Writing Trump World
I started writing essays for “Trump World” in February of 2017. When I began, it was going to be a once a week thing, essays to try to explain the new Trump Administration from the view of the “Resistance”. I saw the election of Donald Trump as an attack on the progressive changes made by the Obama administration, and on the values of human and civil rights. How wrong I was.
It’s been three years and four months. This is the eight hundredth essay in the series; it turned out that I had more than “once a week” things to say. There are over sixteen hundred people who read this daily, some get angry about what the President is doing, and some get angry about what I have to say. Some “learn things” from a different perspective than their own. It has provoked discussion, debate, and denunciation: the loss of some friends but the gain of others. And that is, I guess, what I hoped it would do.
What was I wrong about?
Making the Man
There is an “accepted” historical view, that, “the Presidency makes the man”. It is based on Harry Truman, a machine politician from Missouri who gained the Vice Presidency as a political favor. There are lots of great decisions that President Franklin Roosevelt made, but viewing his own personal mortality wasn’t one of them. For most of my life I viewed FDR as an “old man” when he died, a man who stayed too long. Now, at my own “advanced” age, I am older now than Roosevelt was when he died. Sixty-three doesn’t seem so old, especially when the two candidates for President in 2020 average out at seventy-six.
There were much more qualified Vice Presidential candidates than Harry Truman. And FDR didn’t really have much confidence in him. Truman was left out of most of the decision-making processes. So when Roosevelt died of a massive stroke, Truman was unprepared for the Presidency.
The end of World War II in Europe, the beginning of the Cold War, the use of atomic weapons: all were on Truman’s plate when he took the oath. Looking back historically, it is generally agreed that Truman rose to the challenge and became a greater President than he ever was a Senator or other office holder. The Presidency “made him”.
Flooding the Swamp
We are nearing the 2020 Presidential election. Donald Trump has been President for three years and five months, far long enough for us to have an understanding of what the Presidency has made of him. “What we see is what we get” is the phrase that comes to mind. The President said he was going to “drain the swamp”. What we didn’t know in 2016 was that the phrase meant that anyone who questioned the President’s actions would be fired, vilified, and discredited.
Mr. Trump has found the perfect tool for attacking his enemies and covering his illegal actions: the Department of Justice. William Barr, his second Attorney General, has offered up the motto of his Department: “Who Prosecutes on Behalf of Justice” (Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur) to now say “Who Stands for the President is Immune, Who Challenges the President is Prosecuted”.
We heard it again in the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, as career Justice lawyers testified coldly about politically motivated prosecutions and protections. Trump didn’t like California enforcing emissions standards on vehicles? The Justice Department began anti-trust action against the auto industry. The President’s friends get in legal trouble? The investigators are fired, and the charges are reduced or dropped. No one really thinks Roger Stone will ever spend a day in jail. Paul Manafort is already home early from his seven-year sentence. Michael Flynn is an “innocent” liar, a victim of FBI persecution.
We have watched the President fire the “watchdogs,” the Inspector Generals who have dared to criticize the actions of the President and his men. Those charged with overseeing the Intelligence Community, the Transportation Department, the Defense Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the State Department all were removed after questioned politically motivated actions (CBS).
Wrong
The reality of the COVID pandemic interferes with the President’s election strategy? Then ignore the disease, and carry on life as if there was no risk. The Centers for Disease Control says wear masks and socially distance: the President holds packed rallies (at least one) and openly refuses to wear one. He denies the truth of the present, and hopes his lies will lead him to control the future.
I was wrong. Trump is far worse than I thought possible back in the early days of 2017. It’s all in plain sight, unlike Nixon and Watergate; there is no attempt to cover-up. Instead, we get it put to us directly. Russia, if you’re listening, please counterfeit mail-in ballots for this November. China, please buy more American soybeans so Trump can be re-elected. Poland, please kowtow to Mr. Trump, and he will move twenty thousand troops to you from Germany. Angela Merkel won’t come to the US for a G-7 meeting: she must be punished.
Richard Nixon once told interviewer David Frost: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal” (Teaching). That statement shocked many, but it fit with Nixon’s actions as President. William Barr, the man today charged with enforcing the laws of the United States, believes that as well. So Mr. Trump, and Mr. Barr, with the tacit acceptance of the Republican Party, abuse their authority and commit criminal acts.
And they do it all in plain sight.
