December 4, 2020

 

Before anyone reminds me that I promised this blog was going to be titled Georgia on my mind, I want to apologize for getting my months mixed up. That title is now reserved for my Blog #103, to be dated January 1st, 2021, my first blog of the New Year and just five days before the Georgia runoff election! I now realize that I will have to continue this blog-series until Blog #106, which, on its’ issue date, January 23, 2021, will be, I hope, two days after the official end of the terrible Trump Presidency, and a good time to wrap-up this blog-series, and find a new writer’s fantasy to pursue.  Please God, forbid something awful to happen and I will be forced to continue recording this nightmare of American political history.

 

     BTY, The Nightmare of Recent American Political History just might make a great title for the book I’m considering. That would be turning my Blog-series, after quite a bit of re-writing and editing, into the history of Trump’s final years. If I can find a political cartoonist to work with me on the book, it could be titled The Illustrated Nightmare of Recent American Political History. If any of you readers know of a cartoonist whose work would ‘fit’ my Blog-series story line, please let me know. Political cartoonists are a dying breed. Sort of like those who write caustic political commentary.

 

      My reason for NOT writing about the Georgia runoff election NOW is that nothing significant is happening that is truly news-worthy. I doubt that neither Mr. Purdue nor Ms. Loffler will commit any more criminal acts than they have already done, or that Mr. Warnock or Mr. Ossoff will work any harder to communicate their belief in our democracy than they have in the recent past. All four candidates are awash in dark money and I suspect the Georgia electorate is getting dam tired of the political BS that is flooding their mail-boxes, bill-boards, radios, newspapers, and TV screens. Frankly, I’m afraid that the Georgia electorate will get so fed-up with all the political crap they are being exposed to they won’t go to the polls and vote. As in the November 3rd election, the future of our democracy depends on Stacy Abrams and her ability to get the Democrats off their ass(es) and vote, on or before, January 6, 2021. I’m sure the Republican bunch is as aware of that reality as I am.

 

     Meanwhile, back in the White House, Donald Trump continues to live in the little, perverse, and terribly dark world of his idiotic alternate reality. Unfortunately, most of his Republican enablers are still helping him stay there by supporting his delusions. However, one of the biggest, and most rotten of Trump’s enablers, our Attorney General, Mr. William Barr has just crossed onto the threshold of reality and declared there is no evidence of fraud anywhere in the election results that he, or all the attorneys Trump has hired (except Rudy), can find. Mr. Barr seems to have realized that he soon could be looking for a new job and is trying desperately to repair the damage he has done to his resume’ these last two years by being the number one pimp for Donald J. Trump.

 

     The ‘Donald’ may soon find himself alone, in a White House closet, sucking his thumb, and crying “FRAUD” in the dark. Which brings me to another, rather frightening, vision I am having. That is, of Donald Trump being led out of the White House in a straight-jacket, on his way to be locked-up in a mental institution for the rest of his life. Don’t laugh. I suspect the odds of that happening are in my favor. I believe that Donald J. Trump is very close to be declared, and certified as, mentally insane!  Donald started his presidency being seriously deranged. Now he feels deprived of his illusion of fame and power by the election results, and is mentally depressed as he considers his prospects for survival as a private citizen when he re-enters that world on the 20th of January, 2021. I think it is reasonable to sum up Donald’s presidential career as one of being deranged, deprived, and depressed. Maybe we should check-in with Mary Trump again?

 

     As evidence of the problems our famous ‘Donald’ is facing when he leaves the temporary security of his office as our President, I credit The New York Times Sunday, November 29th, Magazine, for providing a well-detailed, eight-pages of very small type, report written by Jonathan Mahler, which, thanks to the excellent job their editor’s did in laying out that report, I am able to easily summarize as follows:

  1. The about a four thousand word Introduction which, I think, is wonderfully encapsulated by his writing in this paragraph, “You have to first look back on the entire Trump presidency in a different way—one that sees his possibly criminal conduct not as a byproduct of a pursuit of a political agenda but as a central, self-perpetuating feature of his tenure. In this light, Trump’s potential criminality becomes a kind of throughline (sic.), the dots that connect his life as a businessman to his entry into politics and then onward across his four years as president. One potentially illegal act led Trump to the next: from his law-bending moves as a businessman, to his questionable campaign-finance practices, to his willingness to interfere with investigations into his conduct, to his acts of public corruption and, finally, to the seemingly illegal abuse of the powers of his office in order to remain in office.” Mahler then writes, “This whole presidency has been about someone who thought he was above the law.” And he concludes the introduction by quoting Ms. Anne Milgram, the former attorney general of New Jersey, who told him, “If he (Trump) isn’t held accountable for possible crimes, then he (Trump) literally was above the law,” ( A really scary thought!) Then Mr. Mahler details:
  2. Trump’s Financial Crimes–in business and possible evasion of taxes now in New York Courts.
  3. Trump’s Election-law violations –in fund raising, hush-money payments, and emoluments.
  4. Trump’s Obstruction of Justice -during the Mueller investigation and conflicts with the FBI.
  5. Trump’s Public Corruption –impeached on charges of bribery, wire fraud, and ‘honest-services’ fraud.
  6. Trump’s Partisan Coercion -his appointees’ violation of the Hatch Act, and including Trump’s use of official authority to influence a federal election.

     And concludes with these statements:

-in the end, the dilemma over what to do about Donald Trump may be less about Trump than it is about the structural problems his presidency exposed.

-Even as I write this, Trump’s subversion of democratic norms continues.

-this may require recognizing that when a president brazenly flouts the law, electoral defeat might not be enough of a punishment.

     And then quotes Stephen Vladeck, a constitutional law professor at the University of Texas, “Breaking the law is not a political difference” and then the writer concludes, “healing may have to mean something fundamentally different from what it has in the past—and that without accountability, it may in fact be impossible.”

 

     Watch out Donald! They are coming to get you!

         Lou

                     Copyright, December 4, 2020, Louis J. Christen

Resisting Transiting. Lou (The Lone Curmudgeon) Writes Again!