After scarcely more than 100 days of Trump in the White House, here we are scratching around like hens in the dirt for one last bit of incredulity we haven't digested yet.
Now we found it: first Trump excluding from the Oval Office, American press, to a private meeting with the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador (at the center of RussiaTrump investigations) only a day after Trump fired the director of the FBI for involving domestic intelligence in said investigations. Now, we learn that Trump inadvertently disclosed highly classified information to the Russians.
If a Democrat had been in the White House, and any part of the foregoing had occurred, the GOP Congress would have already mobilized through right-wing, extremist media, drawn up subpoenas and articles of impeachment. Within the GOP Congress, there is one caucus that would have been especially inflamed: Cuban American Republicans from Florida.
But Cuban American Republicans are silent on Trump, and their silence exposes the rank hypocrisy of the GOP brand.
I've never seen anything like it. For decades the most powerful voting bloc in Florida, Cuban American in Miami-Dade County, organized around hatred of Castro and his state-sponsor: Russia. Now we have an American president who is showing all the signs of being compromised by Russia, and the one constituency who have demonstrable skin-in-the-game against Russia -- Cuban American congressmen and women from Florida -- are silent.
I get it. Believe me. Trump is a transactional politician, and the Miami supporters of Cuban Americans in Congress -- especially US Senator Marco Rubio -- are all about transactions. Power and money. Period.
At Versailles Restaurant, the day of the Trump inauguration, there was an odd, rag-tag group of paid participants, a rent-a-crowd, holding up Trump signs, smiling broadly, and selling Trump t-shirts. One could sense the feeling of an outsider or an interloper; not a president Cuban Americans could be proud of.
Now, we have learned that Trump is dangerous to democracy, to the principles that Cuban American Republicans swore oaths of allegiance to -- the overthrow of Castro and rejection of his Russian overlords, and demonstrably unfit for office in ways that are astonishing.
The bottom line: it is dishonorable for Miami Cuban American leaders to be silent now. Their supporters should be equally disappointed.
Now we found it: first Trump excluding from the Oval Office, American press, to a private meeting with the Russian foreign minister and Russian ambassador (at the center of RussiaTrump investigations) only a day after Trump fired the director of the FBI for involving domestic intelligence in said investigations. Now, we learn that Trump inadvertently disclosed highly classified information to the Russians.
If a Democrat had been in the White House, and any part of the foregoing had occurred, the GOP Congress would have already mobilized through right-wing, extremist media, drawn up subpoenas and articles of impeachment. Within the GOP Congress, there is one caucus that would have been especially inflamed: Cuban American Republicans from Florida.
But Cuban American Republicans are silent on Trump, and their silence exposes the rank hypocrisy of the GOP brand.
I've never seen anything like it. For decades the most powerful voting bloc in Florida, Cuban American in Miami-Dade County, organized around hatred of Castro and his state-sponsor: Russia. Now we have an American president who is showing all the signs of being compromised by Russia, and the one constituency who have demonstrable skin-in-the-game against Russia -- Cuban American congressmen and women from Florida -- are silent.
I get it. Believe me. Trump is a transactional politician, and the Miami supporters of Cuban Americans in Congress -- especially US Senator Marco Rubio -- are all about transactions. Power and money. Period.
At Versailles Restaurant, the day of the Trump inauguration, there was an odd, rag-tag group of paid participants, a rent-a-crowd, holding up Trump signs, smiling broadly, and selling Trump t-shirts. One could sense the feeling of an outsider or an interloper; not a president Cuban Americans could be proud of.
Now, we have learned that Trump is dangerous to democracy, to the principles that Cuban American Republicans swore oaths of allegiance to -- the overthrow of Castro and rejection of his Russian overlords, and demonstrably unfit for office in ways that are astonishing.
The bottom line: it is dishonorable for Miami Cuban American leaders to be silent now. Their supporters should be equally disappointed.
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