Warring against good governance further defiles White House prestige, stiff-arming Congress, agencies, bureaus, foreign alliances, law and justice
It’s the perfect horror show storm come true. Start with a failed president, encrusted with sex and business scandals, jury convictions, election fraud, and contempt for government, then add a staggeringly ill-timed WH immunity gift to an indicted election insurrectionist. Stir in GOP control of Congress and a slew of unqualified, unfit bozos at Cabinet posts and agencies – and what can go wrong? Brace for more than domestic deconstruction corruption, as in counterproductive tariffs, appeasement to foreign belligerents, axing climate agreements and scorn for historic allies. Grim, grimmer, and grimmest.
On the positive side, in theory, expect unintended, self-destructive consequences, as Orwellian Trumpers won’t succeed in converting disasters into MAGA triumphs. Historians will struggle to unearth anything good that Trump personally orchestrated during his long, four year term. And if Trump, whose cognitive decline makes him even more of a tin-foil, titular head, his army of sword-wielding marauders will hunt out nefarious, woke election riggers hostile to MAGA, clean elections, and Constitutional integrity.
In record-breaking time, Trump the Vilifier-in-chief has stripped off the thinnest of campaign veneer to broadcast the hypocrisy, if not incredibly divisive ramifications of his upcoming reign. The good news I suppose is that Trump telegraphs the full breath of his demolition coalition, though reeling Dems aren’t exactly mounting an effective counterattack. On point, Trump loyalists are already fuming at each other. Okay, Biden is pushing federal judges through and the Senate is not yet totally benighted, rejecting the worst nomination for Attorney General in the solar system. One advantage is that Trump, evident in his middle-finger Cabinet picks, has no governor and always overplays his hand. Trump treats governance like a punching bag and the bully forever crosses the line to discover what is toomuch – and adults, such as they are, stop him cold. The court system failed badly in this regard, a mammoth omission.
Trumpian hypocrisy, especially transparently phony promises to be a unity president, stands out as emphatically as belligerent insults. Only last summer, the newly-minted nominee pledged to serve all and unify America: “Together, we will launch a new era of safety, prosperity and freedom for citizens of every race, religion, color and creed,” he said. “The discord and division in our society must be healed. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart.” Well, Trump loves disintegration far more than “rising together,” a notion foreign to his selfishness.
Caldron of Chaos
In the pantheon of appalling B. S., this trumpery competes with the worst. Never has a candidate trafficked more in hateful divisiveness, indeed, campaign by rampaging against phantom enemies, pommeling Dems as treasonous enemies. Donald the Divisive really knows about “healing” fabricated differences, wildly praising Putin and Orban but demonizing Harris and Dems as “enemies within.” Except for this unity scam, nothing Trump has said or has done since in any way serves healing, even lowering the tone. Hear the latest, greatest absurdity imaginable? To ask the new DOJ to find (read: make-up) 2020 election fraud, that is aside from the lawless torrents Trump executed.
Clearly, here is Act II of Trump’s desperate war for maximum self-aggrandizement, assuming sentience, and maximum demolition of government as we know it. Yes, he may scheme to push for a third term, though even this passive Supreme Court won’t allow that outrage. So the question is no longer about Trumpian tactics and strategy, which couldn’t be clearer: what matters is how much attention the narcissist can seize by becoming Vlad the Impaler of functional government.
Since Dems still lack the backbone to fully confront a fascist wannabe, we have to default to unpredictable variables. How much damage can a lame duck president pull off, especially since we can expect steady cognitive decline? That will only empower Vance, the Trump clan, installed lackeys and assorted nutcases likely to increase mayhem with their own maverick hobbyhorses (like the ungovernable RFK, jr., an inevitable embarrassment).
No doubt in four years progressives will be able to scratch out a few good things from the second Trump parade of what looks like horrors. Maybe food additives will be reduced and junk food won’t predominate American diets, especially the young. Maybe Monk et al will find some federal savings that won’t devastate the impoverished, disempowered folks. Running a chaos crusade, outstripping what happened during the first Trump term, is like handing a loaded shotgun to a staggering drunk out to revenge against invisible forces.
What overstatements are at all viable?
Clearly, the swath of provocative Trump appointments signal he is delegating the demolition of government to pliable underlings likely thrown under the bus bizarre Trump ploys face insurmountable barriers, whether from the courts, public opinion, reality or the mid-term. Erratic tariff spikes will anger big business, and misguided deportation removes multitudes of low-cost workers critical to the ag, hotel, landscape, cleaning and construction industries. A ham-fisted trade war with China will not lower prices, nor will it resurrect decades of outsourced jobs. As with Trump 1.0 there will be big fatuous claims, with equally dishonest noisemaking, but the average joe will not benefit (really, deporting ten million will make a war look cheap).
The Trump Stunt presidency will return with vengeance – and how will indicting perfectly legal actors (like state prosecutors) not backfire? Did the Big Lie work politically or as a failed stunt, wreaking havoc on losing rightwing candidates? Even forcing Ukraine to hand over key chunks of its territory to a belligerent invader (considering US voters support the war efforts) will lose GOP House control at the mid-term.
If the Wash Post’s Ruth Marcus is right, “Four ways Trump will undermine the authority of Congress, The president-elect is setting the stage for a vast, dangerous and unconstitutional expansion of presidential power,” then Trump will begin by bombing Congress, and he may notch some wins. A potential check against this Constitutional invasion comes from Never Trumper gadfly, Anthony Scaramucci, describing a “shape shift by the Republicans in the Senate. You know, they see Trump as a lame duck. They know there’s one more election that he can have lots of influence on, which is the congressional election in two years, and I think they are fortifying themselves to block some of the things that he’s done in the past.”
We are in a sorry state if we ever depend on the rabid right coming to the Constitutional aid of the country. Official cowardice, evasion, denial and appeasement will certainly rear its ugly head before this raging disease is countered, with who knows how much permanent, systemic scarring. Fasten seat belts.
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