Freak Out Friday – September 20, 2019

FREAK OUT FRIDAY – SEPTEMBER 20, 2019

We all know of the legendary Deep Throat.  No, not the Linda Lovelace one.  I’m referring to former FBI associate director Mark Felt, who fed information to the equally legendary Woodward and Bernstein that helped bring down the Nixon presidency.

And now we apparently have Deep Throat II:  Deep Whistle.  Deep Whistle is an unnamed member of the intelligence community who was so alarmed with conversations that Trump had with an unnamed foreign leader—including very disturbing promises—that he decided to make it known.  Naturally a coterie of Trump’s supporters/enablers/toadies endeavored to keep it bottled up.

Meanwhile—and I’m a little fuzzy on whether this is the same story or one that coincides with this one—word has gotten out that Trump has been endeavoring to strong arm Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of the Ukraine.  Why and how has he been doing that?  The how was by threatening to withhold financial aid to the Ukraine, which was finally released a week after the story was broken in the media. The why is even more problematic. He insisted that he wanted Zelensky to launch an investigation into Joe Biden’s son and his involvement with a Ukranian natural gas company.

Because of course when you feel threatened by a political opponent, you don’t try to face off against him on issues of merit.  You don’t try to argue with him.  You belittle him, call him demeaning names (while simultaneously talking about how much you respect him and other adversaries like “Pocahantas.”) And when that doesn’t work and he remains strong in the polls, you don’t raise your game.  Instead you try to strong-arm another national leader to try and dig up dirt on Biden’s son.  Because the reasoning is very simple:  Smear your competitor by smearing his family.  

Is there proof that the son has done anything illegal?  No.  Even more important, is there proof that the father colluded somehow with him and therefore has done something illegal?  Like, you know, falsifying a government weather map, which is a crime punishable by ninety days in jail?  No, of course not.

But since when has Trump been the slightest bit interested in facts?  He dismisses reportage from the most reliable news sources in the country as “fake news.”  He sides with the Saudi Prince who engineered the murder and butchering of a Washington Post report, dismisses climate change as a hoax, insists that the intelligence community is completely wrong about Russia rigging the election for his benefit, claims that he won the popular vote because the three million more voters who wanted Hillary were all illegal immigrants, and paints a portrait of Mexicans that may be solidly supported by the makers of Rambo: Last Blood but not by others (including me, who has been to Mexico several times and had a great time every outing.)  

Combine his threats to withhold money from the Ukraine unless they do what he demanded and his promises to an unnamed foreign head (probably Putin) and we have yet more proof that Trump is interested in one thing and one thing only:  himself.  The best was when he endeavored to dismiss the facts of his unspecified call by declaring that, knowing the phone call would be tapped, how could anyone think he’d possibly be stupid enough to say something disturbing/treasonous? 

That’s actually a fairly reasonable question.  I shall endeavor to answer it to the best of my ability.

We think he’d be stupid enough to say something disturbing/treasonous because he is stupid enough to do such a thing.  I fully believe he’s capable of saying something along those lines without even realizing that’s what he’s doing.  

Because that’s what he does, all the time.  Says and does stupid things, and then he has Mitch McConnell and his passel of followers laboring 24/7 to either try and cover it up or make sure that he never suffers consequences for his actions.  And so far, it’s been working like a charm.  He can’t hold a thought in his head for more than seconds at a time.  

Over the past two and a half years, we have been pushed toward the ineluctable conclusion that Trump was everything the Founding Fathers feared could go wrong with the presidency.  He’s why we have the language about impeachment.  The Emoluments clause.  The 25^thamendment.  All the safeguards that were built into the document he swore to uphold, all of which are being ignored by people who are far more worried about preserving power than serving the electorate.

The fact is this: Trump is the single most destructive, lying individual who has ever inhabited the Oval Office.  And the GOP controlled Senate continues to cover for him over and over again.  They remain the reason that the Democrats are only half-heartedly pursuing impeachment.  They know that the GOP will shut it down should it get that far and Trump will use it to declare triumph, and unfortunately this will work with his stupid supporters.  

HAS HE DONE ANYTHING RIGHT?  Yes, although mostly it’s him trying to undo damage that he himself did.  He has lifted tariffs on 437 Chinese products, mostly because of pleas from US companies claiming that the tariffs will cause economic hardship.  So although our relationship with China is still a mess, at least he’s doing something to try and undo the massive snarl he created.  So that’s something.  Not much, but something.

PAD