“I’m taking an awful risk, Vader. This had better work.” — Grand Moff Tarkin, “Star Wars: A New Hope”
Chris Stewart is doubling down on Donald Trump.
Utah’s 2nd District member of Congress rather perceptively labeled candidate Trump “our Mussolini,” back before the New York libertine somehow captured the nomination of the party of Midwestern moral values. Stewart, author of a few books on American history, was smart enough to make the comparison to the buffoonish dictator of fascist-era Italy, rather than to his more fiendishly maniacal German counterpart.
Now Stewart is all in. Telling members of the Utah Legislature the other day that Trump may be a crude character in the Rodney Dangerfield mode (dead people can’t sue for slander) but that he is being successful on so many fronts that it’s all OK.
Apparently, Stewart counts the president being an appalling bigot who has brought dishonor on his office and his nation as “incredibly effective.”
Worse, the former Air Force officer — and current member of the House Intelligence Committee — has drunk the Kool-Aid of blaming all the president’s political and media woes on the Deep State, on an imagined X Files conspiracy that pervades the Justice Department, the FBI and the CIA and is out to bring the president down.
That, Stewart says, is the real scandal in Washington. Not some cockamamie story about the Trump campaign colluding with Russian efforts to mess up our last election.
He also, of course, blames the news media. He says he keeps a file of all the articles where the press, “doesn’t just get it wrong, they actually deceive, actively lie.” Which is a particularly useless thing to do unless he’s willing to tell the world what those instances are. Which he isn’t.
It is possible that nobody will be able to prove any case of collusion between the Trumpists and the Russians, much less a case that the president himself was involved or even aware. From the reputable reporting now coming out of Washington, it seems more likely that the case is one of obstruction of justice, and even that can be difficult to prove.
Especially when Congress has totally abandoned the role prescribed for it in the Constitution as a co-equal — and jealously independent — branch of government in favor of partisan support for — or opposition to — whoever is at the head of the executive branch at the moment.
But if the hammer does fall — if, at least, it all crashes down before November — Stewart might be among the most likely to see his career become collateral damage in a post-Nixon style massacre. If the Democrats can scrounge up a credible candidate to oppose him. Also somewhat vulnerable on that score might be 1st District Rep. Rob Bishop and, maybe, freshman 3rd District Rep. John Curtis.
The 4th District’s Mia Love, by taking exception to the president’s anti-Haitian and anti-immigrant garbage, may have insulated herself a bit from the stench of Trump. She had to. She is in the most divided district and is facing the strongest Democratic challenger, Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams.
Meanwhile, Trump buddy Sen. Orrin Hatch is on his way out, presumably to be replaced on the Republican ticket by former presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Who may be hesitating about actually declaring his candidacy as he assesses whether his chances — and his conscience — would be better served by running as the anti-Trump Mitt we saw back when Trump was Mussolini, or, like Stewart, if he wants to run as the kind of Republican who falls in line.
Meanwhile, McAdams and Jenny Wilson, the front-runner among Utah Democrats in the Senate race, will just have to put their heads down and run, run against Love and Romney and, mostly, against Trump. Raise money. Speak. Raise money. Debate. Raise money. Hone their message. Raise money.
It might be a totally thankless job. Like the first runner up in the Miss America contest, each of them will have to stay sharp and poised and thin, on the off — but not totally unimaginable — chance that Love, Romney, Trump or the entire Grand Old Party blows up and they find themselves, like Doug Jones in Alabama, a good alternative for voters of all political stripes who just can’t bring themselves to pull that same old lever this time around.
The national Democratic Party and its reliable money buckets will be hard-pressed to help the Utahns, as candidates across the nation will be in the same situation — behind, but facing a lifetime of regret if they don’t give the last full measure of their political devotion.
Just in case.
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Tribune staff. George Pyle.
George Pyle, the Tribune’s editorial page editor, was impressed with the ad slogan of the New York Lottery: “Hey, you never know.” gpyle@sltrib.com
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