"The President"

It galls me when journalists refer to Trump as “the president.” I don’t hold it against the journalists; I understand protocol requires it of them, but it still galls me. I would feel the same way to hear Ted Bundy referred to as “the gentleman,” as in “The gentleman invited the young woman to go for a walk.”

 It’s disconcertingly wrong.

 Reporters have been referring to “the president” quite a lot lately because Trump has been careening between stupefied inaction and inflammatory provocation as he glares impotently at our three crises: the coronavirus pandemic, the economic collapse, and the righteous anger against racist police brutality.

 We desperately need moral and competent leadership now, but what we’re getting is “the president” thrashing recklessly about trying with all his might to figure out how to get re-elected. His latest gesture was a bizarre attempt to portray himself as a strong, in-control leader and devout Christian by siccing law enforcement personnel on peaceful  protestors, driving them off so he could saunter over to a church and hold up a bible for a photo-op. I don’t believe I’m the only one who noticed that he handled the bible awkwardly, the way a Neanderthal might handle an iPad.

 If only he had read “Two Corinthians,” he might have better understood how genuine Christians treat the embodied scripture.

 There are so many important things about America that “the president” doesn’t understand. We have a constitution. It guarantees the right of citizens to peaceably assemble. It relies on a free press to make transparent the actions of the government. It has suffered the bleeding wound of racial prejudice for over 400 years and has seen good people struggling tirelessly to heal that wound.

 On this last point, we can’t forget that “the president” himself has contributed to racial hatred. Most of us remember him including white supremacists in his reference to “very fine people” in Charlottesville back in 2017. Fewer, perhaps, remember that John McCain withdrew his endorsement of Trump in 2016 because of Trump’s racist claim that the Central Park Five were guilty, even though their sentences had been overturned. And on and on.

 The cruel and horrific murder of George Floyd was the trigger that provoked nationwide protests against the routine brutality inflicted by racist police on African-Americans. Seeing Mr. Floyd’s family members on television speaking tearfully about the love they have for their murdered kinsman has brought many of us - ordinary people endowed with a capacity for empathy - to tears. 

 But what about “the president?” Not only does he seem unconcerned about Mr. Floyd’s death, he acts as though the real death he seeks is that of American democracy, with its bothersome constitution, free press, and contested elections. 

 What we long for today is a leader in the White House who understands and sympathizes with George Floyd and the multitude of other victims of racist brutality, a leader who represents our nation with dignity, and who wants to preserve, not kill, our democratic institutions.

 “The president” is not that leader.

What Makes a President Unfit for the Office?

Last Monday, Senator Elizabeth Warren declared her candidacy for the presidency, and Donald Trump responded in a characteristically crude and vulgar manner. During a Fox interview he was asked about running against her and he responded, “We’ll see how she does. I wish her well, I hope she does well, I’d love to run against her.” Then, when asked if he thought she could beat him, Trump answered, “Well, that I don’t know. You’d have to ask her psychiatrist.”

 I wonder if Senator Warren might want to launch her candidacy by saying something like this: “Won’t it be nice when the White House is no longer occupied by a childish vulgarian?”

 It’s clear that the presidency hasn’t changed Trump. He’s still childish and still as vulgar as ever. He entered the Oval Office by indulging in infantile name-calling and schoolyard taunts, and now, two years later, he still prefers infantile blather to intelligent debate. 

 Some people would say his crude and vulgar ways make him unfit for the presidency, and I would agree with these people. But I would not agree that his adolescent mindset is his greatest flaw. (And, by the way, I don’t mean to insult adolescents in general here, so apologies to those of them who do not habitually sink to the level of Donald Trump in their discourse.)

 So, what is Trump’s greatest flaw? For me it’s his contempt for democracy.

 And, truth be told, identifying Trump’s greatest flaw, the one that, above all, makes him unfit to be president, is not that easy. There is so much to consider. You have his crookedness, his pathological lying, his preposterous, self-aggrandizing narcissism, his profound ignorance of American history and government, and his grotesque and disgusting bigotry and misogyny. Any one of these make him unqualified to be president; but the one that gives me the greatest pause is the way he seems to have no interest in promoting or defending democracy.

 The essence of democracy is justice; ideally, a democratic society relies on its institutions to determine who deserves what and makes it possible for every voice to be heard as rewards and punishments are meted out. Of course, we are not and have never been a perfectly democratic society. You could even say that since the 1980s we have grown gradually less democratic as conservative and libertarian politicians have handed over more and more power to the wealthy. But we are still largely democratic, and, unlike Donald Trump, I believe it is worthwhile to carry on the struggle to be more so.

 Trump wants people to be rewarded not in return for what they have to offer society, but on the basis of how much they support or suck up to him. If you are on his side, you are the best. If you criticize him, you are failing, talentless, fake, crooked, clueless or burdened with some other terrible trait that he will try to capture in a puerile nickname.

 One of his favorite targets is the free press. Most Americans believe in the importance of an independent press. But Trump calls media sources that don’t suck up to him (as Fox News routinely does) fake and, in some cases, he speculates about possibly using the law to silence media critics. Recently he tweeted that Saturday Night Live was a “Democrat spin machine” and said its satirical comedy should be tested in court, suggesting it “can’t be legal.” And, as is well known, he routinely denigrates The Washington Post and other non-suck-up news sources, even going so far as to try to kick CNN reporter Jim Acosta permanently out of the White House. And he infamously referred to the media as the enemy of the people.

 It isn’t just the independent media Trump despises. Whenever a court decision goes against him, he is likely to attack the courts or the specific judge making the unwelcome decision. And his newly appointed Acting Attorney General has pointedly argued that the Judicial Branch of our federal government is inferior to the Executive and Legislative Branches.

 No, that is not what the Constitution says.

 One of Trump’s most disturbing undemocratic tendencies is his habit of insulting and otherwise alienating our most crucial allies. He seems to have no awareness of just how vital the alliance of democracies has been in stabilizing the international order and promoting peace and the prosperity that comes with free trade.

 Worst of all is his admiration for international thugs and tyrants like Kim Jong Un (“He wrote beautiful letters and we fell in love” says Trump), Saudi Arabia’s Mohammad Bin Salman (the man behind the murder of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi), and, of course, Vladimir Putin.

 What is behind Trump’s endless series of compliments for Vladimir Putin, the thuggish Russian dictator who routinely murders his critics and whose heavy-handed interference in our 2016 and 2018 elections has been proven by our intelligence agencies? Trump’s response to Putin's attack on American democracy has been to flatter and kowtow to the Russian tyrant. For starters, he makes it a point to call Putin and congratulate him on his electoral victory last year (a victory that was leveraged by Putin’s control of the Russian press and his assassination of rivals). On top of this, Trump regularly dismisses what our own CIA and other intelligence agencies have established about Russia’s malevolent interference in our elections and accepts Putin’s word when this world-class scoundrel and liar (I mean Putin here, not Trump) claims to be innocent: “I believe that President Putin really feels, and he feels strongly, that he did not meddle in our election,” says Trump.

 Good God. I do not believe we have ever had a president more contemptuous of democracy or of the American institutions that make our democracy possible than Donald Trump. And I’m old enough to remember the villainy of the Nixon White House.

 So, feel free to make your own argument about what is the one quality that makes Trump most unfit to be president. Yes, there is his childish crudeness, his bigotry, his misogyny, his pathological lying, his narcissism, his ignorance and his all-around corruption, but for my money, his most damning failure is his failure to respect and defend democracy.

 

 The Goddess of Democracy - Statue at the University of British Columbia - based on the original 民主女神constructed in 1989 by China's pro-democracy protestors

No Collusion! Well, Maybe a Little Collusion, But Hardly Any

“No collusion! No collusion!” 

Like a deranged parrot, Trump kept repeating these words from his Mar-a-Lago lair last Wednesday – even when nobody was accusing him of collusion with the Russians.
 

Trump’s claim of “No collusion” is bullshit, of course, because we know there was some collusion - Jared and Don Jr. met with the Russians in Trump Tower, for one thing. Then Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, Rick Gates, and George Papadopoulos have all been accused of dirty dealings involving Russians, and most of these folks have pleaded guilty to one crime or another.

It may be that the Trump team’s collusion does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense. So, if Mr. Trump wants to stick to the facts (bwaahahahaha!), what he should be incessantly repeating is “Not very much collusion!” That at least might possibly be true.

I have a theory about why Trump sucks up to Putin so much and keeps going soft on the Russians even though they have clearly messed with our election. I think he is financially in over his head with Putin and other Russian oligarchs. He probably owes them wagon-loads of money and he doesn’t want us to know about this. But we will know, because Special Counsel Robert Mueller is plowing relentlessly ahead, and eventually he will, I believe, reveal all the Trump organization’s ties to the Russian thugs before he is done.

When that happens, I expect Trump will loudly crow, “See? These are just some innocent cash transactions between friends. No collusion!”

If this is what we end up with, Trump will probably get a reprimand, but no impeachment. And, of course, some of his associates, and maybe even a family member or two, will get jail sentences. These may never be served since Trump will undoubtedly pardon everyone he possibly can (i.e., those charged strictly with federal rather than state-level crimes).

I believe this outcome will damage Trump’s standing with the voting public and may well mean that the Blue Wave that is predicted for the upcoming elections, will turn into a Blue Tsunami.

Even if Trump is shown to have sucked up to America’s Russian enemies, he won’t be impeached and removed from office because there are 30 or 40 Republicans in the Senate who care more about holding onto power than defending America. With a few notable exceptions, like Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse, Congressional Republicans have sold their souls to Trump and his deluded base.

Honestly, the way people like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell coyly cuddle up to Trump is similar to the way Trump cuddles up to Putin. And let’s not forget Mike Pence, who spends most of his time smirking contentedly in the background, dreaming of his turn in the White House - as Trump systematically undermines the FBI and the Justice Department.

What has made the Trump disaster possible is Fox News. As Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post wrote recently, Nixon was forced out of office for his illegal acts, but Trump may not suffer this fate simply because he has Fox News backing him up.

According to Sullivan, Fox News, and in particular, Sean Hannity, have been “softening the ground” for Trump, by portraying the FBI and the Justice Department as the bad guys. And, she writes, the message is sinking in: “In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, three of four Republicans said they believed the Justice Department and the FBI are actively working to undermine Trump.”

Chew on that for a minute. A large majority of Republicans believe that the FBI, which, of course, is led by Trump-appointed Republicans, is trying to undermine American democracy.

Thanks, Fox News.

Fox is so outrageously irresponsible, that even when it was revealed that Sean Hannity shared an attorney with Donald Trump, he received no reprimand. Contrast this with the firing of Dan Rather by CBS, and the demotion of Brian Williams by NBC for much lesser errors of judgment.

Watching various Fox programs these past few weeks has given me a little insight into their line of propaganda. For one thing, their so-called “reporters” routinely refer to Democrats, the Left, the media, the establishment, the swamp, and what they imagine to be “the Deep State” interchangeably, as though all these entities were one and the same thing. And, in the paranoid nightmarish landscape they strive to conjure up, all are out to get the competent and morally worthy Donald Trump.

I’ve never been a fan of Fox News, but my sense of revulsion over what they represent has reached new depths this year. What they are doing is to make the ideal of a free press seem ridiculous. This is also what authoritarians want us to believe. If a gaggle of shameless hucksters can convince millions of gullible television viewers that Robert Mueller and the FBI are evil, while Donald Trump is good, how can a free press be embraced as a democratic ideal?

Of course, I still very much believe in a free press. I just wish the viewing public were better at distinguishing honest, responsible reporting from partisan propaganda and preposterous lies.

In the meantime, Mr. Mueller, please carry on. Most Americans who are not Republicans believe in what you are doing and look forward to your findings. As far as I’m concerned (I can’t speak for most Americans on this point), I expect that what you find will make Mr. Trump and his people look pretty rancid. And chances are this will hurt the GOP both in the long run and in the upcoming midterm elections, even if it turns out that there was “hardly any collusion.”