Lack of accountability is bipartisan
Republican accountability is an oxymoron, like Army intelligence, my branch of the service more than 50 years ago. Spying on Russian space and rocket launches from the Black Sea port of Sinop, Turkey when President Kennedy was assassinated informs my perspective on President Trump, Russia, and Republicans, especially working-class Republicans.
The Greeks recognized that those who the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. Consider the anger in the South when President Abraham Lincoln was elected. The irrationality that led to the Civil War is now at the heart of the Republican Party and its trashing of the federal government, public education, the environment, and numerous other similar targets. Working-class Republicans suffer in health, finances, and opportunity from Republican policies, yet loyally blame Democrats for their woes.
Currently, of 18 U.S. representatives for Pennsylvania, 13 are Republicans and five are Democrats. The most recent poll shows the approval rating for the House has shot up to 29 percent from 19 percent in January, still a dismal figure and not likely to improve as repercussions to the historic legislation of the 115th Congress are felt in coming months.
Should Democrats attain the majority in the House, it will fall to the 116th Congress to decide whether to impeach President Trump for publicly inviting the Russians to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, certainly a high crime and misdemeanor, as well as a felony and treason.
A similar scenario played out in the Democrat-controlled 110th Congress when Speaker Nancy Pelosi preferred a weakened President George W. Bush to impeaching him for lying to the American people about the Iraq War. Lack of accountability is bipartisan, suffering its dire consequences universal.
Jim Greenwood
Washington