Stauber’s complicity

It is increasingly difficult for Americans to ignore an existential problem the likes of which we have never experienced in our nation’s 250-year history. The president of the United States is suffering from a severe mental disorder, and it appears no one is coming to protect America from the consequences of that unfortunate reality. 

We’re not talking about the kind of mental aging or dementia that we’ve seen in some previous presidents, such as Ronald Reagan or Joe Biden. There is something far more seriously wrong with Donald Trump.

We certainly acknowledge that this conclusion about the president’s state of mind is far from a medical diagnosis. It is more a common-sense reaction to the daily barrage of Trump’s increasingly bizarre statements and actions, things that would have been unimaginable from any previous president. A list of those actions would seem almost pointless, since each day brings a new litany of lunacy. The day before this writing, Donald Trump posted a video on his Truth Social, for example, that included images of Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. Such an overtly racist post would have been a major scandal for any previous president, but for Donald Trump, it’s just every other late night. 

Sadly, the dawn offers little reassurance, as the president careens from one outlandish statement, demand, or action to another, with little or no strategic coherence, at least from the point of view of America’s interests. The rest of the world watches, jaws agape, as the world’s most important nation appears to have run entirely off the rails, with a president focused almost exclusively on stroking his own ego, filling his pockets, or punishing his political enemies at enormous cost to America’s future.

While the mid-term elections this November offer hope for a check on the madness, we have many months to go before our possible salvation. We have seen the American people, particularly residents of the Twin Cities, willing to put themselves in harm’s way to stand up for basic human decency in the face of Trump’s predations. That is heroic and important, but it is not enough. We need members of Congress, particularly Republicans, to stand up and speak out against Trump’s actions. Instead of profiles in courage, we see members like our own Eighth District Rep. Pete Stauber stand mute as Trump rampages through the Constitution, threatens to invade allied countries, claims another’s Nobel Peace Prize as tribute, or calls on Republicans to seize control of the country’s electoral process.

No sane person would view these actions or demands as appropriate. Yet we hear nothing but silence from Rep. Stauber and all but a tiny handful of his fellow Republicans in Congress. Rep. Stauber’s profile in cowardice is not just shameful, it is complicity. It is a moral choice. When members of Congress, like Stauber, fail to speak out in opposition to Trump when he defends the killing of Minnesotans by federal agents, or the daily violations of the Fourth Amendment in the neighborhoods of the Twin Cities, or threatens to invade Greenland to soothe his own ego, Stauber is signaling to all of us that he agrees with the president. He signals his support through his silence. 

Let’s be clear. Members of Congress are in the best position under the Constitution to push back against the president’s sickening words and corrupt actions. They are fully empowered under the Constitution to hold the president accountable. This Congress has overwhelming evidence that the president has repeatedly violated the Constitution and has engaged in the kind of corruption we’ve never seen before in a president of the United States. The New York Times recently outlined at least $1.4 billion in profits that Trump has made directly from deals and pardons he has approved or initiated as president, in just his first year in office. Other analysts have tallied even higher numbers.

Yet we hear nothing from Rep. Stauber and his fellow GOP members of Congress, those same members who held investigations into whether a private citizen, named Hunter Biden, was overpaid for artwork. 

One really has to wonder. Is there a bridge too far for someone like Pete Stauber? Or will he meet every one of Trump’s offenses with just one more shrug? Does Pete Stauber have a moral compass, or is he simply guided by the worst impulses of America’s mad king?

Stauber will happily criticize Gov. Walz for his handling of the Medicaid fraud problem in Minnesota. But when President Trump pardons one fraudster after another, some who’ve been convicted of stealing more than $1 billion in Medicare and Medicaid scams, Stauber remains utterly silent. 

That collective silence from Republicans in Congress in the face of Trump’s clear and present danger says all we need to know about their fitness for their offices. November can’t come soon enough.