What would you call a country that impeached its duly elected president twice on the basis of a fictional dossier?

What would you call a country that jailed without bond dozens of protesters and held them without trial for more than two years?

What would you call a country that engaged in massive voter fraud that likely resulted in the wrong person being elected president?

What would you call a country that indicted a former president and current political candidate on the grounds of a highly dubious claim that he gave money to a porn star to keep her from talking about their relationship, which he denies?

What would you can a country in which a leader of a major political party says an arrested political candidate will get the chance to prove he is innocent – rather than and constitutional requirement that the prosecution prove he is guilty?

Sad to say, that is our country. We have become a banana republic: Bananamerica.

A banana republic is a place where the rule of law is not constitution but the strength of a particular political tyrant. Regime change comes through revolution, fighting in the streets, or outright fraud at the ballot box. The “banana” term comes from the politically incorrect fact that such countries tend to exist in places warm enough to grow banana – most of South America.

Banana republics tend to be ruled by guys in military uniforms who smoke Cuban cigars and wear several pounds of military medals on their chests. “Bananas” is a 1971 Woody Allen film that pokes fun at such republics.

Our former president doesn’t wear military outfits or smoke Cuban cigars.  He neither smokes nor drinks. But his political opponents have been trying every hairbrained scheme they can think of to eliminate him as a competitor for the White House. This latest plot – to show he paid off a porn star – would be laughable under normal conditions.  After all, would it shock anyone if it turned out a politician was messing around with a sleazy woman?

Don’t get me wrong.  I wish everyone serving in public office would live a moral life. But when you have a president who is basically an agent of the Chinese government, who has family members on the take from China, Russia, and Ukraine, and who has not exactly lived a life of upstanding morality, I find the sleazy woman allegation pale by comparison.