#antiAmerican | #WhatTheyVotedFor
Click because freedom can die.
Trump believes he can do whatever he wants.
What seems striking about that is the degree to which people around the president are not only unable to explain the situation to him, but are also utterly incapable of preventing Mr. Trump from harming himself, the White House, and the executive branch alike. Donald Trump is not competent to serve as president, and members of his administration are unable to protect the nation and world from his dangerous instability.
Americans, presently, seem even more caught up in their not even ephemeral, but, rather, click and swipe tumble through vapid expectation, than ever. As a market circumstance this is what it is, but its living effect is, generally, a curiosity in the moment because some days it seems like there are Trump's open supporters, Congressional Republicans, with the effect that Trump's base is unshakeably committed, everyone else knows how this goes, and Congressional Republicans are as reluctant as Republicans ever are to move forward and do the right thing.
But it's true, we all know this ends in an ugly pardonfest that diminishes the White House for a generation at least, especially since these are Republicans and conservatives we're talking about, and the routine by which the GOP lies and bawls and complains until they get what they want and then complain about getting what they want and blaming Democrats still actually works. Donald Trump will leave office with 25-33% approval, but somewhere between 40-45% of the public will complain of judgmental elitist Democrats driving an elected president from office, even if the lever is Articles drafted and approved in the Republican-led House, and facing trial in the Republican-led Senate.
It almost sounds like a pretty good gamble, but the problem is the damage done if they win out, because the way it usually works is that Republican sins become the basis for Republican complaints intended as stumbling blocks for political opposition, and significant portions of the nation reward this behavior over and over again. Consider, for instance, the question of what happens if President Trump fires Special Counsel Robert Mueller; the only reason we face that prospect is Republicans. No, really. They sicced a tobacco lobbyist on President Bill Clinton, running down every half-wit conspiracy theory they could find as if it was true, largely thanks to the specific character assasination squad, called Project Arkansas, financed by right-wing newspaper publisher Richard Scaife. And while it is true that part of what Bill Clinton's disgrace gets us is strong initiative against aspects of male chauvinist privilege by which, as sick as such statements read, Bill Clinton's raping behavior over the course of decades was not viewed by empowered society as rape, the grotesque truth of the matter is that American society would not make such a stand for the sake of our wives or daughters, for our mothers or sisters, for the sake of human rights and human decency—we did it by accident, as an unintended ramification of wanting to take a piece out of a Democrat.
It's an incredible historical legacy; twenty years later, we elected a boasting sexual assailant, and as everyone argues over voter frustration we ought not be surprised to find that among men Mr. Trump's election can be seen as a culmination of two decades spent complaining about what's wrong with women and how unfair it is that the rules keep changing.
Oh, right. Special counsel. So, President George W. Bush leads the nation to war for false pretense, and Republicans, controlling the House, saw the law empowering congressional appointment of a special prosecutor expire on the grounds that the American people were tired of special investigations.
And that's why we have the question of what happens if Donald Trump fires Robert Mueller, because Republicans wanted to one-time a Democratic president without any regard for history or future. And after a bunch of men stood up and denounced President Clinton's predatory sexual behavior, it might seem utterly stupid to say but it is actually true they are now pissed off that society took them up on the proposition and settled the question that such predatory sexual behavior is in fact inappropriate.
In a quarter-century, what will our discourse about presidential prerogative actually look and sound like?
Donald Trump is wrecking the presidency; when he is finished, Republicans will hold up the evidence that government just does not and simply cannot work, and, yeah, forty percent of voters will accept that argument.
Ironically, the longer Speaker Ryan waits to do his damn job, the less time Republicans will have to paper over the holes in the walls and try to pass a legislative agenda.
Then again, given the quality of work we've seen from Congressional Republicans on health care, it's likely even Republicans understand that governing best by governing least is generally a safety standard when they are in charge.
And, yes, recalling Zippergate seems silly in a certain way, but as a generic proposition: Break a bunch of stuff, get one intimation of a whiff of a rumor of a silver lining out of it, and see that ptential become the impetus for breaking shit all over again.
The Constitution of the United States of America relies, to a certain degree, on good faith, and I suppose we can thank George Fox for that; it works well enough, even in times of dire distress or duress, as long as everyone plays their part in good faith. Republicans have been working in such a manner as to continually assail and vandalize good faith, for
decades, and this is the result.
But, yeah, the black man didn't wreck the place, so they'll have the white supremacist do it. They bawled that the woman would wreck the place, but sent a sex predator to wreck the place because wrecking the place is what they always want.
It's a weird now-more-than-everism, but they feel desperate. One of the reasons our political spectrum looks so strange to so many people around the world is that it isn't really liberal and conservative; rather, it is an interest coalition attempting to attend civilized society, and an interest coalition that wants to call the whole thing off.
We all know this ends with a nasty heap of pardons, so, really, Republicans at this point are just enabling Trump's destruction of American prestige, good faith, and governance. The President of the United States is still doing Vladimir Putin's work. That horrid roundabout on sexual exploitation is, unfortunately, instructive; we are about to run the basic proposition of a United States government through a similar reckoning.
President Donald Trump has just disqualified himself from office; he has sworn to uphold the Constitution, but pardoned a direct attack against it. Whatever else we might hold up to disqualify him, the pardon of Joe Arpaio is President Trump's formal abnegation of his oath of office.
And then the world endured a victory won against an insane man and his cohorts; but once the war was done, blind fear prevailed, and years of darkness came—freedom was nailed. We become the enemy when freedom dies for security. We let our freedom die; we let it wane. We feared an enemy atomic rain. But what was on our minds, what we became: We and the enemy, we are the same. We become the enemy when freedom dies for security.
