by Vijaya Chandrasoma

The House Select Committee concluded its investigation into the January 6 insurrection, and released its final report on Thursday, December 22, with the historic recommendation that former President Donald Trump be criminally prosecuted for his conduct surrounding the insurrection.

The report recommends that the Department of Justice specifically indicts Trump on at least four criminal charges relating to efforts to thwart the constitutional transfer of presidential power: obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the government, conspiracy to make false statements and assisting an insurrection.

These four charges have been recommended because of overwhelming evidence that will make conviction inevitable. There are many other charges waiting in the wings, up to and including sedition, espionage and treason.This evidence, and more, would surely have been garnered by the Department of Justice during its own investigation. Attorney General Merrick Garland is being extra cautious in a case never before faced by an Attorney General, that of indicting and prosecuting a former President.

The January 6 Select Committee had no such temporal luxury. They were compelled to present their final report before the Republicans took over the leadership of the House on January 3, 2023.Hopefully, the report may spur AG Garland and Special Counsel Jack Smith to action, and indict an indubitably guilty president of yesteryear, just an ordinary citizen of today.

Trump’s immediate problems do not involve the Department of Justice and the criminal courts. The end of the road of Trump’s hitherto masterly legal tactics of deny, divert and delay has been reached. His real nemesis, the Republican base, is now looming in the rear-view mirror.

This Base, a motley crew of billionaires, corporations, professionals, media moguls, Evangelicals and white supremacists, is now looking for a leader who will champion the struggle for the Republican Utopia of a radical right, racist, white Christian dictatorship.

This fearsome Base of the Republican Party plans to end democracy in the USA and replace it with a Banana Republic style dictatorship. They damn nearly succeeded in destroying democracy on January 6, 2021. With the experience gained from this attempt, they may not fail the next time, given the opportunity.As social scientist Theodore Caplow argued; “The Republican Party, nationally, moved from the right-center toward the center in the 1940s and 1950s, then moved right again in the 1980s”.

From FDR’s New Deal after WWII, which initiated a revolution in social infrastructure, through Eisenhower’s impressive building of the nation’s physical infrastructure, the USA was treading, if not leading, the path to economic and social prosperity. A path that was taken by most of the developed nations addressing the disastrous societal and environmental situation left at the end of WWII. These progressive social and economic policies, fueled by a rational taxation structure, saw the emergence, by the 1970s, of thriving middle classes in all these developed nations, including the USA.

The rest of the developed nations continued on this path of socialist capitalism, where great technological innovations brought progress and an amazing creation of wealth. With reasonable taxation, where everyone paid their fair share, these nations were able to ensure that all its citizens, the achievers as well the vulnerable, enjoyed what is now recognized as basic human rights – housing, education, women’s right to reproductive freedom, universal health care, a living minimum wage to name a few. All those benefits have put these at the top of ratings of nations with the highest quality of life. Unfortunately, the richest nation in the world, which denies its citizens many of these benefits, no, human rights, languish at the bottom of these ratings.

President Reagan, with his tax cuts benefiting the wealthy and the corporations, the infamous trickle-down economics, destroyed this thriving middle class in the United States. Reagan reduced the maximum tax rate levied on the wealthy and the corporations, which had been running at 46-48% at the beginning of his Presidency to 34% in 1986. Although both Clinton and Obama introduced progressive measures, they were unable to take any steps towards amending taxes to more reasonable levels. Any attempt to increase these rates by even a point was shot down by a hostile Congress, stating that the nation was being dragged down to the horrors of unbridled, corrupt socialism.

The maximum tax payable by the wealthy and corporations of the US are at an all-time low of 21%. Any efforts to increase them are shouted down with the same old “Bloody Commies” slogan. And the loopholes available in the present taxation system ensures that billion-dollar corporations pay less in taxes than a secretary working for them.

The Base has now come to the conclusion that Trump presents a liability, that he has lost the confidence of moderate Republicans and Independents, that he has come to the end of his political career. He is expendable. He has committed the indefensible political crime. He is a loser who could no longer deliver.

Trump has been losing the support of many conservatives since his failed coup and the midterms. He has, however, retained the sycophantic support of the leadership of the Party, opportunists like wannabe Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other senior Senators and Congressmen, who are convinced that their re-election depends on Trump’s support. A total miscalculation. As of today, Trump is toast.

Until the midterms, many Republicans who had their own presidential ambitions for 2024 held their horses, and made no criticism of Trump’s treasonous behavior. Even the theft of top-secret White House documents, a crime tantamount to espionage, which should have been the last straw, did not draw any comment by Republicans. Trump has, yet again, proved that his particular camel has an unbreakable hump.

They do not wish to buck his announced statement of a run for a second term, which he repeated last week, even in the aftermath of the release of the January 6 Select Committee. The Report provides conclusive evidence of the most dire crimes committed by Trump against the United States of America. They have decided to support Trump to the end, even as the Republican nominee for 2024, because they feel that challenging his leadership may cost them their jobs in 2024. Their jobs were all that counted, screw the well-being of the country.

These Republican supporters of Trump have made a grievous error of judgment. They assumed that Trump controlled the Base, whose support they felt was needed for re-election. But Trump only controlled the violent white supremacist section of the Base, groups like the KKK, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, many of whose leaders are now languishing in prison, facing years of hard time for their actions of January 6.

Republicans will argue that 74 million Americans voted for Trump during the 2020 presidential election. About right, there is about a third of the American electorate fearful of losing their white privileges, when they surrender their white majority to non-white citizens, predicted for 2040. In any event, 81 million votes for President Biden beat the 74 million cast for Trump. 74 beats 81 only if you are playing golf, a fact that may have confused Trump.

The Republican Base has now reached the conclusion that Trump presents a liability to Republican political aspirations, that he has lost the confidence of moderate Republicans and Independents, that he has come to the end of his political future. He has committed the ultimate political crime. He could no longer deliver.

So while the Party was losing support of moderate conservatives and Independents, the Base was actively looking for an alternative leader who would continue to serve their political ends, dreams of a white authoritarian Christian Utopia ruled by the corporations and billionaires. An economy concentrated on the Ayn Rand ideology of Capitalism, where economic achievement and wealth creation were the only criteria of success, and the Devil take the hindmost.

Make no mistake. The January 6 coup was a deliberate, premeditated attempt to remove a legally elected government and replace it with a Capitalist dictatorship. A government which will continue to bring about economic prosperity, the like of which has never been equaled before. A political ideology which has amassed great wealth though private enterprise and innovation. A government which will recognize only personal achievement, and pay no attention to the lives of those who in their eyes are merely leeches, gaming the system. These massive rewards, in the billions of dollars, went to the entrepreneurs and the achievers. The workers who kept these enterprises thriving were left with the choice of working two jobs just to put food on the table. In the richest country in the world.

A government in which the top 1% of the population own 90% of the nation’s wealth.The Base has found one such potential leader, whom they are now grooming for Republican Party leadership, while they are ditching Trump. The new darling of the Base is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

A man totally different from the education, political experience, speech and appearance of his predecessor. A man whose political opinions and ambitions are exactly the same as those of his predecessor.44-years old, Ronald Dion DeSantis is the idea of a model politician in the American psyche. Graduating from Yale University and Harvard Law School, he then joined the United States Navy in 2004. He was deployed to Iraq in 2007, and was honorably discharged by the Navy in 2010.

DeSantis entered the political arena and was elected to Congress in 2012. During his tenure as a Congressman, he became an ally of Donald Trump. In 2018, he was elected Governor of Florida, re-elected in 2022 with a large majority. The perfect resume for an aspirant to the highest political office in the land.

Ron DeSantis is a younger and less vulgar version of Donald Trump. A Donald with a genuine Ivy League education, a better vocabulary and enunciation, regular skin colour with actual hair and dressed in perfectly fitting Savile Row suits.

Inside, though, there is no difference. He is exactly the same ruthless, racist, wannabe dictator, with the same regressive radical right-wing ideology of the new Republican Party.

It is true that the USA, keeping taxation on entrepreneurs at the lowest levels, has succeeded in the most astonishing innovations in American industry. America has the largest companies, whose management is paid salaries beyond imagination in other developed countries; whose CEOs are outbidding each other as to who has the most luxury yachts, the most private jets, the most castles. The recent story goes that when Elon Musk heard that Jeff Bezos was building a $500 million yacht, he immediately started work on a $600 million iceberg.

The new Republican Base has again shifted the goalposts, way to the right. Their new Utopia remains a Capitalist dictatorship, one which will be controlled by a white, Christian autocracy. Their manipulations of the Voting Rights Act will ensure that 2024 will be the last presidential election. In DeSantis, Republicans have found an able protagonist to achieve their radical right dreams. In a head-to-head poll for the 2024 Republican nomination, DeSantis currently enjoys 20+ point lead over Trump.

Old Joe continues to do a fine job, and will complete his first term with success and honour. But if he has any ideas about a second term, at age 82, his probable Republican challenger will be 42 -year-old Ron DeSantis, who will eat him for breakfast.The 2024 Presidential election is one that Democrats cannot afford to lose. They must make sure they put their best candidate/team to overcome DeSantis. That candidate surely can’t be 82-year-old Joe.