The Incredible Shrinking President

So we watched for three and a half years as Donald Trump pretty much failed at everything. His government passed only one bill and in an age of almost stunning economic inequality it only helped the rich get richer. He never got infrastructure off the ground, he never fixed healthcare or came up with anything to replace it. He never helped anyone in any area that was hit by a disaster. Overseas, he alienated our friends and kissed the assess of our enemies, partly because he just didn’t understand trade or the environment or anything that our scientists said. Even when he tried something that no one wanted, he failed. What wall?

And then, what every intelligent American feared, happened. He got hit with a real disaster, one that demanded leadership and he just wasn’t there. The virus was something he couldn’t bullshit about. It didn’t have ears. It didn’t care what he said or how he said it. He couldn’t talk or bribe it into anything. It didn’t care. He had no idea how to deal with it so he ignored it until it killed more people in this country than in any other nation on earth.

And then, as if the virus weren’t bad enough, the remedy damned near destroyed the economy, the one thing he had falsely claimed to be his own. It was all a Trumpian nightmare and just when it looked like there might be a sliver of light trying to illuminate a reopening America a dumb, vicious cop with a Trumpian mindset, kills George Floyd in Minnesota and the country goes upside down.

Never has this country been more in need of a leader. Never have we needed our President to step forward to show empathy for the grieving family and to attempt to unify the nation, yet once again the Fat Liar in the Oval Office failed.

While the President hid in the bunker under the White House playing with the nuclear codes and envisioning themselves wiping out New York and while GOP Senators evaded reporters, refusing to comment on the lack of leadership by Trump; out in the streets millions were peacefully demonstrating to show how enraged they were over the death of George Floyd.

And there was Donald Trump, down but not out.

From the ranks of the neo-Nazi, KKK and White Supremacist movements a small but well organized army of infiltrators and perpetrators slipped into the ranks of the peaceful demonstrators and when the time was ripe lead the most volatile aspects of those ranks in attacks on police and property anywhere a demonstration popped up.

I watched the trashing of SOHO in NYC the other night and almost 90% of the thugs doing the damage were white, dressed all in black, they operated in almost military fashion. These were not out of control kids, trying to grab a pair of high priced sneakers or a bracelet for their girl. These were organized warriors out to do maximum property damage and raise the ire of the moderate population against the demonstrators. Their goal: to drive said moderates to the polling booths in November set on a law & order agenda.

This is a crazed and frantic Trump pulling the most heinous strategy out of his ass because even he sees that he is not just losing in the polls, he’s getting killed. But his strategies are disastrous and he needs help, lots of help. Unfortunately, it seems that there are no adults left in the White House to whom he will listen.  The other day, instead of initiating a broadcast to the American people, in which he could express sympathy to the Floyd family while backing the peaceful marchers and encouraging them to hold the line against violence; Trump, because he is an egomaniacal sociopath, choose a different path. He decided to march out of the heavily defended White House and across Lafayette Park to St. John’s Episcopal Church where he would pose in front of the building, holding a bible; one quite possibly stolen from the motel room in which he banged his last hooker.

Of course because this is such a non-functional gaggle of freaks, no one bothered to call the Bishop of the church or anyone else and tell them that The President was coming. Nor did the President, a man with absolutely zero true religious intention ever consider actually saying a prayer in the church. No, this was strictly; get to the church, take the pic and get the hell out of there. It reminded one of LBJ holding his dog up by the ears.

Naturally the bishop was more than a little peeved and hauled the Fat Liar over the coals, but Trump is far too insensitive to have been affected by anything that mundane. Now it would seem that Trump and his coterie of imbeciles had screwed this up way past any improvements but wait, you ain’t heard the best part. In order to get Trump and his little white army to the church they had to cross through a huge, very peaceful demonstration in Lafayette Park.  Trump sent the other fat asshole, Bill Barr, out to reconnoiter the situation and Barr, unbelievably came back with a solution even worse than Custer’s at Little Big Horn. He sent in the Police to chase the demonstrators using rubber bullets and tear gas. Yes, a path was made for Trump to get to the church but in doing so they established just how our self-proclaimed dictator would use the powers of the Enforcement Act of 1807to bring in military troops to gain control of, undoubtedly Blue States.

Members of Trump’s inner circle have been talking about this for quite some time and Trump has mentioned it himself, but his exhibition in Lafayette Park will probably kill any thoughts of giving him that weapon.

But it’s time to get back to the demonstrators because the violence, if they can’t control it themselves, will become an even larger problem. As Al Sharpton pointed out the other day, there is a huge voting block that can be moved to the right just on the “law and order” principle. Don’t forget 1968 when, because Nixon recognized the potential of the riots that preceded the election and played to a serious Law & Order Ticket, he won an election no one thought he could.

It’s going to be a very sticky path from here to November. It’s imperative that the demonstrations be kept non-violent and it’s up to the leaders of those demonstrations to make that happen.

In the past most demonstrations were organized, put together by coalitions of various groups who were led by politicians or revolutionaries. This one just kind of happened. Floyd was murdered and the people took it on themselves to go out and have their say. That’s a great thing but it’s also a problem, because in this case the vacant leadership roles were filled by white supremacists masquerading as protestors with the sole goal of creating havoc and gaining the attention of the law & order moderates.

With all the noise that Trump and his lackeys have been making lately about the violent left and Antifa it’s really the violent right led by Klan elements, neo-Nazis and white supremacists that have been guilty of most of our domestic violence. Legal analyst Maya Wiley points out that while 2% of domestic terrorism is attributable to Antifa the other 98% is attributable to far right & White Supremacist groups.

Americans of every demographic are with the protestors, but they must control their ranks or they will have failed the nation, because the impression they will leave behind is that the Right is correct in trying to control their violent actions.

By the same token, the police must be allowed to confront those fermenting violence. This is a very tricky place for them to be.  Once false or too violent reaction and they are up to their eyeballs in investigations. Don’t forget, this whole thing is about violent cops.

And speaking of violent cops, it has taken Keith Ellison way too long to charge those other three cops. Now that he has, maybe it will help calm what comes next. People want justice and millions of those people saw these three cops either help the one charged, or ignore the situation. The demonstrations, even the peaceful ones, have already run too long. They are an invitation to commit violence and a very serious threat to spread the virus.  It’s time to move on.

*****

George Will, the brilliant Conservative writer finally admitted that he couldn’t take it any more and exploded in an article in the Washington Post, demanding that Trump be removed from office. And he didn’t stop there. He went on to attack Republicans in the Senate who have empowered Trump to the abandonment of their own constituencies in a fruitless search for never ending power that Trump promises but fails to deliver.

But Will wasn’t alone. He was joined by an outpouring of anti-Trump sentiment from a series of current and retired military leaders who have to this point remained silent.

It appears that Trump’s use of force to clear a path for him and a group of lackeys, to cross from the White House to St. John’s Church for a phony photo op was too much for the military to accept. One after the other Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, Head of the Joint Chiefs, Mark Milley and former Secretary of Defense James Mathis and former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly have exploded across the headlines condemning Trump for his actions and standing against his request to use the Insurrection Act of 1807 to bring military force against the American people.

So much for Bill Maher’s fears that Trump might be able to use the military to hold onto a presidency he lost at the ballot box.

Our military has always-valued honor above all else, which is a problem for a President who doesn’t have any idea of what that concept means.

There’s an election coming up in November and by the time it arrives the Incredible Shrinking President should be microscopic.