Both Louisiana's U.S. senators are White Republican men with Irish surnames, which seems faintly anachronistic in the age of diversity.
John Kennedy and Bill Cassidy do not always think alike, however.
Kennedy's loyalty to former President Donald Trump puts him, along with most of his party colleagues, in the sycophant class. Cassidy was among the seven GOP senators who broke ranks to join Democrats in casting forlorn votes to convict Trump following his impeachment trial for inciting the riot at the U.S. Capitol that threatened to thwart the vote count confirming Joe Biden's election as president.
Cassidy's latest lese majeste is to call on Trump not to run against Biden in the upcoming presidential election because polls say he would lose again.
Trump will be deaf to any such entreaty, for he probably thinks he can beat Biden this time. Indeed, lots of his supporters believe he beat Biden last time, and it may even be that Trump believes his own lies, repeated ad nauseam, to the effect that the election was stolen from him. It is hard to gauge a narcissist's capacity for self-deception.
What we do know, however, is that the Trump faction has managed to undermine public confidence in American elections just when voters are faced with a choice between two candidates that no sane observer could wish to see in the White House. Maybe it is not too late for one or both of the parties to come up with a better option, but it seems right now that Biden and Trump are set on a rematch. Since each of them has already completed one presidential term, it is not for want of experience that voters are faced with such a dismal decision.
Rather the opposite, in fact. Trump, at 77, is inexperienced only by comparison with Biden, who will, if he wins the election, be 82 by the time he begins his second term.
Partisans presumably do not see the decision as a dismal one. Trump fans regard the growing heap of indictments as vindication — evidence of a witch hunt directed at their messiah — while Democrats may figure they just need to repeat the winning formula from four years ago.
If advancing years could be seen as a drawback for both candidates, Trump — though he is the only one facing criminal charges — is not alone in his inability to quell doubts about his personal integrity. Republicans allege that a laptop left at a repair shop by Biden's errant son Hunter contains evidence of presidential involvement in Ukrainian corruption. Hunter Biden has prospered out of all proportion to his abilities or knowledge of the energy industry, where he made most of his fortune, but if he really abandoned a laptop containing all that allegedly incriminating evidence, he is too reckless or stupid to be anywhere near the seat of power.
For opining that Trump deserved impeachment, Cassidy committed the unpardonable sin of telling an indisputable but unpalatable truth. He was duly censured by the state party.
Trump faces 91 counts in four separate state and federal indictments, but his habit of squirreling away classified documents at his Florida hideaway is practically a “slam dunk” for prosecutors, according to Cassidy. For his loyalists, meanwhile, even a conviction, or multiple convictions, will be just another put-up job.
Trump always seems to enjoy the luck of the Irish.
Email James Gill at gill504nola@gmail.com.