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Thursday’s bipartisan gush of adulation for Trump was enough to make you wonder: didn’t they impeach this guy last night?
by Allen AbelDec 19, 2019
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) walks from the House floor on Thursday, where members are debating the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)
As if Wednesday never happened, as if no one had voted to impeach, inhume and abolish the apoplectic capo of the American republic, as if a great fog of cannabinoid bliss had wafted over the U.S. Capitol, Democrats and Republicans skipped hand-in-hand to the podium of the House of Representatives on Thursday and sang, “Thank you, President Trump.”
The metamorphosis had taken less than a dozen hours. Where, by night, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her farmhands had cast the 45th president as a deranged dotard, now, in full sunlight, the same lawgivers were commending the same satanic spawn as an architect of industrial prosperity, agricultural bounty, and 110 per cent employment.
“I am seeing today the righteousness of the members of this House,” a delegate from Chicago said, encapsulating the transformation.
RELATED: The Nancy walking all over Trump
(“When I speak, I speak for the people of the seventh district of Illinois, and my vote will be Impeach! Impeach! Impeach!” the very same man, Danny Davis, had declared the day before.)
“I congratulate the president,” beamed a Californian who also had voted to expunge the president.
“Today is a celebration,” said a representative from South Dakota. “Today brings with it a bounty of benefits to a multitude of winners.”
“It’s a huge victory for the president of the United States,” boomed the much-vilified Rep. Steve King, the proudly Caucasian congressman from Iowa. “We are happy, we are delighted, we are thankful to have this Christmas present coming to us. We say Merry Christmas, Mr. President.”
They all were gushing, of course, about the new NAFTA, which finally passed Pelosi’s pasture on Thursday afternoon with massive bipartisan support and only a trickle of opposition, most of it out of concern that the Mexican government will simply ignore the labour and environmental protections it agreed to earlier this month.
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and the prophetic Rashida (“We’re gonna impeach the unprintable!”) Tlaib voted against the United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), of course, but look who lock-stepped in support: Reps. Adam (“Shifty”) Schiff and Maxine Waters for the Democrats; leaders Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise for the Grand Old Party. The vote was 385 to 41, with the Senate still to pass final judgment on what will be a signature accomplishment for the president, should be remain in office long enough to enjoy it.
RELATED: The USMCA explained: Winners and losers, what’s in and what’s out
Even the speaker herself tossed the president a bone. (Ruminant meat and bone meal is a $30-million annual export from the U.S. to Mexico and thus is included in the deal.) She patiently had incubated the USMCA for months while pressuring the Mexicans to allow American inspectors into their maquiladoras. The fact that the passage of NAFTA 2.0 is due principally to the machinations of Pelosi and labour-lord Richard Trumka is unlikely to be mentioned by The Donald on his Magical Hysteria Tour of the hustings. But brag about it, he certainly will.
“The president is going to campaign that he got rid of the worst trade deal in history and cite this as a victory,” a Maclean’s reporter suggested to Pelosi on Thursday morning in the Capitol basement.
“I don’t care about that,” the Speaker of the House replied.
Robed in violent scarlet after her sombre black ensemble of the night before, soft-voiced, and seemingly having no need of sleep, the 79-year-old San Franciscan took the same message upstairs to the floor of the House.
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