I’m not sure why anyone pays attention to the Iowa caucuses anymore, considering its Republican voters have only picked their Party’s eventual presidential nominee twice since the 1960s, and only one of those went on to win the general election. But Iowa is the time-honored kickoff to the quadrennial American presidential passion play regardless, and one must observe the conventions and traditions that make the country what it is.
Not hardly, right? By no stretch of the imagination is the disgraced, twice impeached, four times criminally indicted ex-President an appealing figure, at least not to most folks. No, the title here applies to Trump’s latest legal gambit, appealing a lower court’s ruling that denied his claims of immunity for his 2020 election interference shenanigans, in the case brought against him by the Justice Department. The trial date is set for March 4, but will likely be postponed due to delaying tactics such as these.
In casting about for a bit of good news to start AAA’s 2024 articles, I must admit, the pickin’s were slim. In the end, I opted for a post on Philadelphia’s new mayor, Cherelle Parker, the city’s 100th chief executive and the first female to hold the office, milestones on both counts. Having spent more than thirty years in the City of Brotherly Love, I tend to think of Philly as my home town, and I like to keep tabs on the old gang. And any woman rising to a position of prominence is always good news, even when I might strongly disagree with her political philosophy.
On December 19, 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court handed the Trump Campaign perhaps its most significant defeat to date. In a 4-3 decision, the Court ruled that the former president was ineligible for inclusion on the state’s 2024 Primary ballot, due to a clause in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which provides that persons who previously took an oath to the Constitution, then supported insurrection or rebellion against the US government, are barred from holding political office again in future.
In the “It’s about time!” category, Washington watchers were pleased to note the ouster from Congress of Representative George Santos (R-NY) on December 1st, removed from office less than a year after his swearing in. The noted, notorious fabulist and fraudster was finally ejected by a resounding margin of 311-114, after a House Ethics Committee report revealed numerous, egregious, staggering lapses of judgment, ethics and morals, as well as probable infractions of the law and campaign finance rules.
Two conservative icons recently passed within days of each other, as November rolled over to December 2023. On November 29th, Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State, propelled from academia into international prominence by Richard Nixon, instrumental in ending the Vietnam War and reestablishing diplomatic relations with Communist China, died at the age of 100. Two days later, on December 1st, former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, a Reagan appointee and the first woman to sit on the US Supreme Court, passed at age 93. While neither would recognize today’s Republican Party, so focused on grievance and retribution instead of policy, and both have serious blots on their legacies, each reminds us that there were once two viable political philosophies vying for control of the country, in a comparatively congenial and collegial atmosphere.
