US Senators and House Representatives swear their loyalty upon taking the oath of office as well. This they each do for a reason, the merits of which are never more pertinent than they are now.
For those recently unable but are now willing to be brought up to date in only a few minutes I recommend this recent article by the New York Times, found online at: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/us/politics/trump-interview-transcript.html
It contains excerpts from a White House interview with the current president. It’s lengthy but it needn’t be read in its entirety. In fact, a few paragraphs may be all most people can stomach.
No matter how far you make it through the article, you will find enough evidence as to the president’s state of mind, and his general inability to hold a thought long enough for it to travel from his brain to his mouth.
This is nothing new of course, and I am not attempting humor in saying so. My words have all been said before by others elsewhere.
Those conflicting, confusing and often contradictory statements the president makes, sometimes from one sentence to the next are well documented. The president’s only real consistency is his inconsistency.
No place is this more evident than in this Times article. Other than the conspicuous absence of all but one of his presidential aides, what’s special here is the line of questioning on a broad number of special sensitive subjects.
The questions are uninterrupted and Trump’s responses are uninhibited. Subjects include Russia, personal finances, the 2016 election, zero Senate productivity, take your pick.
Reporters have him alone, and are dead to rights in their shrewd, sometimes sly choice of questions. None, really, involve policy for we know he’s a dud in that department.
They ask questions for which we’d all like – and deserve- to have answered. Trump’s about as transparent in his fibbing as a guilty grade school boy, albeit one with access to the launch codes.
Few straight answers are given, but that’s all part of who Trump is-crooked!
If you already have an idea as to what you might expect then congratulations! You are one step ahead of the game.
With those oaths taken by elected officials to serve the American interests and uphold the Constitution in mind, I’ve made some observations here I hope are accurate.
I am hoping, for instance, that the apparent gridlock in the Senate on healthcare reform is not just bipartisan posturing. It’s widely known that the current state of healthcare in America is stable enough to last into the foreseeable future.
All senators, I’m sure, are well aware of this. The lack of a repeal-and-replace bill is not catastrophic, except perhaps to hard-line Republicans hungry for a win, all else be damned.
Similarly, I firmly believe Hillary Clinton was well aware of the daunting if not unscrupulously acquired resources of her opponent in the 2016 election.
I also believe she knew that, wrong though it was, she could become a martyr to the system. In her political life, she’d faced worse, but this could prove to be pretty damn close.
Still, giving up her place in history as the first female American president to a selfish codger in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s would be particularly hard.
His chronic misogyny and debasing of women would only be salt in her wounds, for she already knew one American president like him. Things with that one didn’t turn out very well for her, either.
So, all that said, I wonder if it’s possible – how far fetched would it be – to think that both GOP and democratic representatives and senators would put their party’s interests aside in order to address our problematic president?
How? By fighting the good fight as they currently are doing. Stonewalling the president despite their own agendas in order to deprive Trump of any real legislative victories.
The delusions of grandeur Trump indulges in about his being the Best, Greatest, Most This or That President ever are clear to everyone but Trump.
It’s clear that, despite all evidence to the contrary, up is down, dark is light, on is off and so on. The reality is finally asserting itself to those who truly do govern this nation: Trump’s gotta go.
He’s not even capable of being a figurehead, quietly sitting in the Oval Office and posing for photo ops when necessary while the sausage grinders do their thing unencumbered by a normal human being.
That’s one hell of a reality check, and it goes far beyond saying “Oh, well, that’s who we’ve elected,” or more accurately “Be careful what you wish for, America, even if you don’t think it could happen to us.”
I don’t believe it’s that far-fetched to think that the American republic – our homeland itself – is at stake here. The president is both inappropriately friendly yet equally secretive with Russia.
The man’s singular ambition – wealth – is clear enough for the rest of us to see, as is his blindness to anything else. If there’s nothing in it for him, it’s pointless.
What’s more, like excellent healthcare coverage or anything else for that matter, all the money in the world means nothing if you’ve been on the receiving end of a nuclear-tipped ICBM.
But Trump would be too busy counting his millions to even see it coming.
Think of it this way: If we Americans continue to find ourselves betrayed by a president who myopically pursues wealth above all – while Congress stands by, saying nothing – our entire nation could become a mere footnote in the history books of one of the greatest authoritarian regimes ever-Putin’s.
Because the president’s will is so Tiffany-twisted around everything the Russian leader says, America has gone from a global superpower to a laughing stock in only six months’ time. There’s no sign that will change, either.
Party lines and personal agendas aside, our elected representatives, by virtue of their ability to stonewall currently unwarranted legislation will prevent enabling – not empowering – the president. They can single-handedly cease feeding the delusions spilling out of the White House with even the tiniest morsel of real-life success.
If Congress is to remain true to the oath they took upon entering office, then they’ve a responsibility to put a stop to Trump’s bumbling before we reach the tipping point whereby we, America, concedes our leadership roles, one by one in the eyes of the world.
A tactic as simple as stonewalling may well be enough. Knowing the president’s infantile thought processes, I see him as likely to just pout, whine, throw a tantrum or two, and then just give up and walk away out of frustration.
Fox and Friends could be on soon back in the White House presidential bedroom and what could be better than retiring in front of a TV, watching people who both worship him and agree with every conspiracy theory imaginable after a long day of President-ing. It’s not easy being the king.
Back in the real world, Trump’s having to make the choice between remaining president and divulging his tax returns was a simple one; the latter is not an option.
Amid shouts of “Crooked Hillary is responsible,” and “Obama left me with a mess,” Trump will up and quit (more about that in a second).
With Trump gone, all that will remain is to clean up the few appointees he’s made, all of whom have substantial conflicts of interest with their respective departments.
Anyone with Russian ties, including the vice president should not be considered as a viable replacement. This trickles downhill from the vice president to the attorney general to family members, up to but not including the new FBI director, Christopher Wray.
In my mind, the politically neutral Wray can be trusted and should rightly assume the presidency until a suitable replacement can be confirmed by Congress.
It will be a history making event to be sure, but just about everything regarding this administration has been an unprecedented fiasco. What, besides our planet and our freedoms do we have to lose?
The silver lining in all this lies in the fact that our democracy will prevail and the systems of checks and balances created 240 years ago, but only recently tested to the limit, will have succeeded as it was designed to by the Constitution’s original framers.
That knowledge alone will bring all Americans together, with an unprecedented level of confidence not seen in at least six months.
Now, Trump’s downfall is imminent. Americans will finally decide enough is enough and pressure our elected officials to make it happen. We’ll let them know it’s okay to delay actual legislative work until this very threat to our democracy is, as Senator Bernie Sanders put it “exposed for the fraud he is.”
But Trump will have to save face and somehow spin the entire situation in his favor. Here’s what I believe Trump thinks will happen:
Trump may believe that being president is just like everything else that’s been handed to him on a silver platter.
Since he didn’t actually win the presidency he won’t feel any sense of true ownership of the idea unless, of course, it serves him somehow. Each passing day is proof of this.
When Trump’s had enough: That’s all folks!, Lights out!, c’est la vie!, easy come, easy go!, etc., he’ll think it’s over, just because he says so.
He’ll instinctively turn his back and walk away from the presidency because he thinks it’s become too “unfair” or “wrong” or “fake/phony.”
Going back to golfing and the Old Boys locker room to brag about beating Crooked Hillary in 2016 will-and has always been-his fallback. It will, I’m afraid, be the only real evidence of foresight he’ll have shown as president.
I don’t believe the American people, many of whom he’s slighted and all of whom he’s betrayed, will allow Trump to escape unscathed. Many will not see him as an ex-president.
Rather, he will have been exactly what he’s always been – a fraud, one who happened to have found a way to become elected president through illicit means.
Trump, I think, will be exposed, as will his sycophantic army of self important buffoons, tax returns and all.
The story will be covered only in general terms by the great papers, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Denver Post, etc. that broke the story in the first place. Anything further would be beneath the dignity of these publications to print.
Instead, the lurid details would be reserved for publications with which Trump is best known and most comfortable.
Like the revelations of his campaign advisers’ illicit meetings with Russian interests, sensationalist details will leak out drip by precious drip.
But Trump will not bitch about “leakers” this time, for his face will make the front page for as long as the Enquirer can milk it, and then some.
He’ll eat up the attention like the beautiful Syrian Missile Cake he enjoyed while sending 59 Tomahawks to Syria without interrupting dessert at a Trump-branded property.
And he’ll get to say ad nauseum “Buy Ivanka’s fashion clothing!” without having to rely on Kellyanne Conway to say it instead.
And speaking of, perhaps she and Steve Bannon will make a love connection and, as Bruce Springsteen puts it “…disappear down Flamingo Lane.”
The exposés will make screaming headlines on the cover of the National Inquirer throughout supermarkets all across America.
They will provide unprecedented sales figures, of the sort Trump himself lives for. There will be no fact checkers to second-guess his outlandish claims and, in fact, such wild statements will be encouraged by the editorial staff.
Meanwhile, gleeful tabloid publishers newly awash in unprecedented sums of cash will redefine the term “hand over fist” in ways they’d only dreamed of.
All those previous covers of the National Enquirer blaring headlines about Donald and Marla that were so 80’s will seem bland by comparison.
Perhaps these front page headlines will become the latest framed curiosities adorning the walls of his country clubs.
Only then will Donald Trump, the greatest legend in his own mind ever, believe me, will be left to fade away into obscurity, where he belongs.
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