Can We Dodge a Bullet?

The most interesting thing we have learned over the past few days since the arrival on the scene of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, is that all of us are truly not surprised by the revelations.  We might think that some of them are exaggerated, or some are perhaps untrue, but the accepted impression is that overall the book describes the actual conditions present in the Trump White House.  We all sort of expected to hear these things at some point in the narrative, but the actual printing of what we suspected somehow is not that surprising.

Listening to all the journalists talk about it leaves the undeniable perception that our government is in a very tenuous condition.  The world at large is made nervous by the lack of any consistent foreign policy, and the American influence in trade and economic policy is being sidelined and marginalized.  The ‘semi-literate’ self-proclaimed genius is surrounded by a staff that in private acknowledges his behavior as described by Wolff, but on the record staunchly defends his actions as brilliant leadership.

The ‘off the cuff’ press conference he held at Camp David yesterday proclaims that he has done wondrous and marvelous things for the country in only the space of a year, while the actual factual information shows that there has been, in fact, a slight drop in the amount of job creation from 2016 to 2017, and the growth in all those industries promised by the President to be revitalized, (think Coal and and energy) have only grown by 1.6%, hardly wondrous.

I looked at all those faces at Camp David and thought back over the last year recalling their embarrassment and denigration at the hands of the President: McConnell, Ryan, Pence, Tillerson, Cohn.  There are many of his so called allies who were quoted as calling him “stupid; semi-literate; a clown; a moron; etc.  And yet they stood there with smiles on their faces supporting Trump, lionizing him as providing ‘exquisite leadership’, while at the same time complaining that he doesn’t read, is uniformed on policy, and has the attention span of a gnat.  Talk about cognitive dissonance!

So what do we make of all this?  As I said previously, the Republicans are a lost cause.  There is rot at the heart of the party.  Power and monetary gain are the central motivations for everything they do.  I think that we have been lucky during the first year that with majorities in both houses and the Presidency we have not suffered a more calamitous destruction of our democracy.  This administration has attacked the free press, the rule of law, has called for the incarceration of Trumps adversaries, has tried to intimidate the Justice Department and the FBI, stacked our bureaucracy with leaders who are bent on their reversing any progress in environmental safeguards, and withdrawing from positions of Global leadership.  Whenever anyone tries to call them out for these things, their knee-jerk response is that it is all because of the tragedy of the Obama Administration.

Most recently we have seen the majority in Congress come to the defense of the administration, not by supporting important inquiries into what happened in the 2016 election, but instead by trying to cast aspersions and doubt as to the motives of the investigators, most of which, by the way, are Republicans.  The Judiciary Committee of the Senate has referred for criminal investigation the only individual that tried to blow the whistle on what was happening with the Russians, Christopher Steele.  Meanwhile the fact that 4 members of the Trump team have already been either indicted or pleaded guilty to crimes seems to be lost somewhere in these people’s minds.  They would rather go after the seekers of truth.  What does that tell you?

It is clear that the only way we are going to remove this cancer from our democracy is to exercise the only real power we have….to vote.  There is a clear wave of change on the horizon in the 2018 elections.  It is probable now that the majorities in both houses have a good chance of changing hands.  There are more women than ever before running for Congress and Statehouse seats from the Democratic Party.  If Democrats are able to achieve majorities in both houses, then the odds are pretty good that for the two years following, until the next Presidential election, the destructive momentum of the Republicans and Donald Trump can at least be neutralized.

What remains this year is the next period until the seating of a new Congress. A calamity or catastrophe (Korea/Syria/Venezuela/Russia/etc.) could provoke a chaotic response from a President who is diminished in almost every way possible for a human, much less a ‘leader’.  Our country is sitting on a powder keg of possible mistakes or accidents, which could change life for all of us, worldwide.

If there is any good that has come of this strange period in our history, it is the renaissance awakening and re-engagement of a citizenry that suddenly has been forced to think of its survival as a democracy.  The outcome is unclear as we start this new year, but the signs are encouraging.  Let’s hope we make it to Election Day 2018 without anything major happening.

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Oh yeah, make sure you vote this year!