drnormalvision: Show of Hands

Sunday, September 17, 2023

Show of Hands

Last month at the Republican would-be candidates debate, Nikki Haley displayed a minute-and-a-half’s worth of rationality; she undressed Vivek Ramaswamy on foreign policy and explained to the other would-bes that there was no way a bill totally outlawing abortion would pass the Senate.

Unfortunately, she blew it all when the crew were asked if they would vote for a convicted criminal Trump for president, she joined five other lovers of law-and-order and shot up her hand. She would vote for him even though she said, “[W]e have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America.”(1)

However, a week-and-a-half later, Haley went on “Face the Nation” and asserted that

she had faith in the American people not to vote for Trump if he’s convicted of any of the scores of criminal counts he’s been charged with in four criminal indictments. . . .

“The American people are not going to vote for a convicted criminal.”(2)

But—follow this—she had indicated at the debate that she would vote for a criminal Trump. Now, she was more or less praying that she will be let off the hook by “the American people”:

“Oh, I promised to vote for him, but I can’t be held to the promise, because all sorts of other people have rendered the situation moot. So, see, I’m not voting for the criminal I said I would. (Thank you, American people for saving my ass.)”

Nikki Haley has become the frontrunner for the Weasel-of-the-Year Award.

And then there’s Mike Pence on Trump:

“He asked me to put him over the constitution, and I chose the constitution,” he said at the debate.(3) “Anyone,” he said elsewhere, “who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”(4)

And so, at the Republican debate, when asked if he would vote for a convicted Trump, Pence, of course, refused to raise his hand.

WAIT! WAIT! Strike that! He raised his hand signaling that he would vote for the felon.

Thinking about Pence’s agreeing that he would vote for the man who, when informed that the January 6th mob was baying for his Vice President’s blood, calmly replied,

“Maybe our supporters have the right idea.” Mike Pence “deserves it,”(5)

I reached back in history to 1939 and the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Cartoonist David Low produced the most trenchant exposé of the outrageous episode: