Biden's chief of staff Ron Klain with a promise to practice independent justice combined with a puzzling pretense that the Republican Party is not an intransigent loony bin

Biden's Chief of Staff Ron Klain was on TV with George Stephanopoulos yesterday, 'This Week' Transcript 11-22-20.

Klain said that Trump's clown coup was "corrosive" and "harmful." He noted that Trump "has definitely set back the democratic norm here in the United States. He's been doing that for four years, and that's ramped up since the election."

Jamming the Republican candidates in the two Senate elections in Georgia about refusing to denounce Trump's very current attack on democracy? Endorse the quote from conservative Republican vulture capitalist Sen. Mitt Romney that Stephanopoulos had just quoted to him ("It is difficult to imagine a worse, more undemocratic action by a sitting American president")?

Well, not exactly. Klain continues:

We know we have to reach out to Republicans. We know we have to bring the country together. In fact, that's been the entire essence of Joe Biden’s campaign for the presidency, trying to heal this nation, repair its soul, restore its backbone, unite the country, and uniting the country is what he's doing.

Look. Look at what he did this past week, George. He met with business and labor leaders together to talk about fixing the economy. Military leaders who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations to talk about our national security future, and then he met with governors, both Democrats and Republicans, including some conservative Republican governors to talk about the urgent needs of fighting COVID.

So he's doing his job of bringing the country together. [my emphasis]

I know that brunch liberals are already receding into their normal routine of trashing anyone who suggests that Biden might need to take his own agenda seriously and fight for his own side and his own political program for which he just won a historical electoral mandate.

But the Republican President is refusing to concede the election he lost to Joe Biden by a popular vote margin now approaching seven million. Most Republican Senators and House Members are refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of his election. Mitch McConnell has not only been blocking a new COVID/economic-relief package, he's sent the Senate home. And there's this, Trump team to yank emergency economic support, triggering public Fed dissent (Victoria Guida, Politico 11/19/2020).

The QAnon Republican Party will only interpret continuing bipartisan rhetorical gestures like this from Biden's team at this juncture as weakness and feel even more impowering to apply an even more obstructionist than they are already showing they are and intend to continue being. They need to change that message and push Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to do the same. And, yes, they can keep on with aspirational talk about bringing the country together. But pretending that they achieving Bipartisan harmony with a Republican Party acting like this is a bad idea.

As Dave Neiwert wrote in Alt-America (2017), "There's really no point in trying to reach out to people who will only return your hand as a bloody stump."

And it's fine to praise Mitt Romney for doing the bare minimum his job and his oath as a Senator requires to respect Constitutional elections.

But if they are serious about getting a Democratic legislative program passed, they need to be connecting Trumpism and its contempt for democracy and the Constitution to the two Georgia Senate Republican candidates every day and doing it at all levels.

Klain did manage to say, "I think it's a shame Secretary Mnuchin did what he did with regard to these unexpended relief funds that were made available by the Congress and, you know, worked through the Federal Reserve, but I think that, you know, it obviously raises the challenges that we're going to face when we take over on January 20th." But his comments about the Georgia Senate races came off as less than a cry of urgency:

So, it's very, very important to win those seats. The thing -- the reality, of course, George, is that even if we win them both, and I think we will win them both -- I think both candidates are doing a great job. We're going to have a closely divided Senate kind of under any scenario. And I think one challenge that the president-elect has taken on is trying to work with members of both parties to build consensus for actions on things like economic relief, like climate change, like dealing with our other crises, our racism crisis, the challenge of fixing our immigration laws and, of course, obviously, fighting COVID. [NOTE: the only racism crisis that the Trumpistas recognize is that African-Americans are protesting against police murdering them for no good reason.]

So we're going to have a closely divided Senate. Whatever happens in Georgia. Obviously we want to win those seats. I really want to see Chuck Schumer be the next majority leader in the U.S. Senate. I think he and the president-elect have a great relationship. But -- I know they have a great relationship. And -- but however that comes out, we are going to deliver for the American people. And that's the mission.

Look, I think that voters sent a clear sign in 2020, and the sign they sent was, they want to see things get done. They want action on COVID, the economy, climate, health care, bringing down health care costs. They want to see action on all of that. We're going to deal with whatever lineup we're faced with in Washington to get that done. And it would be better if that lineup was a Democratic Senate. But if, unfortunately -- and I think -- I don't think this will happen, but if we were to lose those seats in Georgia, we're going to move forward with whatever Senate gets elected. [my emphasis in bold]

No effort there to tie Trump and his Administration's outrageous misconduct and contempt for democracy to the two Republican candidates.

But I can't fault Klain's answer to the question of legal accountability for members of the Trump-Pence Administration who committed serious crimes while in office:;

Well, let's be clear, George, the president-elect spoke about this many times during the campaign. And what he made it clear is that Joe Biden is not going to tell the Justice Department who to investigate or who not to investigate. That's who we saw the past four years, the president tampering with the Justice Department, egging on investigations so on and so forth. He's going to pick an excellent attorney general, an independent Justice Department, and that department will make decisions independently, free of politics, free of political favor in either direction as to how to enforce the laws.

That's the way it should be. That's the way it's always been. That's the way it needs to be if we're going to have the kind of rule of law that's so important in our country.

But the criminality in this administration has been so serious and so blatant, much of it formally documented in Congressional investigations, that if there are no criminal prosecutions, that will be only because Biden signals clearly to his Attorney General that he wants him/her to suppress such investigations and prosecutions. And that will be a serious departure from the rule of law and the commitments like the one just quoted that he and his team have made. And it will strengthen the already destructive precedent set by the Obama-Biden Administration that Republican officials should enjoy impunity from prosecution for serious crimes committed while in office.

The brunch liberals will routinely defend such a result as they-go-low-we-go-high decorum. But the Republicans across the board will take that as not only a sign of weakness but across-the-board surrender. And they will act accordingly. Going low is pretty much their entire game plan.