I feel like I need to start off by saying that not too long ago, the normal etiquette among opposing political factions, at least in the open, was respectful disagreement. At worst, you had some personal mudslinging while calling the opposing party misguided or stupid. But partisan opposition has taken a really terrible, really unfortunate left turn. Now you have the President of the United States calling his political opponents criminals. At a rally in West Virginia, he actually branded the Democrats “the Party of Crime.” It’s an alarming precedent. It’s an alarming precedent, and an ironic one. I mean, how can Trump, with a straight face, call the Democrats the “party of crime”, when all the arrests being made seem to be Republicans and their employees, including people who worked DIRECTLY under him. Let’s not forget that he himself is currently being investigated for obstructing justice and collusion with a hostile foreign power to undermine an election…I’m pretty sure those are all crimes. I suppose it could be argued that he’s trying to shift the conversation, but it’s a little too easy to make the point that calling Democrats the criminals doesn’t fit with the ACTUAL facts.
I feel like every week, I’m reading some new story about how the conditions are worsening for people who have to work for Donald Trump. For a while, it was just general discontent, lots of random media leaks and general distrust. Every time an expose or book would come out, Trump would call it fiction, and we’d hear that he was angry that staffers might be talking. Then Bob Woodward, the nation’s most well respected journalist and presidential biographer, released his book, and the hype surrounding that caused even more turmoil. Within DAYS of that, a Op-Ed written by an anonymous West Wing staffer was published in the New York Times, and things got so bad that rumors of polygraph tests were starting to circulate. Now a new Op-Ed from the Times suggest that staffers may have been plotting to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. Now, in fairness to that story, the validity of that claim is in question. It’s been noted that the remarks in question may have been sarcastic or meant to be a joke, but none the less, apparently the atmosphere for employees in the White House has only gotten worse. Trump seems to have lost confidence that he can trust anyone in his employ, and rumor has it, prone to outbursts at anyone who seems traitor-y. But this can’t last forever. There has to be some kind of breaking point, right?
Last Friday, I watched some clips of the Brett Kavanaugh testimony, and I had trouble getting through just some of the clips. Watching a rich, white judge spout off like an entitled 5 year old who is acting like he’s upset that he might not get the birthday present he demanded for his birthday was a little hard to handle. I have trouble sympathizing with the plight of a man’s ruined reputation when he is blatantly lying about things that I can call him out on based on the evidence HE SUBMITTED! He claims never to have been to a gathering where he allegedly tried to rape Christine Blasey Ford? Really? Because based on the calendar that he submitted, on July 1, 1982, he went to EXACTLY that type of gathering with EXACTLY the people she mentioned. Reading the totality of his testimony over the weekend was ever more gag inducing. As soon as it’s his neck on the chopping block, he’s more than ready to abandon his judicial principles to excuse himself. He’s your classic 80’s bad guy hoping to get a pass because that’s what he’s grown to expect. And at the same time, I’m afraid he’s going to get exactly what he expects. Let’s hope the FBI investigation manages to bring to light exactly what kind of monster he is.
I would be quite surprised if Brett Kavanaugh isn’t confirmed for the Supreme Court. This whole situation smells an awful lot like the Anita Hill incident which didn’t stop Clarence Thomas from getting confirmed, and the fact is that the Republicans really want their agenda represented in the highest court in the land. I just don’t see how it won’t happen. THAT said, he certainly doesn’t have a lot of great people helping his case. Roy Moore, ex-Senate candidate and accused sex offender and pedophile, is trying to make his voice heard on what he is declaring a liberal smear job. The fact is, NO ONE would want Roy Moore defending them against sexual assault allegations. He is in the unfortunate position of having basically no one believe he’s innocent of what he’s being accused of. Only adding to Kavanaugh’s problematic defenders were a panel of Conservative women out of Florida. They were interviewed by CNN, and their argument wasn’t “Kavanaugh is innocent”, but it was more of a “What guy hasn’t done this kind of thing when they were that age?” And to that I would say…most? No one I hang around with has, to my knowledge, ever attempted to sexually assault anyone. And if they did, it wouldn’t be an “aw shucks, boys will be boys” moment. It would be a friendship ender. So yeah…Kavanaugh will get confirmed despite there being no good reason he should be. Politics in America.
I have to wonder what morale in the White House looks like these days. I mean the past month has been a pretty big barrage of bad poll numbers and lots of looking over shoulders. We have open leaks in the White House that contributed to a biting, quite damaging book by arguably the most trusted journalist of the past 60 years, Bob Woodward, and an anonymous Op-Ed in the New York Times from a West Wing Staffer. North Korea continues to do whatever the hell they want, China doesn’t seem to understand that they’re supposed to be losing this trade war, and are doing a pretty good job of attacking Trump where it counts: his base. And all Trump can seem to do is shout about how unfair it is. Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen are officially cooperating with the Feds, which I’m sure Trump can’t love, and he is doing random things like declassifying documents because Fox News Pundits are asking him to, without bothering to check if such an act might actually be more harmful than helpful. His Supreme Court nomination is probably the most contested in history, with it’s own FBI investigation to boot. I think this is what a downward spiral looks like.
Trump has had a bad week for speaking to the public. After Tuesday, when he became a literal laughingstock in front of world leaders, the very next day, he held the press conference that may define this era of his presidency. It was bizarre, y’all. Like, it had so many twists and turns that I honestly didn’t know what to focus in on when coming up with ideas. To call Donald Trump an embarrassment of riches in terms of trying to find a bit of absurdity in the world would be an understatement, but this press conference was something else entirely. He downplays his own sexual assault allegations (He seems to remember only 4 or 5 out of the 19 that are actually known), lies about recantations, calls women liars, and democrats con artists. And that’s covers like 2 minutes of the event. He talked about George Washington and how the Democrats wouldn’t confirm him, talked about an imaginary war with North Korea that definitely would have happened if wasn’t elected, and his “very, very large brain.” It was…an event. I don’t know how anyone could watch him speak at this point and think he’s operating at full capacity.
I think it’s fair to say that Donald Trump didn’t have a great reception at the United Nations on Tuesday. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever been able to say that Donald Trump is a laughingstock, and have that be literal, but it was certainly true when he spoke to world leaders this week. And it came at the expense of one of the biggest lies that Trump has been trying to sell to Americans, but a lie that he could never reasonably expect to sell to people on the outside: that he’s making all the right decisions on the global stage, and that we’re respected as a result. He actually said “In less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.” It was a statement met with audible chuckles from the everyone in the room. When he tried to sell it by adding “So true,” those chuckles turned into outright laughter. By his own admission off the cuff, it wasn’t the response he was expecting. But why? I know he tries to tell everyone in the US that he’s just doing fantastic, but he can’t tell the people he’s actively antagonizing that he commands their respect. It’s like the opposite of gaslighting. It’s like anti-gaslighting. But if there is one thing I know, it’s that Trump does NOT tolerate embarrassment. He does not abide it, sees situations that cause it as signs of weakness, and frankly doesn’t know what to do when faced with it. So in the wake of the leaders of the world literally laughing in the face of his lies…well I don’t imagine we’ve heard the end of it.
Hurricane Florence has certainly been a damaging force along the east coast. And of course Donald Trump, being the President of the United States, had to show solidarity by making an appearance and making folks feel like the Government was going to take care of things. Who wants to guess how that went? If your guess was that Trump was going to make confusing and insensitive statements at the expense of the people who lost everything, congratulations. I owe you a cookie. The most public example was a yacht that caused major damage to property, and Trump telling the owner “You got a boat out of the deal.” And to that I says 1) No he didn’t. He doesn’t get to keep someone else’s boat because a hurricane put it there. That’s not how property works, and I’m surprised a real estate developer didn’t know that. Also 2) A Hurricane ruined the guys house! Even if he got to keep the boat (which he didn’t, and the boat itself was also pretty totaled, so why would he want it?) HIS HOUSE WAS RUINED! FEMA isn’t going to pay for that! They’re going to pass out water and paper towels. So way to make a joke at the expense of a guy who is likely looking at paying tens of thousands of dollars to fix his house, Don. You really got this whole “condolences” thing down.
The Trade War rhetoric and logic is damn childish. Seriously. It’s not enough that Donald Trump thinks that if he keeps trying to bully China with tariffs, that they’re just going to roll over. But the way he tries to sell this to everyone the American people is the way a 5 year old who just found out how to lie would. He keeps telling us how great all of this is going, while we watch the farmers and factory workers scramble to earn a living. He claims that China is attacking the farmers to make him look bad, as if he himself isn’t doing the same thing in bigger numbers. China is just doing it more strategically. And the difference is starting to show. Because while we’re pushing away our trading partners, they seem to be teaming up around us. But the thing is, Trump is forcing everyone to play his game, and his game is childish, which means no one comes away looking good. Tariffs are supposed to be a trade tool, not a weapon. And what should be an occasion that ends in the shaking of hands, is turning into a slapfight.
I’m getting increasingly more interested in the Texas senate race. In a state that is redder than Mars, the sure fire victory that Ted Cruz would normally have…well it feels a little less certain. Honestly, the odds are certainly in his favor, but Beto O’Rourke is really making a name for himself as an up and comer in the Democrat scene. Even Ted Cruz’s attempts to discredit O’Rourke may have only ended up making him look more awesome, and now, Cruz is being called out for underhanded donation solicitation. Listen, I understand that campaigning can be kind of a dirty business. Campaign flyers and junk mail irritates everyone, and if you want people to read your junker, than sometimes you have to think creatively. But there is a firm difference between being creative and being overtly deceptive. Take Ted Cruz’s latest mailer, which is more than just deceptive, it might be straight up illegal in Texas to do. You see, Ted Cruz’s campaign sent out a letter disguised as an official looking Summons in order to drum up donations. It even continues that deception in the letter asking for money. Now while some might argue that this is harmless, that no reasonable person would take this seriously, it’s worth pointing out that the reason this came to public attention was because a mailer was sent to man’s recently passed grandmother, who was suffering mental decline. Were she to come across this letter, he reasoned, she would have thought this was some kind of bill as opposed to deceptive solicitation. And honestly, if this kind of thing becomes okay, what becomes the next tricky maneuver to get people to donate?
Mind the Exit 