Dear America,
Trump's latest departure from the norms of presidential behavior may be the most ominous one yet. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released last months job creation figures a couple of days ago, and they were startlingly divergent from what we have come to expect. Monthly job creation numbers have been in six figures for years now...since a few aberrations in the early days of the pandemic...until this past Friday when the monthly number of jobs created was only 73,000, and the figures for the two previous months were amended downward by 258,000. It was startling, especially for President Trump, who was outraged by the negative implications the number portended and promptly them "rigged." He immediately fired the head of the BLS: He fired the messenger because he didn't like the message. In commonplace circumstances such a reaction could be seen as petulance, or just a bad day, but when our national chief executive has it, the significance becomes profoundly disturbing. This abreaction to bad news suggests a dysfunctional relation to reality of our presidents thinking because of either incompetence or mental illness, and neither would be a thing to dismiss out of hand. Trump's willingness to fix blame on others for things he doesn't like isn't just a quirk anymore. It is paranoia on a pathological scale, and as such it is an ominous threat to every American. Trump is no longer just despicable. He is a menace who now seems to feel free to wield tyrannical power on a whim. He is maniacally functioning not just as a king, but now as an imperious dictator with complete peremptory impunity, and the Republican Party is his enabler. Donald Trump should no longer be impeached: he should be removed from office for his inability to do his job in a sane fashion under the 25th amendment to the constitution, though replacing a lunatic like Trump with a devious demagogue like Jimmy Vance isn't much of a remedy for this dire problem, much like jumping from the frying pan to the fire. This is a national crisis, and that isn't hyperbole.
Observations to the effect that our democracy is in jeopardy or that Donald Trump is an aspiring autocrat are nothing but seemingly partisan plaints that sound as much like campaign slogans as cautionary exhortations by comparison. This latest episode, narrow as its significance is by comparison to Trump's wont to indulge in self-enriching financial schemes and playing golf while "Rome" burns, is not just a sign of something corrupt in principle. It is a manifestation of an existential threat to the nation. True, the firing of one bureaucrat will not bring the nation to its ruination, but the next thing of its ilk, whatever it may be, may be of far larger consequence, and as such far less susceptible to remediation. A new BLS director will be appointed, and though he or she will likely be as much a toady as the rest of Trump's appointees have been, the BLS will go on, and the worst consequence of the new directors obsequiousness will be merely an illusion of economic prosperity. But designating Barack Obama a traitor and ordering the now actually weaponized DOJ to investigate him is far more significant and Trump's minions, like Tulsi Gabbard, are more than willing to collaborate with their naked emperor. But even that seems benign in light of the possibilities. The next denial of reality on which Trump obsesses might be something existential like a Putinesque delusion to the effect that sovereignty over Canada for the United States is a matter of right meriting military action, or, speaking of Putin, that the Russian version of Trump is demonstrating bellicosity toward the United States accompanied by the Trumpian delusion that the Russian demagogue is about to launch his nuclear arsenal against us. I know. Fear of a nuclear holocaust seems extreme, but extreme seems to describe much of what Trump has done so far. He has ignored the orders of the courts to the length of seeking impeachment of at least one judge for bemoaning the lack of candor on the part of more than one of Trump's DOJ henchmen when they appeared in court and failed in their legally mandatory duty of "candor toward the tribunal." Under the rules that all lawyers and the courts abide by as the ultimate mandate for those who practice law, all lawyers know better, but Trump's champions are ignoring something that every lawyer knows, whether he admits it or not. And then there's the threat of impeachment Trump has directed toward all of the judges who have ruled against his executive excesses, calling those judges "lunatics" rather than acknowledging their authority to act as they have under the aegis of established law.
The emperor is stomping down the streets of Washington in his stoop-shouldered oblivion, naked with his obsequious entourage marching behind him in lockstep beating the drum as he struts wearing his imbecilic smile. What we need now is for an undaunted politician in the crowd to yell, "The emperor has no clothes!"
Your friend,
Mike
Trump's latest departure from the norms of presidential behavior may be the most ominous one yet. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released last months job creation figures a couple of days ago, and they were startlingly divergent from what we have come to expect. Monthly job creation numbers have been in six figures for years now...since a few aberrations in the early days of the pandemic...until this past Friday when the monthly number of jobs created was only 73,000, and the figures for the two previous months were amended downward by 258,000. It was startling, especially for President Trump, who was outraged by the negative implications the number portended and promptly them "rigged." He immediately fired the head of the BLS: He fired the messenger because he didn't like the message. In commonplace circumstances such a reaction could be seen as petulance, or just a bad day, but when our national chief executive has it, the significance becomes profoundly disturbing. This abreaction to bad news suggests a dysfunctional relation to reality of our presidents thinking because of either incompetence or mental illness, and neither would be a thing to dismiss out of hand. Trump's willingness to fix blame on others for things he doesn't like isn't just a quirk anymore. It is paranoia on a pathological scale, and as such it is an ominous threat to every American. Trump is no longer just despicable. He is a menace who now seems to feel free to wield tyrannical power on a whim. He is maniacally functioning not just as a king, but now as an imperious dictator with complete peremptory impunity, and the Republican Party is his enabler. Donald Trump should no longer be impeached: he should be removed from office for his inability to do his job in a sane fashion under the 25th amendment to the constitution, though replacing a lunatic like Trump with a devious demagogue like Jimmy Vance isn't much of a remedy for this dire problem, much like jumping from the frying pan to the fire. This is a national crisis, and that isn't hyperbole.
Observations to the effect that our democracy is in jeopardy or that Donald Trump is an aspiring autocrat are nothing but seemingly partisan plaints that sound as much like campaign slogans as cautionary exhortations by comparison. This latest episode, narrow as its significance is by comparison to Trump's wont to indulge in self-enriching financial schemes and playing golf while "Rome" burns, is not just a sign of something corrupt in principle. It is a manifestation of an existential threat to the nation. True, the firing of one bureaucrat will not bring the nation to its ruination, but the next thing of its ilk, whatever it may be, may be of far larger consequence, and as such far less susceptible to remediation. A new BLS director will be appointed, and though he or she will likely be as much a toady as the rest of Trump's appointees have been, the BLS will go on, and the worst consequence of the new directors obsequiousness will be merely an illusion of economic prosperity. But designating Barack Obama a traitor and ordering the now actually weaponized DOJ to investigate him is far more significant and Trump's minions, like Tulsi Gabbard, are more than willing to collaborate with their naked emperor. But even that seems benign in light of the possibilities. The next denial of reality on which Trump obsesses might be something existential like a Putinesque delusion to the effect that sovereignty over Canada for the United States is a matter of right meriting military action, or, speaking of Putin, that the Russian version of Trump is demonstrating bellicosity toward the United States accompanied by the Trumpian delusion that the Russian demagogue is about to launch his nuclear arsenal against us. I know. Fear of a nuclear holocaust seems extreme, but extreme seems to describe much of what Trump has done so far. He has ignored the orders of the courts to the length of seeking impeachment of at least one judge for bemoaning the lack of candor on the part of more than one of Trump's DOJ henchmen when they appeared in court and failed in their legally mandatory duty of "candor toward the tribunal." Under the rules that all lawyers and the courts abide by as the ultimate mandate for those who practice law, all lawyers know better, but Trump's champions are ignoring something that every lawyer knows, whether he admits it or not. And then there's the threat of impeachment Trump has directed toward all of the judges who have ruled against his executive excesses, calling those judges "lunatics" rather than acknowledging their authority to act as they have under the aegis of established law.
The emperor is stomping down the streets of Washington in his stoop-shouldered oblivion, naked with his obsequious entourage marching behind him in lockstep beating the drum as he struts wearing his imbecilic smile. What we need now is for an undaunted politician in the crowd to yell, "The emperor has no clothes!"
Your friend,
Mike
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