Can’t Win on Merits, Attack the Process

Masters of deflection, the Congressional Republicans and the @WhiteHouse are trying to change the subject away from the president’s criminal conduct and towards the procedures used in the impeachment process. They need to be called out on this repeatedly by the media and other leaders.

Trump is now being aided and abetted by congressional cover-up artists, #MoscowMitch and @GOPLeader (Kevin McCarthy). Are they saying that with a different process they would be ok with impeachment? Nah.

This is their third switcheroo. When news of the call first broke, they attacked Biden and his son. Then they trotted out “no quid pro quo” as the strawman of choice to blunt the attacks on their self-revealed criminal conduct. I think they would have been better just saying, “Whoops! He made a mistake.” It was soon pointed out that there didn’t need to be a quid pro quo for the president’s strong-arming to be criminal. (Oh, and there was a quid pro quo, anyway). But their usual communications M.O. is being invoked: deny, deflect, and destroy.

This will undoubtedly muddy the waters, and confusion can be a winning strategy to get people to say “no.” But, if we keep calling out this rhetorical ruse, we will have more people seeing that the emperor really has no clothes.