Finally, unless I croak, Trumpworld Begins should be published in a couple of weeks. There have been problems, naturally. The book consists of blog posts, from the period 2016 to 2018, that clearly show the chaos unfolding as the participants fumbled their way through Trump 1. As characters in this earlier drama they are almost, but not quite, as batty and inept as those in our contemporary cast.
With all the recent chaos that Trump 2 has caused, we have mostly forgotten what happened in and before the first term with the political turmoil that surrounded it. The striking thing is how much of this antecedent stuff, which was new and alarming then, we overlook. It is totally relevant still. Here are two samples from the book.
Schadenfreude and the Montana Body Slam (5/27/17)
Schadenfreude means taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. It’s a major part of the new Republican platform. Here are some recent examples:
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- Montana just elected a new US Representative, Greg Gianforte, who two days before the election threw a reporter to the ground and punched him. Republicans everywhere cheered him on and voted him in.
- HUD Secretary Ben Carson said that “poverty to a large extent is . . . a state of mind.” This from the guy who also said “slaves are immigrants.”
- Education Secretary Betsy DeVos obfuscated and refused to say that federal funds should not go to schools that discriminate against students. It’s all up to the states—and the parents.
The unfortunates always lose out in Trumpworld, where there is now license to say anything and of course put down the losers. Party leaders (if you can consider Ryan and McConnell to be leaders) have condoned this toxic behavior because they can’t control it. Every new occurrence of schadenfreude demonstrates how Trump has become the model.
The culture of Trump has created open season on journalists, and the GOP hoi polloi love it. Today we have the moron Texas governor Greg Abbott joking at a gun range about shooting reporters.
Although Donald Trump’s general approval numbers are in the toilet (39%), it is amazing that his Republican job approval numbers remain stable “in spite of all the fantastic headlines.” Republicans, by more than 80%, approve of his performance. It often seems that Trump can get away with anything.
Longtime watchers of Trump do not expect him to speak out against Gianforte or to urge his party against the politics of bellicosity.
They recalled that he fiercely defended his then-campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, when he was accused last year of grabbing a female reporter’s arm. Trump himself once said of a protester at one of his campaign rallies: “I’d like to punch him in the face.”
For his Republican fans, the experience must be energizing, like watching WWE SmackDown.
What others would call scandalous and vile behavior just doesn’t seem so to a large number of Republicans, at least not yet. The question is—as it has been for what seems like forever—when is the Trump base going to start walking away from him? Given his vicious tax and health care proposals it ought to be tomorrow. But it won’t happen until the Russian investigation bears fruit.
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Impeach Them All (9/8/2018)
I mean Pence, McConnell, Ryan et al., the whole rotten administration. El Cheeto is but the tip of the iceberg. Let the 25th Amendment speak, bringing up Trump and his cabinet in legal proceedings to incriminate each other. In a better world we could actually do this, though impeachment won’t happen unless the Dems take over both houses in November.
Whether they have the balls to do that is another question. Chuck Schumer was widely castigated for not having the Dems just walk out en masse from the Kavanaugh hearing. There, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris tried hardball tactics but ended up looking foolish and phony.
Anyhow, if you watched anything of McCain’s funeral you saw the culprits on display—Ryan, Mitch the Switch, Henry the K., all of them looking most uncomfortable being there. McConnell appears to have advanced goiter cancer; Kissinger seems to be in the final stages of decline. So I say impeach ‘em all before they croak.
This week came the big news bomb of the NY Times publishing an anonymous letter from one of these insiders. Trump screams “TREASON” but the real betrayers are the Republicans, all of whom have consistently enabled him.
Bomb number two was the Bob Woodward book, which emphatically confirms the enablement. Rick Wilson of the Daily Beast is often over the top but you can’t beat some of his metaphors. He, like Woodward, finds Trump “unable to execute the duties of a Waffle House manager much less the president of the United States.” Watching Huckabee Sanders attacking Woodward’s book was “like watching someone stick a fork into a toaster.”
And so, wondering whether multiple impeachments would be feasible, I queried Quora to find this short summary of the process:
I don’t know what would happen if a group were accused of a conspiracy to commit a crime. —Remember, impeachment is the first step. Impeachment is like a grand jury run by the House of Representatives which agrees (votes) that there is sufficient reason that the matter should be brought to trial. Second step, The Senate then meets with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding over a full blown trial to determine if the accused is guilty of the high crimes and/or misdemeanors. The Senate must convict by a 2/3 majority if the accused is guilty.
There is a more enlightening discussion of the possibility of joint impeachment here though you can imagine how it would get sorely tangled up in legal wrangling. Elizabeth Warren has come out strong for the 25th Amendment. We know she is a likely presidential candidate, but her words make sense. She told CNN:
The Constitution provides for a procedure whenever the Vice President and senior officials think the President can’t do his job. It does not provide that senior officials go around the President—take documents off his desk, write anonymous op-eds . . . . Every one of these officials have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States. It’s time for them to do their job.
There seems to be a sort of consensus that the anonymous Times writer and his cohorts in the Resistance should just step forward and resign if they are Constitutionally serious. Who then would restrain El Cheeto? Will the congressional Republicans finally begin to take on the responsibility they have so far declined? Aren’t they going to have to break with him at some point? Wistful questions with no immediate answer.
A great introduction to the book. And I still like the front cover!