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.
So, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court ruling on Trump’s travel ban. Despite his rhetoric clearly indicating what it is, the Supreme Court decided that his public statements shouldn’t count in determining the legality of the ban. It’s frustrating and Un-American at it’s heart, but here it stands. The swing vote on this verdict, as is historically the case in these situations was Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy, in his statement wanted to assure everybody, that he hates religious and racial intolerance, and that this was not about that. This was about the constitution dammit! Also, he wants everyone to know (in a very subtle way, without using anyone’s names explicitly) that this isn’t the court’s permission for important people to disregard the constitution. Because that’s still what’s important! No one is above the law! And yet, those words probably fall on deaf ears. Or at least distracted ears, distracted from the loud gloating of the President, who sees this as nothing less than a win for him.
On Sunday, Vladimir Putin won his 4th term presidency in Russia. With 74% of the votes, it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t a landslide, though watchdog groups in Russia are reporting, rather matter of factly, that it was hardly fair, with reports of ballot stuffing and voter coercion, among other things, contributing to Putin’s successful campaign. From the outside, we watch that, and think “What an alarming misuse of power! Putin is a monster!” Also from the outside, I imagine Donald Trump watches that and thinks “Oh man…one day that’ll be me.”
Mind the Exit 