Unfortunately making fun of the President of the United States occupies way too much of my free time- something I have an abundance of. It’s just too easy. Many of the things Trump does are frightfully alarming, but like many people I try to make the best of his conduct by joking about it. But every once in awhile I reach a point of saturation and my collection barrel of satiric fodder becomes a bitter trough overflowing with bewilderment and anger. If the revelations about Trump in just these past few weeks don’t start sounding alarm bells in the Republican party and our population in general I fear for the future of our democracy.
As I have stated before, there are certainly more qualified people out there editorializing about the Trump administration. But with so much perplexity and corruption emanating from this administration the challenge to stay abreast of it all is Herculean. For your convenience, what follows is a synopsis, and related episodic history, of revelations about our president that have occurred in just the past couple of weeks that really, really piss me off or frankly scare the shit out of me. In the interest of everyone’s time I won’t go into details. Just Google if something is unfamiliar to you.
- Topping the list is undermining national institutions, in this case “Sharpygate.” How something so petty could be so bothersome to Trump only shows how dangerous an out of control ego can become, and how detached from reality he seems to be. For Trump, no mistake is too small to disavow. He has intimidated one body of the legislative branch into near impotence, has managed to install a subservient attorney general and usurp much of the countervailing power of the judicial branch, attacked the press, intelligence departments and the Federal Reserve. But questioning the National Weather Service? Are you shitting me? And then threatening the department employees unless they back him up? That both Wilbur Ross and Mick Mulvaney were involved in Trump appeasement demonstrates how intimidating life must be serving under this president. Inserting himself as chief administrator of the IRS would be a logical next step for Trump. I would not be surprised if Trump thought it only fair that he did control the weather, as well as the rotation of the earth.
- Emoluments violations. We have known this has been going on since he was elected. But the discloser that the U.S. Air Force has been sending planes to an airport in Scotland that services his golf course in order to prop it up and then billeting air crews at that very golf course is absolutely galling. Oh wait. I forgot about Doral. Trump brazenly promoted that golf course in front of a national TV audience. Give me a break. Who can keep up with all the graft. Both of these golf courses are losing money, so it would only make sense to a greed infested monarch to assume the taxpaying peasantry would be more than happy to subsidize his personal business ventures.
- Undermining national security. Where to start? Nevermind that he uses unsecured cell phones and Ivanka has used a person email account for WH business (lock her up!). Trump’s recent tweet of a classified photo of the aftermath of the explosion at an Iranian space center is just one of a half dozen of national security leeks of his his own volition. He was in office less than two months and he revealed classified intelligence to Russian diplomats. Shortly after that, he bragged to Philipine strongman Duerte about the presence of U.S. nuclear submarines off the coast of North Korea, stunning the Pentagon which has a policy to never discuss submarine locations. After the subway bombing in London, Trump tweeted out information about Scotland Yard and was rebuked by the prime minister. But the new revelation that there was a secret exfiltration from Russia of a valuable American intelligence asset in 2017 because there were fears that Trump’s cavalier handling of intelligence information could lead to his exposure is startling. Though I personally believe Trump has some financial involvement with Russia, I don’t think there is anything overtly treasonous going on with the guy as related to national security. He is simply a bungling boob.
- Which might explain why Trump actually believes a simple fix to the threat of hurricane destruction is to make it radioactive. Trump has no clue when it comes to understanding the workings of the natural world. His environmental policies are tragically counter intuitive. With Flint and Newark problems fresh in the news you would think he would at least put his roll back of clean water protections on hold. And now he’s dicking around with tailpipe regulations that not only make sense for environmental reasons, but rolling them back will give car manufactures mind-bending migraines.
It is a logical assumption that if President Obama ever did just one of the crazy things Trump has done the Republicans would be screaming for impeachment. Trump gets a pass from supporters apparently because he is an “outsider” who is adjusting to the office and/or has a different approach to governmental affairs. It’s been three years. By now we should all realize what Trump has learned while in office is how to take advantage it. It is often wondered if his head scratching antics have some grand strategy. Critics who seem to know him best think not, and I believe those people are correct. He has no strategy. His decisions are generally impulsive, his policies scattered and incoherent. Donald Trump deals with life in only two ways- for self promotion or self protection. Republicans in congress need to show some balls and pump the brakes on this maniac.
Son of a Bitch! Just when I thought I was ready to publish and had things tidied up for us, guess what? Along comes another WH scandal. You knew that would happen, right? Add this one to category 3. Wait. I’m hearing this might be bribery or extortion. Gotta hand it to Trump. He’s certainly not afraid to try something new. The story so far is Trump made a secret “promise” of some sort during a phone call to a foreign leader that prompted a whistleblower to rat it out, and of course details of the episode are being suppressed by the justice department. WTF? And House Democrats! WTF was up with your pathetic Lewandowski interview? That slime ball has no executive privilege protection. You should have thrown the asshole in jail!. God damn it! Congress has got to hold this administration accountable to the laws of the land. I need a nap.
