Because He Can

Maybe you’ve heard this joke, which, out of respect for readers, I’ll tidy up: Why do dogs lick their dangly parts? Answer: Because they can.

It perfectly describes Trump’s every action: He does what he does not only because he can, but, metaphorically, also that other thing. Paradoxically, there’s not a lick of forethought or coherence evident in any of it.

At last, in his attention-needy, approval-deficient life, he can do whatever he wants, to whomever and whatever he chooses. It’s nearly absolute power, granted not by voters, a majority of whom disagree with almost everything he’s done, and certainly not the Constitution, but by craven Republican Congress-dwellers and a cynically selected, ideologically predictable, Constitution-rewriting Supreme Court.

We’ve just returned from New York City, where our niece is a tenured professor of immunology at NYU. She runs an internationally recognized lab in which she’s made far-reaching, health-related discoveries. Back when our government recognized the value of science and the importance of the US leading the world, she had several post-doctoral fellows working with her. Now, due to Trump’s funding cuts and punitive immigration flexes, including charging outrageous prices for H-1 visas, because he can, she has only one. To another, whom she described as a “dream candidate,” she offered a job, only to have him choose a better future in China.

Another applicant she’d have loved to hire decided to stay in China. Trump’s no-sightedness harms America’s status in the world, which, if sanity ever returns to governance, will take years to restore. He doesn’t care. Because he can’t.

Because he could, this narcissistic man-child tore down a third of the White House, to be replaced with a grandiose monstrosity of a ballroom which will dwarf the People’s House, making permanent his embarrassing presence there. Because he lies, we should assume his promise not to name it after himself is false. The destruction, which he’d said wouldn’t happen, was completed before permits or final plans, much less authorization by the National Capital Planning Commission, members of which, along with members of the Commission on Fine Arts, he replaced with sycophantic allies. Why? To ensure approval of his ballroom and self-referential Triumphal Arch. And because he can.

Last week, Trump’s Department of Definitely-not-Peace awarded a huge contract to the drone manufacturer “Unusual Machines.” Heard of it? Don Junior has, because he’s an “adviser” to the company (cf: Burisma/Hunter/outrage/Congressional investigations/impeachment threats) and owns millions of dollars of stock in it, the value of which spiked after the deal was announced. It’s astounding, definitional conflict of interest and self-dealing, which Trump knows he needn’t hide. Likewise, his pardon of Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, the crypto giant helping Trump, et spawn, enrich themselves while robbing vulnerable MAGAs with their bitcoin scams. He’ll get away with it. Because, between his prostrate hirelings and cowardly Congress, he can.

We’ve also learned that, so desperate was he to demonstrate unchallenged omnipotence, by sending people, illegally, to an inhumane El Salvadorian gulag, he sacrificed several MS-13 informants in return for its President Bukele agreeing to incarcerate his victims. Murdering claimed but unproven drug-runners on international waters is in the same category of illegality and inhumanity.

Commanding an unprincipled Attorney General, Trump got former Special Counsel Jack Smith indicted. Unlike the previously listed transgressions, this one could become amusing. Congressmen Gym Jordan and James Comey have demanded that Smith appear before their Overlooking-Trump Committees. Asking only that the hearings be public, Smith has agreed. Will they let voters see what he had on Trump?

Taking another lick at authoritarianism: Sending “election monitors” to blue states, homes of proven fraud-free elections. The clear purpose is to justify his perseverating, pathological election lies.

Because our Trump-owned Congress will do whatever he demands, they handed ICE more taxpayer money than the FBI and CIA combined, so Trump can have a personal, Constitution-ignoring army. So wanton is their resulting hiring spree, they’ve selected people with criminal histories, including drug use, robbery, and battery. Which, seeing ICE brutality, are probably attractive qualities. Additionally, they’ve been given tools banned from government by President Joe Biden, re-allowed by Trump, to spy on any and all citizens. He can do that, too, unimpeded.

There’s more, of course. It’s reported he’s demanding the DOJ pay him $230 million in taxpayer (your) money as restitution for the indignity of being properly tried and rightfully convicted of multiple felonies, including sexual assault. Ever the defender of Biblical virtue, Holy Mike Johnson, wholly pliant, doesn’t object. Trump’s personal lawyers and other embodiments of amorality in the DOJ are in charge of the decision to pay. If they won’t, he’s in position to order it. Because he can.

Trump’s lust for power and vengeance has been obvious for years. And now, revealing its claim on “law and order” and “family values” always to have been Trump-level lies, today’s Republican Party is handing it all to him. Because, thanks to SCOTUS-approved gerrymandering and vote suppression, they can.