one of Donald Trump’s attorneys talking directly and then said, “This is why you’re fake news because you minimalized those things that I brought up.” She said, “What I was doing is I was trying to prove the truth rather than empathize with the upset.”
he used the word in there, fair, which is saying, “To be fair to our listeners.” That word fair set him off. She lost control of that interview. It’s a good example of a journalist not being careful and skilled with the language they use. The point she was trying to make was a fair point to make, but her approach to it was counterproductive and sent this interview off the rails eventually with Donald Trump’s lawyer taking the microphone off, throwing it on the floor in the rotunda of the Capitol and walking off and not finishing the interview in a civil way. He was truly outraged. She probably thought, “I called him out on the truth and he didn’t like it. He got mad and ended the interview and stormed off.” In reality, that video is a good example of how her skill needs to be upgraded. If she had handled that differently and given him a little empathy in that question, she would have gotten the truth to show up in a much more effective way.
I’m going to pretend I’m her.
He was angry. He was trying to make a statement that the house managers doctored evidence. That was the big statement he was making.
As soon as he used the phrase, doctored evidence, he’s the person that is making his points of discussion the evidence bigger because he’s using a phrase, “doctored evidence.” She’s listening to doctored evidence. He’s talking as if, “You’ve got to come up to meet this doctored evidence piece.” She says, “To be fair, let me have some clarity about what those things you’re talking about. Could you tell our listeners about what those things are? You said that there was a date that was changed. It wasn’t 2020. It was 2021. The date was wrong.”
The way she was talking about it and it wasn’t big, but he made it that, and he got angry because her tone or the way she was explaining it made it smaller. It was an honest mistake that the house managers are following. Here’s when it’s weird. In the eyes or the ears of the listener that is on Donald Trump’s side, they are able to blame media for the insurrection, rather than hold Donald Trump accountable for his words. “I want to hold media accountable for their words because my guys said that they’re a lying media.” The media uses language to engage people so people can watch them. We can call it lying and exaggeration. As the famous Fox spin person, he exaggerates and spins.
The lawyer was proportionalizing what he called doctored evidence to be this huge thing that there was no truth whatsoever to any of their case. When the journalist is trying to point out that there’s some evidence presented that was inaccurate. Whether it was doctored or intentional, it maybe another thing, but the way she approached it gave him an opportunity to turn this into, “The media is at fault for January 6, 2021.” That’s what he did.
As soon as he escalated, she could have turned the conversation to be productive. “Mr. Donald Trump’s lawyer, you would like everyone to hear that there was evidence that was changed and you want our listeners to hear how important that evidence was in your case to disprove the house managers? Do I have that right?” “Yes.” “Would you like to recount the things or would you like me to recount the points the way I understand them? Would you like to give the evidence that you found that’s not true?” “Yes.” She can do it. If you’re in an interview and you give the other person the choice.
The truth gets muddled when the vocabulary and the definitions aren't fully played out in the person's mindset.
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You have permission from him to do it and he can’t get indignant.
She said, “Let me explain for my viewers.” “No, you’re saying the wrong thing.” What the reader did not hear is, “Here are the three things and there were many more things.” No, there wasn’t, because you would have brought them out in court if there were many more things. You would have used them.
You could say, “If there were many more, why didn’t you raise those in the trial?”
I hear there were more things and I guess there was a strategic reason why you didn’t use the many more things that you mentioned. Would you be willing to share the strategic reason why you didn’t use the many more things so that our listener can hear your point of view? He’s now walked the plank. You are sitting out there going like, “I don’t know.” He can go into the cloak of privacy. I’d rather not do those right now. They’ll come out in time. That’s a great sales technique of uncertainty.
We’ll see if we bring those out in the future.
That’s a sales technique. It’s not a reality. It’s a sales technique to keep the listener engaged. He could have put that piece of red meat out there and say, “It sounds like we’re going to hear more about this in the future. I felt disappointment that we didn’t hear about it when it would have made a difference for your case.” The Donald Trump voters and the Joe Biden voters would have appreciated this. It would have demonstrated that the Democrats didn’t want to go into the information. The thing that bugs people about the court system is that there are all kinds of choices regarding the truth about what gets put into evidence. Whether it’s the OJ trial or any court case, there’s evidence that does not get to be submitted. There’s information that does not go onto the record because it looks bad for one side or the other and it’s strategically withheld because it’s not into evidence.
I felt disappointment that the Democrats don’t improve their language communication skills because they’d be much more effective at accomplishing their goals if they did.
The Republicans have got to figure out a way how to restore integrity and listen to a Republican that voted to impeach said, “We’re a party of ideas.” I’m going like, “No, you’re not.”
That would be interesting. What’s come clear from the impeachment is that the Republican Party is fracturing and there’s a big divide. The Republicans that have integrity that voted either to impeach in the House or to convict in the Senate, they need some language and communication help to communicate to their constituents why they did what they did. To fight not only their political survival but to try to take the party back from this extreme Donald Trump wing. There’s a struggle going on there.
What they’ve learned from Donald Trump is not a strong habit. What they learned from Donald Trump is you do not need to put a policy up for the voter to see to get elected. You do not have to stand for anything clear on a piece of paper. Elizabeth Warren could do any plan she wants. Hillary Clinton could do any plan they want. All the plan does is give the other side an opportunity to shoot holes in it, and to make up a counter-narrative to the plan to use their plan against them. Donald Trump did not even have a plan. He just had a promise of reforming healthcare, “It’s going to be better. It’s going to be less expensive. I’m going to create great deals. I’m going to negotiate. I’m a good negotiator. We’re going to bring the money down.” None of that stuff moved. None of that stuff was on paper.
The tax bill had stuff written in the margins. They gave it to the people to vote on the next day. They gave the tax bill and, “We’re going to vote on this.” They’re not in integrity with the due process or the honesty because they don’t now need to govern. They need to promote. This is when democracy falls apart because you’ve got to keep the foundation solid about, “Here are the rules and the guidelines that are going to help the nation to move forward.” That’s what we need.
Some people are going to like the rules. Some people are not going to like the rules. Some of the rules are going to be enforced. Some of the rules are not going to be enforced. You can have as many antitrust laws on the books as you want, but if nobody has the courage to enforce them, so then you can have major tech companies or self-service or monopolies. If you’re not going to apply the rules, then you’re not fostering jobs or competition who can do it better, who’s going to work harder, what are they going to be proud of? You’re not helping. It doesn’t help. If a person doesn’t believe in one company versus another company, it’s hard. We’re in a tough spot because the insurrection is on the truth, integrity, mutual respect, cooperation, and collaboration. That’s where the insurrection is living. There’s none of that.
It’s living in the absence of that.
That’s a good clip to lead this thing, now that I think about it. That’s where we struggle. We’re not in the front of our narrative. We’re very much in a reactive responsive place. We’ll have to see. One of the things that’s interesting and you can have a lot of curiosity and anticipation about it. Now that the impeachment is over, where do the eyeballs fall next? Where are our eyes as a nation going to turn? Is it going to turn full-on, square-on to the relief bill and whether it’s going to be $1,400? Is it going to be $1,000, $1,200, or $900? They proposed $600. It’s like, “No.” That’s not enough to keep the economy floating because things have slowed down even more. The economy is cooling off and Wall Street is not the place to look for a healthy economy. That part is true. There’s more to come. Tom, thanks for this. This is a good one about how Mitch McConnell and his brilliance have now outlasted the narrative again.
I enjoyed it, Bill. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Tom.
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