End of an Era?

I feel increasingly confident that the Donald Trump presidency is done for. 

 I know, I know…many people were sure he wouldn’t be elected in the first place, and yet here we are. But things are different now in a couple of ways. In 2016, a lot of voters thought, “Well, I wonder what it would be like to have a selfish and ignorant bigot in the White House. How bad could it be?”

 Now we know. Those of us who have survived so far understand just how bad it can be. And, frankly, it may be far worse by November.

 So, I think Donald is a dead duck. On top of his disastrous responses to the pandemic and to the Black Lives Matter movement, there is his apparent inability to change. He proudly relies on his instincts which, surprise, surprise, are telling him to spew out idiotic tweets ranging from the mendacious to the inane. But fewer and fewer people believe anything he says. Backing up the tweet-rants are the usual rallies, now enhanced by their Covid-spreading effects. He is incapable of not being who he has always been and this, I believe, will spell his doom.

 But let’s not forget that the horrors of this presidency were made possible by the complicity of all too many Republican senators. He could not have wrecked the country as he has without the cooperation of Mitch McConnell and company. 

 It will be interesting to see how a future McConnell will try to excuse his support for Trump’s catastrophic and unpatriotic policies. I suppose he could go with the classic “politics ain’t beanbag” defense. For example, he might say, in his low-key, I’m-a-sober-serious-dude voice, “Well, sometimes you have to break eggs to make omelets. Like, if I want Trump to help me suppress voters and funnel more sex offenders onto the Supreme Court, I may have to help him with the jobs Putin has assigned to him.”

 

The 1950s gave us McCarthyism, maybe the late 2010s will be known as the age of McConnellism. 

 How, in the years to come, will McConnell's senator colleagues justify their enabling of Trump's destructive and unpatriotic behavior? Maybe like this: “People may say I’m selfish and corrupt, but…look over there everybody, red velvet cupcakes!”

One of the most disturbing aspects of Trump’s White House tenure is the very fact that he managed to occupy this honored office at all. So now his occupancy will have to be officially memorialized. His portrait will adorn the White House wall. 

 But what will this portrait look like? I propose that we demand Congress make future presidential portraits subject to popular vote. Particularly now, we, the victims of Trump’s presidency, should have the right to decide how he will be officially remembered. In line with this proposal, I hereby offer you an opportunity to vote on your preferred Donald Trump official portrait composition. Please select A, B, C, D, or E below:

                             A

                             B

                             C

                             D

                             E

And, oh yeah, don't forget to vote.

Bozo the Conman Strikes Again

As usual, craziness comes spewing out of the Oval Office at such a pace that you gotta struggle to keep up with it. A few days ago, it was reported that one of Trump’s overheard conversations with a foreign leader aroused serious and urgent concern in a White House intelligence staffer about national security. Trump’s response to this news was a series of tweets (of course) that included this:

“…is anybody dumb enough to believe that I would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a potentially ‘heavily populated’ call.”

This was obviously the wrong question to ask. The correct question would be:

“Am I, Donald J. Trump, dumb enough to say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on a ‘heavily populated’ call?”

The answer is YES! Definitely YES! A thousand times YES! YES! YES!

But, in the constant swirl of disturbing news that is Trump’s trademark, we now find that it wasn’t stupidity underlying Trump’s allegedly inappropriate call; it was that other Trumpian trademark: corruption.

Not all of the news around the phone call has been verified, but here’s what seems to have happened based on the Washington Post’s initial report and follow-ups by the New York Times and other media: Trump contacted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky several times over this past summer in an effort to get him to help turn up dirt on Joe Biden or the Biden family. Trump’s sudden and unexpected threat to suspend military aid to the Ukrainians – aid which had been allocated to help them defend themselves against Putin’s brutal invasion – was apparently the leverage our esteemed president was using to get cooperation from Zelensky. In other words, Trump’s communications with the Ukrainian president seems to have been along these lines: “Well, Zelensky, nice little country you have there. It would be a shame if you were invaded by the Russians and you didn’t have the weapons you need to defend yourself. By the way, I’m looking for help in digging up dirt on my political opponents. What are your thoughts?”

Admittedly we don’t have all the facts of the case yet since, as usual, Trump and his lackeys in the so-called Justice Department are blocking access to those facts. So, it could turn out that Trump was not at all engaged in sleazy, thuggish, and unpatriotic behavior. If that winds up being the case, I will hasten to tweet an apology. I do not expect such an apology is going to be necessary.

 Is anybody dumb enough to believe that I could get thrown in jail for cheating on my taxes???

What's That Smell?

On November 28, 2016, shortly after that year’s disastrous election, I wrote that those who believed Donald Trump could be transmogrified into an honest and worthy public servant by the dignity of the Oval Office were surely mistaken. I predicted that “our beloved White House, this architectural emblem of American democracy, this former residence of Abraham Lincoln, this site where Franklin Roosevelt hosted Winston Churchill as they worked out their strategy for victory in World War II, this elegant mansion -- will, for the next few years, be filled with a skunkish stink.”

And all I can say now is “Pee-yoo!”

I expected that Trump presidency to be Horrible, Horrible, Horrible. But it turns out I underestimated its Horribleness. Not even I thought Trump was such a pathetic jerk that he would rob from his so-called “charity” to pay his son’s seven-dollar Boy Scout dues. Good God. A small token gesture with a powerfully putrid implication.

So, is American democracy doomed because of Trump? Certainly, many of our European allies have worries along those lines, as was revealed this week by the hacked emails of EU diplomats. Among their concerns is Trump’s negative attitude toward Europe’s democracies (but not toward Putin!), an attitude which “had created a lot of insecurity.”

But maybe our democracy will survive Trump after all. I say this because of the comments of Judge Emmet Sullivan in what was supposed to be Michael Flynn’s sentencing hearing yesterday. Though Fox News hosts were drooling all day Monday over the possibility that the Reagan-appointed judge would toss out the charges against Flynn or otherwise throw shade on Robert Mueller, nothing of the sort happened. Instead Judge Sullivan spent almost two hours berating Flynn for the lack of patriotism and the tawdry character that his actions revealed. General Flynn served on the Trump election team – he was the one who led the “Lock her up!” chants against Clinton at the GOP convention – and later was appointed by Donald Trump as the National Security Advisor. Yes, this dishonest, self-serving man is the individual Trump appointed to oversee our national security, mainly, it seems, because the general hated Hillary Clinton and openly admired Donald Trump

Now that every organization associated with Trump is under investigation, it is heartening to know that there are people like Judge Sullivan who believe our democracy and its key institutions are worth preserving. Certainly, the people running Fox News don’t believe this and neither do Mitch McConnell and other members of the Republican leadership. They know Trump is a crook, but he’s a crook that can benefit them, so he gets a pass. 

My friend Jonathan put it thus in a recent email:

“As for the Republicans in Congress and for those in his administration. They are like hordes of great blood filled deer ticks on an aging moose. They are getting what they need from their host — tax cuts, deregulation, judges, lower immigration — and are just along for the ride. They will hop off when the moose falls and wait for the next large ungulate to come along.”

Well said, Jonathan: cogent, vivid, and true.

So the stench of corruption wafts from the White House to the GOP leadership and throughout the offices of the Fox “News” corporation. But, the good news is that if we can continue to count on key officials who believe in our democracy and the rule of law, officials like Robert Mueller and Judge Sullivan, our democracy should survive. In that case, maybe we will be all right after all.

Inshallah.

                              Judge Emmet G. Sullivan