The Cracks are Oozing Truth

  

The walls are closing in around Trump and his administration from so many different angles that it is not possible to see where the final coup d’grace will come from?  My guess would be that the Mueller report, if it ever gets a public hearing, will be the straw that breaks that camel’s back.

The media is all a-twitter(no pun intended!)with new revelations from the Cohen plea, to the Roger Stone blabber, to the Flynn sentencing missive.  What can we deduce from this deluge of new ‘stuff’ that is beginning to shed more light on what many of us knew was hiding behind the curtain all this time?

Not much yet, but the cracks are beginning to ooze truth.  Over the short term we will probably see and hear much more about the real character of this administration and the revelations concerning what was going on all through 2016 between the Trump operatives, Russia, Wikileaks et al. It will no doubt amaze and amuse.  In the end, all that we surmised and expected from such scurrilous actors will be proven true.  The question is what will we as a nation do about it?

There are so many ‘fronts’ on which repair is necessary that it overwhelms the mind once we realize how much damage has already been done in only two short years.  The trigger for me was being reminded of the character and behavior of recently departed George H.W. Bush, his administration, and the people he brought with him into government.  I was never in love with 41, but the comparison of the personalities of Trump and Bush brings it all home.  What we accept as the new unprecedented normal is so far beneath what we accepted during the Bush presidency that we cannot really integrate the two worlds as being from the same place.

Government was always a mix of vision, transactions, lobbying and deals.  But at its worst it was still productive and tried to better the lives we were living.  What we have now is clearly destructive, and attempts only to enrich big corporations and very rich people. 

First steps have been taken.  We have resurrected the ability to have oversight with the arrival of a Democratic majority in the House, and can now begin to deconstruct the lies, the malfeasance, the purposeful destruction of our institutions and begin to re-establish the ideals that set our country on its path in the pursuit of liberty and democracy 242 years ago. 

We have witnessed the crumbling of the Republican Party and its abandonment of principle.  Example:  Look what is happening in Wisconsin after the recent election—the lame-duck Republican administration and legislature are passing measures that will try to preserve the power of their minority and enshrine gerrymandering of their voting districts.  That is so anti-democratic that it boggles the mind!  The new motto of the Republican Party is: “If you can’t win legitimately, then cheat!”  Hopefully, all these newly passed measures that limit voter participation, hobble the incoming administrations ability to pass laws, etc. will be overturned in the courts, and certainly result in the ousting of these craven people in the next election.  But why do that at all in a democracy?  Clearly these ‘legislators’ do not believe in our democratic system.  It’s about retention of power and money above all else.

There is also the destruction that is occurring daily in our national governmental agencies that were created to control abuse of the citizens.  Everything from clean air to consumer fraud to immigration is under attack by people put in power by the Trump administration.  Career employees who believed in the missions of those agencies have been leaving in droves—either by quitting or being fired.  Just look at what Trump has done to the Department of Justice!  All the top positions formerly held by career law enforcement professionals have been exorcised out of their positions.  They have been ruthlessly pursued as disgraceful “democratic lackeys” and evil doers who don’t support the President.  That’s ridiculous!  They were purged in Donald Trump’s effort to create an autocratic Presidency where he can decide who should be indicted, tried and jailed.

That will now be a bit harder to accomplish, thank goodness, because of the oversight now approaching with the establishment of the new Congress.  But really—look at what has happened to the rule of law!  It is now Trump Law that rules.  He wants to decide in spite of all evidence that our intelligence community is flawed and wrong about clearly evidentiary conclusions; he wants to decide if MBS is guilty; he wants to decide if Russia had any role in our election outcome; he wants to decide whether immigrants can claim asylum; he wants to decide whether children should be separated from their parents; etc. ad nauseum!  That is not how a democracy is supposed to work.

Fixing all these things is going to take time.  At least we will now have the ability as a society to rein in these feverish purveyors of hate, racism, misogyny, and prevarication. 

With each passing day, more and more of those who were counting on Trump to make their lives better are realizing they have been duped.  The economy is wildly gyrating because of inconsistent statements by Trump, Kudlow and Mnuchin—people who have no idea what they are doing.  401K accounts are losing money.  Industry is dealing with additional costs because of Trump being ‘Tariff Man’!  How long do you think they will stand for that.  International relationships have crumbled over the past two years.  Which of our allies can count on coherent policy from the Trump administration?

Trump himself is wildly out of control.  Look at his Twitter feed!  Is there anything coherent about his daily rants?  Don’t you think our Chief Executive and Commander in Chief should be focusing on how to pass legislation and create an agenda that could work for the country instead of venting his spleen with lie upon lie after every edition of Fox News that he watches?  And how is it that he has time to watch so much TV?

It is so sad and so increasingly apparent that a great portion of us has been duped into supporting someone who is on a mission to enhance his own wealth and power at the expense of everything else.  The Republican Party made a bad bet on this guy, and they are only just beginning to pay for it with the results of the past election.  Once the revelations start to really arrive, those Congressional Republicans who stood behind Trump and abandoned their Conservative roots to self-serve their quest for power and financial gain will suffer disgrace at the hands of the very voters to whom they lied and took advantage of.  And we will say, “Good Riddance!”

I always counted on the appearance of the truth in the end.  I think I will not be disappointed.

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