This is relevant to the recent twitter exchange between him and Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Bob Corker (R-TN), in which Trump lied in saying that Corker had begged him for an endorsement and decided not to run for re-election when Trump said No. The truth is quite the opposite, according to Corker -- and, honestly, at this point, do you really believe Donald Trump about anything he says?
The truth, according to Corker, is that as recently as the evening before, Trump had called him to encourage him to reconsider his decision to retire and said that he would endorse him if he would run again. Trump then sent out the insulting tweet, calling Corker "gutless" for not running and lying about who asked whom, claiming that Corker "begged" him for an endorsement, but he (Trump) said No.
The difference here is that Corker, having decided to retire, is freed from the fear of having his political career ruined by the vindictive president. He returned the blunt exchange with a candid reference to the White House having become "an adult day-care center" and saying that "someone must have missed their shift" that morning. He also suggested that Trump's threats to foreign countries "could lead us into World War III."
But the upshot of this exchange is that Trump's handlers backed up Trump's demand that he be freely allowed to criticize, insult, tell lies about anyone else -- but no one should criticize Trump. Chief defender Kellyanne Conway went on "Fox and Friends" to call Corker's comments "incredibly irresponsible." And trotting out the tired defense that the president's "detractors . . . can't accept the election results."
She went further, saying that these detractors "speak about a president of the United States, the president of the United States, in ways that no president should be talked about." Steve Bannon picked up that line of argument, telling Sean Hannity: "It's totally unacceptable in a time of war. . . . We have American lives at risk every day."
Aaron Blake continues his analysis, saying: "The subtext of all this is: How dare you criticize the president? He is doing important things, and speaking out against him only undermines his efforts to "'Make America Great Again.'
"Whatever you think of Trump, that's a very authoritarian argument to make. It suggests dissent is unhelpful. It suggests it's even unpatriotic. And it's hardly the first time Conway and the White House have gone down this road."
Blake then quotes previous remarks by Conway about the "personal attacks about his physicalities about his fitness for office, he's called a goon, a thug, mentally ill, talking about dementia, armchair psychologists all over television every single day. . . . It doesn't help the American people to have a president covered in this light. I'm sorry, it's neither productive nor patriotic, The toxicity is over the top."
Back in February when the travel ban was the hot topic, senior adviser Stephen Miller said that the president's prerogatives on foreign policy were absolute. "The powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned."
Another example Blake gave of the authoritarianism of this White House was Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declaring that an ESPN host's "calling Trump a white supremacist is a fireable offense." Now, mind you, this was an individual employed by a private broadcast company, not a government worker.
Baker says this kind of authoritarianism "totally misunderstands the media's role in a democracy. . . . [Further] What's obviously hypocritical here is that a lot of these criticisms pale in comparison to what Trump has registered about his opponents. He has questioned the war hero status of John McCain. He has attacked a Gold Star family. He has called his . . . Democratic opponent a criminal who should be jailed. And most importantly, he was one of the most vocal critics of the last sitting president, even suggesting he was a fraud whose presidency was illegitimate.
"All of that was okay, but suggesting President Trump is volatile and dangerous is not, apparently. The undermining of Barack Obama's legitimacy was apparently okay . . . . If Hillary Clinton had become president, we're to believe that Trump would stop calling her a criminal because she would then be the president? . . . .
"He's basically suggesting it's really never okay to criticize a president. Yet that's exactly what Trump did for eight years under Obama.
"It's not only a double standard; it's a willful campaign to
suggest that even valid criticisms
are beyond the pale if they undermine Trump. The White House isn't
disputing the criticisms; it's suggesting they shouldn't even be tolerated and
aren't good for the country. That's a stunning posture for any White House to
take."
* * * * *
As authoritarian, anti-democratic, and pathetic as this sounds, I really want to laugh at the obvious confirmation that this protest represents. Yes, I think we should respect the Office of the President. But when the occupant of that office behaves like a petulant child -- who has the power of the nuclear codes -- then we have not only a right but a duty to be concerned.
What I hear is the desperate plight of the people surrounding Trump behind the closed doors who have to tolerate and try to appease the tantrums. They have an impossible task, and someday we will know what really went on as the tell-all books come out.
But for now, we have an increasingly dangerous and unstable president with incredible power. He is hell-bent on destroying anything and everything that Obama did; and, in doing so, he is tearing up the progress in our domestic agenda that was gradually making life better.
As Gene Robinson wrote, also for the Washington Post today: Trump has three years and three months left in office. "What do we do?" And he responds to his own question, saying that the Republican majority in the House is too fearful of the wrath of the GOP base to vote for impeachment. And the 25th amendment is unlikely to be invoked unless the president "literally starts howling at the moon and trying to launch nuclear missiles."
So what do we do? Robinson continues: "Our most likely course of action is containment. The generals who play nanny at the 'adult day care center' are already acting as the first line of defense. Corker and his colleagues in Congress must begin acting as the second."
He says that Congress has the "power of the purse" and could exercise more use of the power to "withhold consent." In the end, Robinson concludes that this "makes it imperative that Democrats win one or both chambers of Congress in 2018."
Ralph
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