In Mammon We Trust

Marie Yovanovitch presented herself as a heroine in defending her tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine in her testimony to the House Intelligence Committee about how she saw that Trump's attempts to have Ukrainian corruption investigated was more about damaging Joe Biden (which some say he's succeeded in doing) than bringing good governance to the former Soviet republic.  Trump's efforts to discredit her on Twitter in real time while she was testifying - he bad-mouthed her entire career despite her impeccable credentials - opened him up to charges of witness tampering during a hearing on his own impeachment.  Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee were left dumbfounded.

Meanwhile, Trump operative Roger Stone was convicted yesterday of trying to stop the House probe into charges of Russian interference in the 2016 election, having been convicted on five felony counts of lying to investigators, one count of obstructing a congressional probe, and one count of witness tampering.

But, if not for the third event that took place yesterday, the first two would actually matter.  The third event was this: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 28,000 points for the first time ever.

The Dow - and the Nasdaq and the S&P as well - all closed at record highs yesterday thanks to news of an impending trade deal with China.  And, the Dow had set a record earlier in the week thanks to the launch of Disney's Disney Plus subscription video on-demand streaming service.  As long as the economy goes well enough for many people - especially regular voters, who are better off than people who don't vote regularly or don't vote at all - Trump is still a favorite for re-election, and if a progressive Democrat (or, in the case of Bernie Sanders, a progressive independent) is his opponent in the presidential election next November, hell, he could be the first President unanimously re-elected by the Electoral College since George Washington on 1792.  He might even carry the District of Columbia, thanks to all of the gentrification hat Washington, D.C. has undergone in recent years.  At the least, Trump could repeat in 2020 James Monroe's success of two hundred years earlier - only losing four electors, three of whom didn't vote and one of whom wrote in John Quincy Adams.   

Because, boys and girls, Americans don't really care about constitutional crises or the rule of law.   They only care about their own economic well-being.   One could argue - I'm surprised more people don't - that Nixon might have survived Watergate if the economy had been a whole lot better, without stagflation or an oil crisis going on.  Donald Trump, who boasts about the Dow ad infinitum, is counting on a booming stock market and admittedly misleading employment statistics to carry him to victory in 2020 by assuming that Americans are just as venal as he is.

And he's probably right.  As the British noted several years ago, we Americans have an uncanny knack for worshiping God and Mammon at the same time.  How else do you explain the motto "In God We Trust" on our currency?

Money . . . it's a hit . . . don't give me that do-goody-good bullsh-- . . .