Tuesday, December 26, 2017

3 more years....



A)  He's on vacation for 10 more days.  Again, no work schedule has been released, so he'll probably spend his time on the golf course, as usual.



Did you ever think you would hear a president use the words “very fine people” to describe participants in a torch-lit rally organized by white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan? Did you ever think you would hear a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations thuggishly threaten that she would be “taking names” of countries that did not vote on a General Assembly resolution the way she wanted? Did you ever think the government of the world’s biggest military and economic power would reject not just science but also empiricism itself, preferring to use made-up “alternative facts” as the basis for major decisions?

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Did you ever think you would hear a president use the words “very fine people” to describe participants in a torch-lit rally organized by white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan? Did you ever think you would hear a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations thuggishly threaten that she would be “taking names” of countries that did not vote on a General Assembly resolution the way she wanted? Did you ever think the government of the world’s biggest military and economic power would reject not just science but also empiricism itself, preferring to use made-up “alternative facts” as the basis for major decisions?

We knew that Trump was narcissistic and shallow, but on Inauguration Day it was possible to at least hope he was self-aware enough to understand the weight that now rested on his shoulders, and perhaps grow into the job. He did not. If anything, he has gotten worse.

By all accounts, the president spends hours each day watching cable news, buoyed by the shows that blindly support him — “Fox & Friends,” “Hannity,” a few others on Fox News — and enraged by those that seek to hold him accountable. His aides have had to shorten and dumb down his daily briefings on national security in an attempt to get him to pay attention. Members of his Cabinet try to outdo one another in lavishing him with flowery, obsequious praise that would embarrass the Sun King.

Trump and his enablers have waged a relentless war against truth in an attempt to delegitimize any and all critical voices. He wields the epithet “fake news” as a cudgel against inconvenient facts and those who report them. Can a democracy function without a commonly accepted chronicle of events and encyclopedia of knowledge? We are conducting a dangerous experiment to find out.

To understand how deviant the Trump administration is, consider this: Since its founding, the nation has treasured civilian control of the military as a restraint on adventurism. Now we must rely on three generals — Trump’s chief of staff, his national security adviser and his secretary of defense — to keep this rash and erratic president from careering off the rails.

The president’s Republican allies in Congress, who have the power to restrain an out-of-control executive, have rolled over in passive submission. Many see clearly Trump’s unfitness but continue to support him because they fear the wrath of his hardcore base and see the chance to enact a conservative agenda. History will remember this craven opportunism and judge it harshly.

MAGA!

Mr. Robinson urges us to end on a positive note, so how's this?  Trump tweeted a Merry Christmas wish.  "As of late afternoon on Monday, Trump’s tweet had received more than 128,000 likes and more than 34,000 retweets."  However, former President Obama also tweeted a Christmas wish:  

Obama’s tweet—a picture of him with his wife and two daughters, standing in front of five adorable children—with the caption, “We wish you joy and peace this holiday season,” got more than 724,000 likes and more than 149,000 tweets.

And:  "Trump has 45.1 million followers [on Twitter, less than half of Obama’s 98.2 million."

1 comment:

  1. The United States has toppled into its version of Roman Imperialism, I'd date that from Reagan I'd say Trump is analogous to Nero with Bush II, just as he was so often characterized, as Caligula.

    I got some flack for pointing out that every single thing that has happened has happened under, by and through the American Constitution, especially under the First Amendment as interpreted by both conservative and liberal Supreme Court justices. This rot is contained in the system, George Mason's idea of preventing just this through a Bill of Rights, as it ended up, didn't do that. It's what eventually destroyed it.

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