Dear America,
There is so much to say right now, but unfortunately, Donald Trump is the subject of virtually all of it. It's useless to talk about him because events will either convince any voters who have not made up their minds about him or they won't. His nefarious nature is on full display, so people will either care or they won't. But while we are talking abut natures on display, it is hard to ignore Mitch McConnell.
For example, he says out loud that he won't call a vote on the two universal gun registration oriented bills sent to The Senate by The House unless Trump expresses a willingness to sign them. But the reality is that McConnell is just protecting his party and Trump from having to declare themselves on bills that something approaching 90% of the American people support. Thus, the reason we don't have universal gun buyer checks isn't a lack of public support; it's a lack of political willingness on the part of Republican senators--one in particular--to trust their fates to the electorate. If McConnell called a vote, the house bills would pass because even Republicans can count when it comes to popular votes. And Donald Trump wouldn't dare veto the bills for fear of alienating 90% of the American people, which surely includes a majority of even "his base." So we don't have adequate checks before we allow people to have guns because of Mitch McConnell; he is not just stalling a vote. He is casting the one vote he has and determining the fate of the nation with it. That is anti-democratic, and plainly wrong, and I hope the people of Kentucky recognize that.
As to Trump himself, this new furor over his July phone call to the new president of Ukraine may well be the coup de grâce. Since Trump's Comey letter, I have referred to these things--and there have been quite a few--as wobbling dominos. This one and those it has spawned are real wobblers, and any of them could fall any time. Trump's course on all this, including the obstruction of justice allegations in the Mueller report, has been to bluster and vilify his critics, all the while doubling down. As if to say that the Ukraine allegations are illusory, he publicly asked China to do the same thing...investigate his opposition...as he did Zelensky, Ukraine's president. Then he takes to twitter and blusters about how it is legitimate because he says so. It may be explainable with Trump's lack of liberal education, you know, military school...Wharton. He apparently never read Hamlet. If he had, he would know the line we all know: "[S]he doth protest too much, me thinks." If Trump had any sense, he would just keep mum instead of channeling Richard Nixon: another crook who swore he wasn't one. He would just stay off twitter. Most of the American people have modified an old joke to fit him: "How do you know Trump is lying? His thumbs are moving." And they are...all the time.
Your friend,
Mike
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