Brick By Brick

 

             Image source: anntelnaes.com

After an exhausting week of stamping out human decency in his government, Trump spent the weekend taking the Miami golf cure. I spent it getting over not being confirmed as Secretary of Defense. I thought I had a shot; my resumé is on a par with Pete Hegseth’s, if not greater. We both served in the military in war zones, but, unlike me, he didn’t receive a Purple Heart. We both provide weekend opination via public media; and whereas mine is mine only, he shares his platform as a mere co-host. In managing huge bureaucracies, we’re identical. What put me out of the running, I think, is that I’m not a problem drinker or a sexual miscreant, both of which are touchstones in the upper echelons of today’s Republican Party.

Choosing Hegseth over me made Trump the only president who’s had two cabinet nominees requiring a Vice-Presidential tiebreak after a 50–50 vote. No other president has had even one. Which says everything about the quality of his choices. 

For those who believe Democrats’ unanimity in voting no was purely political, votes for the previous SecDef nominees, Democrats and Republicans, were as follows: Lloyd Austin, 93–2; Mark Esper 90–8; James Mattis 98–1. Ashton Carter 93–5; Leon Panetta 100–0. Robert Gates 95–2. The difference: credentials. If not all R senators are stupid enough to think Hegseth is qualified (?), only 3 had the guts to vote no, one of whose cynical hypocrisy put us where we are. It’s shameful and cowardly.

Arriving at the Pentagon, Pete went to work implementing Project Trump 2025: his first communiqué was about ending DEI, because any military member not straight, male, white, and Christian is inferior. Then, calling them “dishonorable” and “liars,” he banned trans people who, because they had the courage to be public about who they are, are braver than most; and about whom there’ve been fewer deportment issues than non-trans members. And he announced plans to interview top general officers to see which will kowtow and which won’t. Shoot protestors in the legs. 

Beyond turning the military into his domestic enforcers, Trump is eliminating people and programs that would keep him in check. He fired inspectors general of virtually all government agencies. His Department of “Justice” ousted every prosecutor who worked with Jack Smith and will subject them to “investigations,” and it just ended further pursuit of Trump’s crimes. The firing of the IGs was clearly illegal because the law requires thirty days’ notice. The message: Whatcha gonna do about it?

Same with the TikTok law passed by Congress, signed by President Biden, and approved in a rare 9–0 ruling by the Supreme Court. Trump ignored it. Likewise, his demented attempt to rewrite the Constitution by executive order. He’s convinced he’s above the law, which, thanks to congressional pusillanimity and judicial corruption, it turns out he is. Then, because they’d get in his way, he rescinded the ethics rules ordered by President Biden. 

In a silent coup, our country has been captured by a group of very wealthy men, Christian nationalists who are anything but Christian, whose aim is to remove from government all institutions that have, till now, protected us from people like them; that stand in the way of unchecked power and unregulated self-enrichment; that let people not like them retain the power of the vote. And they’ve put in place enough judges and justices to clear their path.

It’s been a concerted effort for years. In Trump, they recognized the perfect stooge, one they could convince he’s in charge because he so desperately needs to be; a frontman willing, for his needy gratification, to keep public eyes off what’s happening; to cede the agenda to Project 2025. It’s not Greenland or Panama or Canada. It’s in the backrooms of the White House, into which they’ve charmed and threatened unimaginably rich oligarchs to bankroll their efforts. Trump gives them what they want because they give him what he needs.

Trump was elected by a minority of voters, strategically convinced it was about eggs and immigrants. People who look worshipfully at his self-pity and rejoice as he strikes at the vulnerable, who will include, before long, themselves. When they realize that, it’ll be too late.

It’s hard to accept, to know whether to tune out or scream into the night. Trump has the limelight. For him, vengeance is the goal; that, and validating his neediness. He’s president of people who see the cruelty and love it. And of the string-pullers. The more distracting outrage he engenders, the more he lies and pounds his chest, the more he fools the media into focusing on the hole rather than the donut, the more easily the Project-iles can take down our democracy, all but unreported, brick by brick.

For those who still believe in democracy and kindness, it’s hard to watch and harder to know what to do.

Lawnorder

 

Editorial demands being what they are, at the time of sending in this column it was unknown whether Trump had been/will be indicted for, as Trey “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi” Gowdy put it, “paying for sex.” So far, the only announcement has been from lifelong liar Trump, himself, who then proceeded to denounce “leaks.”

It’s all but certain that indictments are coming, and that Stormy Daniels is merely the appetizer on a comprehensive menu of indelicacies. But we don’t need an indictment to know how Republican leaders and media will respond. They’ve been embarrassing themselves and our country since Trump unbarned the horse.

Certifying his unfitness for the job he bought with what remained of his soul, “Speaker” Kevin McCarthy answered “No one is above the law,” when asked if Trump is. “But no one is under it, either,” he added, signifying nothing.

If the most stupid, that was the least deplorable of his utterances. He made clear what’s been obvious since his party elected a prolific liar, scammer, law-suit-laden, proud tax-evader, suspected launderer of Mafia money, serial adulterer. Namely, that the “party of law and order” cares for neither. Having no idea what, if any, the charges are, or what evidence was presented to the Grand Jury, he nevertheless opined, “Here we go again. An outrageous abuse of power by a radical DA who lets violent criminals walk as he pursues political vengeance against President Trump.” 

“Vengeance.” A District Attorney looking into possible criminal activity. Doing his job. The way it works. If indicted after Grand Jury consideration, a person is entitled to a trial in which evidence is presented and defense is mounted. He’s convicted or exonerated. It’s the American way, as opposed to how Mussolini’s career ended. For example.

McCarthy wasn’t done. “I’m directing relevant committees to immediately investigate if federal funds are being used to subvert our democracy by interfering in elections with politically motivated prosecutions.” He said, interfering with a state’s constitutional judicial process. What better example of “weaponizing government” is there than that? Other than Jim Jordan’s committee looking into weaponization of government. Or the endless investigations of Hillary Clinton, which Kevin McCarthy admitted at the time were about ending her political career. Maybe he forgot. Let us not. 

There’s an even better example; namely, the letter sent to NYC District Attorney Alvin Bragg, signed by three of McCarthyism’s committee chairmen: “You are reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former President of the United States and current declared candidate for that office,” they fulminated, demanding his presence before them. Having no authority to require it.

Well, of course it’s unprecedented. Until Trump, America had never Electoral-Colleged a “president” whose pre-, intra-, and post-“presidential” activities were so deserving of criminal investigation. Clearly, they consider Trump above the law. And, we must infer, no crime or suspected crime, no matter how egregious, by any former president, and no one running for that office, may be prosecuted, or even investigated. (Presumably, there’s an expiration date on that proposition. Instantly, when President Biden is out of office.)

Similar to McCarthy’s rejection of American jurisprudence and due process, Rand Paul offered these self-canceling words: "A Trump indictment would be a disgusting abuse of power. The DA should be put in jail." Evidently convinced he has a shot at Trump’s old job, not-hung Mike Pence chimed in: "... when there's a crime wave in New York City, the fact that the Manhattan DA thinks that indicting President Trump is his top priority I think just tells you everything you need to know about the radical left." Right. Buttons pushed: the radical left; crime waves. Plus, evidently, Pence believes a DA’s office can do only one thing at a time.

From there, it gets laughable. James Comer, one of the signers of that letter to DA Bragg, said an indictment would be intended to distract from Hunter Biden’s laptop. Makes perfect sense. Possible “presidential” criminality is way below what’s on the unsecured hard drive of a private citizen.

Then Tucker Carlson, causing "irony" to disappear from all dictionaries, said, “You don’t fantasize about your political opponents going to jail.” Really? Has there ever been a rally when Trump didn’t lead cheers of “Lock her up”? Does Tucker not recall when Trump called on Attorney General Bill Barr to lock up Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton? 

Trump and MAGA Republicans will see his indictments as proof of his perfection. Before Reagan and Gingrich, Republicans’ cowardly desperation to protect someone like Trump was unimaginable. Stormy Daniels is prologue. Their reaction to Georgia’s Fani Willis, DOJ’s Jack Smith, and New York’s Letitia James will reveal everything about Republicans’ respect for Constitutional order and their place in America’s future. Not that we don’t already know.