Jason Chaffetz just was handed a golden opportunity to go down in history as a principled American statesman, putting justice and country ahead of partisan political concerns, and gilding his so-far petty, small-minded career with a patina of patriotism.

We’ve seen this before. Sam Ervin, of North Carolina, was a retrograde Dixiecrat senator who spent most of his career on the wrong side of history as a strict constructionist, fighting against Brown and civil rights legislation, fighting against the ERA, fighting against immigration reform – I’m sure you’re familiar with the type.

But late in life, this old “country lawyer” who had passed the bar immediately after serving in the Big Red One – the First Division – during WWI, achieved historical prominence and affection among true Americans for his work as the chair of the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Campaign Practices. You may know it better as “The Watergate Committee.”

With the resignation of Lt.Gen. Michael T Flynn as NSA, following revelations that he was coordinating with the Russians before the election and during the transition, coupled with the multitude of manifest ties between Dat Guy’s campaign and inner circle with Vladimir Putin, there is now more than enough data to begin a large-scale investigation into the Treason of Donald J Trump.

But, with Flynn now gone, Chaffetz has already said, in effect: well, that’s that, nothing to see here, move along. The GOP Congressvolk are falling in line – still! – despite the ever-mounting evidence that the Hair Drumpfenfuhrer and his merry bund have deep, wide and continual ties to Russia’s dictator, despite Dat Guy’s obsession with becoming a dicTator-Tot, and despite the clear and present danger that Scrotus is completely unhinged. Instead of hiring an independent prosecutor (Sally Yates is available, I hear) and proceeding to investigate articles of impeachment, the Reich Wing is instead investigating the leaks to find out which patriotic Americans are putting country in front of politics, the bastards.

In case one should wonder why, the answer is painfully clear: these maleficent morons have been hoist by their own petard. For 50 years they have been fostering the cognitive dissonance of the mouth breathers on the Right so that they have a permanent base from which to control legislatures, state houses, courts and Congress. And in Dat Guy, the Drumpfen proletariat have found their hero, their king, their god.

So all of the fake news, disinformation, propaganda, and plain old bullshit that’s been pumped into the ears of their base, obfuscating reality in order to foster Republican power-mongering, has hardened into concrete inside the heads of their base. If the GOP now turned on Dat Guy, they would be committing political suicide back home in Gerrymandia, where the primary IS the general, and reality is vastly overrated.

Shelter in place. Hunker and hope. Duck and cover. Don’t be a hero.

Sam Ervin would have slapped their faces.

Crossposted at JuanitaJean.com