The Formative Political Period of D Trump

Pipe bombs and Synagogue shootings.  Our democracy looks like it’s coming apart at the seams.  We can’t stand each other.  Red team vs Blue team.  No more civil debate about policy. Fist fights and mobs shedding light on our problems with inflammatory rhetoric and tiki torches. Putin’s got to be loving this.

How did we sink to such depths?  Say what you will about both sides stoking the flames,  I am sorry but the plummet started with Donald Trump.  And he simply refuses to put out the fire. There won’t be any phone calls of concern to either of the two past presidents of our country that received pipe bombs in the mail.  He deliberately entices his supporters at political rallies with fomenting remarks that work up the crowd to the point that it could be easily mistaken for one observing a professional wrestling match.  Political opponents and any institution he feels are critical of him are meted out insulting, incendiary verbal body slams  (most affectively applied in Montana).

Trump!  Words matter.  Addressing these latest assaults on the psyche of this county with prompted generalities of rebuke are not enough.  There are mixed up nut-jobs out there who will take you seriously.  Stop the insults, fear mongering, and for Pete’s sake stop all the LYING.  You complain about unfair treatment by the media, that it is completely unbalanced with negative reporting.  Can you not figure out that the reason for that is you are constantly doing so many stupid things and insulting us with blatant lies.  I kind of want to know if you are using an unsecured cell phone.  The public should know that when you promise a middle class tax cut before the mid-terms you are pulling the whole idea out of your ass in order to garnish votes.  Congress is not even in session.  The media is not the “enemy of the people.”  And I know you are desperate for those votes but how can you say with a straight face that Republicans will save pre-existing conditions when you and the entire party have made destroying the ACA your defining mission statement.

There are no ISIS terrorists hiding amidst the throng of Central Americans slowly trodding their way to our border. Democrats are not “evil.” Democrats aren’t providing Central American gang members with Rolls Royces.  What the fuck is wrong with you? Even though many of both parties feel a wall is over the top, Democrats, Independents, Republicans, we all want immigration reform and a secure border.  There is no rioting in sanctuary cities.  No Democrat senator voted against the new opioid epidemic bill.  Virtually every Democrat and Republican voted FOR it.  It was an almost historic bipartisan outcome of our times.  It was in all the papers.  CNN gave you warm kudos for your accomplishment.  What in the hell do you do all day.? You are supposed to know these things.  Bewilderingly, you turned a media positive for something you did into a media negative all by yourself!-  by LYING about it!  Once again you look like an idiot to anyone who is remotely informed and I for one want that made clear in news reporting.  Do the media and yourself a favor and start telling the truth for a change.

The president of this country is supposed to be a leader for all, not some. In a moment of crisis your pattern is to make a prompted speech that momentarily sounds universally presidential, but at your next rally, off you go again with ridiculous statements and lies.  For god sake control yourself.  I know the emotional rush you get from the rousing applause gives you a boner, but we need you to show some restraint.  There are sick people out there.  You need to more carefully examine those standing behind you at your rallies.  Those people and our country in general would be better served if you told the truth.  It is frightening enough to have mentally imbalanced people just waiting for some famous or authoritative person validate whatever craziness is bouncing around in their mind, but when that person is the president of the United States there is a strong likelihood of a tragic consequence.  Stop stooping to the lowest common denominator to boost your ratings.  Stoking paranoia and fear with deception is not the nature of any kind of responsible leader.

Let’s revisit the Kavanaugh shit storm.  The way I see it, if nothing else, one positive outcome will be an improvement in the whole Supreme Court nomination process.  Let me ask you a question.  Would you ever want to have the entirety of your existence  examined by all the eyes in the universe?    Have you any skeletons in your closet?  I would like to go on record right now and make it perfectly clear that if anyone is thinking about nominating me for a position on the Supreme Court, I respectfully decline.  But thank you for holding me in such high regard.  I did some shit in college I am not particularly proud of.  I confess that had a lot to do with drinking beer.

LEFT:  Though I once felt I took clever measures to conceal my weakness, I realize now my past history of habitual gambling would derail any aspirations for high office.

But god damn it do not lump me in with that Kavanaugh character.  This is hypothetical of course since I have already mentioned I will not, under any circumstances, accept your nomination, but there is no woman on this earth who could come forward and accuse me of assault. The most you would get from any woman so brought forth would be considerable snickering and a smattering of hysterical laughter.  The humiliation would be unbearable for me and to recover would take years of therapy.

Few would deny the Kavanaugh hearings diminished  both the candidate and the institution itself.  The lesson I would hope that is learned would be- if you think you deserve to be a Supreme Court Justice, your closet had better be free of any kind of embarrassing remains, and it would not hurt to make an effort to give it a good dusting.  The acrimonious partisanship was blatantly evident during the inquiries with this nominee.  A lot of that had to do with political frustrations of the past  and the abysmal climate of uncompromising polarization that has gripped our system of governance.  You can blame much of that on leadership at the top. Regardless, this was unprecedented vitriol.  Future nominees hopefully have paid attention.  Brett Kavanaugh endured what many believe was unjust scrutiny.  I say it is now abundantly  clear what we expect from Jurists of our highest court.

Brett Kavanaugh, as intelligent as he must be, should have seen this coming.  As far as I am  concerned, if he feels mistreated he has no one to blame but himself.  We should expect our Supreme Court Justices to be unquestionably honorable. Senate  Judiciary hearings are not a trial.  It is a job interview.  These guys work for us.  If you have any reservations about something in your past that might be resurrected, you should think twice before you put yourself through the process.  If you feel confident you can defend any past discretion, take a swing, but you should be able to do so in a composed manner, and definitely not lie about anything you are questioned about.

Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath to the committee.  That in itself should be disqualifying.   Truth is pretty much the foundation of the institution.  Brett Kavanaugh emotionally came apart at the seams, intermittently weeping and launching into tirades and alarming displays of political bias.   Had the candidate being questioned been a woman and reacted as Brett Kavanaugh did,  I suspect a good number on the Judicial committee  would have immediately dismissed her as  an hysterical female unfit to serve.  Now even Kavanaugh’s fellow Supreme Court Justices are questioning his character and fitness for office.  Judge Roberts Requests Kavanaugh Investigation,  That’s a first, and not the kind of distinction you would normally want attached to your name.

This is where we have landed.  In the future it would behoove candidates to carefully examine their past before they submit to the committee hearing process, and it would be in their  best interest to involve an impartial party for verification.  There are those who feel the treatment Judge Kavanaugh received was so deplorable it will be a wonder if anyone with integrity will want to be submitted for consideration.  To me this is exactly the point.  I am confident there are and will be several jurists with the standing required, and now maybe only those confident in their character as well as their ability will accept nomination.  Let’s see.  Let me submit Judge Merrick Garland for consideration.

A quick side note.  It seems ridiculous to even mention, but all of this applies to any current or future presidents as well.  Donald Trump you could safely say is nowhere near as intelligent as Brett Kavanaugh.  But It seems incomprehensible to me that he would not realize the many cess pools of his life would be exposed for all to smell if he ran for president.  His pal, media personality Howard Stern, even told him as much.  When the shit hits the fan, the person to blame for whomever it splatters is Donald Trump.

AUTHOR’S FINAL SUBJECT COMMENT:  This is the last of my three part Kavanaugh series.  If you’re like me you just can’t get enough material to support your day to day feelings of revulsion.  Sometimes alcohol is just not enough to do the trick.  And actually you’re lucky there are only three parts.  This clusterfuck of an administration offers so much more to be amazed about.  So in case you missed the other two parts of what I feel Brett Kavanaugh has wrought, here they are for simple access:  Part 1 Just One Thing I Learned from the Kavanaugh Confirmation Hearings          Part 2  Where Did This Guy Go to School?  

Trump Says Protesting Should Be Illegal   Hey Trump! How long have you been living in this country?  I know you’ve never been one to read a book, but during all your years of schooling I would think if you just made it to class every once in awhile you would have a basic understanding of the constitution’s first amendment.  Protesting and petitioning for change is engrained  in our country’s  DNA.  It’s a tool the people use to let you know what a shitty job you’re doing. You might say it is one of democracy’s inferred forms of checks and balances, used most often when a sycophantic congress  lacks the gumption to use its own prescribed  power to check the executive branch.   Where were you in the 60’s and 70’s anyway?  Without civil rights protests you wouldn’t keep getting slapped with those annoying housing discrimination suits. Remember? And maybe the Vietnam war would have gone on a couple more years and your medical deferment might have expired.  Yikes!  Here is a little something a fellow by the name of Thomas Jefferson wrote a long time ago.  I know you’ve never read much about him, but he authored the Declaration of Independence  and was instrumental in fine tuning the constitution of the United States.  That’s the place where you live. Please!  Have someone read it to you.

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.” – Thomas Jefferson.

Like all dictators, you approve of something only when it suits your personal interest.  But the way it works around here is if enough people don’t like the way things are going, we protest and petition to make a point and hopefully make things better.  We’ve been doing that since the Boston Tea Party.  You should read up on it, or, er, watch the History Channel or something.

Hey! Fox News.  Ask Sean Hannity  which of these two images more accurately projects mob violence in his world.

Group of Senate Building Protestors                        Group of Charlottesville Protestors

Well it’s finally happening.  The end is near.  I had my annual physical last week.  It’s a free medical service compliments of our nations Medicare program.  It’s one of the perks of retirement.  I bet you can’t wait.  For the uninitiated, you should be aware the exam has a component that you don’t ordinarily experience in those conducted during your pre-retirement years.  During your Medicare physical your medical practitioner will throw out some questions to see how you are holding up cognitively.  It is a government program after all, and those in charge naturally have to have some standards in place so people can be held accountable. It just makes sense.  All the poking and prodding and sophisticated lab work will be a big help with your medical evaluation, but it’s what’s going on inside the ol’ noggin that is probably more impactful when it comes to deciding if someone should tell your kids to take away your car keys.

A lot of you are probably thinking if Trump aced his mental acuity test how hard can it be.  Not so fast.  You aren’t going to get to identify pictures of animals. Any idiot can do that.  Obviously the test Trump took was dumbed down so he could walk away thinking he is a genius.  You won’t be so lucky. You have to bear down and concentrate on the original, unmodified version.

One of the things you have to do is draw a clock with the hands pointing to a specific time.  Sounds simple but you will probably fuck it up.  There is really no time constraint so don’t panic.  Of course you can’t erase because what you are given to perform the task is a ball point pen. So just do your best by scribbling over any line that doesn’t look right, or maybe write “oops” along the side of it and draw another line.  You should probably make sure the new one you draw is reasonably accurate though because at this point your medical examiner is starting to calculate how long it will be before you are chronically drooling all over yourself and walking around with shit in your pants.

What you will find more challenging though is the deceptive word game.  You’ll be given three words and asked to remember and repeat them later on during the examination. It was easy for me to remember my first word during this year’s exam because it was “finger.”     That’s what my physician earlier jammed up my ass  to see how my prostate gland is getting along.  I didn’t have a problem remembering my other two words at that time either, but to be honest with you I don’t recall what they were now.  The fact that I could later only remember one of my words bothered me for awhile.  I hope I’m not getting Alzheimers.  I do remember  none of my words were “gerbil'” “flashlight,” or “beer bottle.”  Those are some of the things I’ve heard people  stick up their ass for reasons  I don’t particularly care to know about, so no doubt under the circumstances I would not have had difficulty recalling any of those.

Overall I think  my physical went very well this year- except for one thing.  One year ago I was five feet eleven inches tall.  This year I am five feet nine and three-fourths inches tall.  I am missing one and a quarter inches of myself.   I have been five feet eleven inches for the past five decades.  Where did that one and a quarter inch go?  I am shrinking and as we all know that is a pretty good indication a person is on the downside of existence.  Son of a bitch!  You better know I’m not taking this sitting down, with the exception of sitting down for a half hour each day with my old cervical traction device strapped to my head.  I figure if I max out the capacity of the water- weight bag, after a couple months I can stretch back most of what I have lost.  The grim reaper can just kiss my ass.

UPCOMING HEALTH TIP: How to deal with that smart- ass doctor who keeps rudely fat-shaming your liver.  

Think of somebody besides yourself for a change and SHARE

You can’t help but think you reap what you sow here. Pecker Pickle  If you are a practicing incorrigible and surround yourself with people who are competitively unscrupulous, you are likely to get your ass in a jam.  It was just a matter of time before the shit really hit the fan.  And we have hardly had a glimpse of what Mueller is turning up.  It seems unlikely that state prosecutors won’t extract more salacious information about Trump from Pecker and what was stored in the Enquirer’s secret safe.  For one thing, one of those smarmy characters Trump palled around with is  American financier Jeffrey Epstein, recognized more as a registered sex offender than as a philanthropist.  What fertile fodder for the Enquirer.  Jeffrey Epstein

So there’s that.  Then there are all the guys with connections to Russia and its former satellites- Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Carter Page, Michael Flynn. Felix Sater.  Don’t forget all the shady fringe political figures- Roger Stone, Sebastian Gorka, Steve Bannon, and the late Roy Cohn.  And of course there’s his notorious fixer Michael Cohen, who has revealed that yes, as Donald Trump so adamantly complained, the fix was in on the 2016 presidential election, but it was Donald Trump himself who contributed to the fix.

When Trump was in the business of constructing buildings, it was common practice for him to award contracts to firms with connections to organized crime. The Russian mob is intertwined in many of his commercial developments.  And look at his cabinet.  Price and Pruitt were forced out because of ethics and corruption violations.  Commerce Secretary Ross shorted stock and used pending news of his own dubious investments as an opportunity for insider trading. A cloud of suspicion surrounds  Interior Secretary Zinke and his “foundation” that is run by his wife and is playing a key role in real estate deals whose companies stand to benefit from Interior department decisions to open public lands to oil exploration. Education Secretary DeVos is basically running a corruption racket, awarding student loan debt collection to a firm she is heavily invested in.

And of course there might not be any person on earth more corrupt than the president himself.  Just the tip of the iceberg  are egregious emoluments clause violations going on on a daily basis that congress refuses to do anything about.  I can’t imagine Pecker not having at least a few revealing stories to tell.

I understand most of the dynamics of the 2016 presidential election.  For many what they saw was choosing the lesser of two evils.  Staunch Trump supporters are presently entrenched    They will vote to protect him and his program because they believe they are protecting themselves.  But look around.  If this president is providing protection for your engrained bigotry, or you are a true believer that disruption and chaos are just the thing the country needs, no doubt your mind will not be changed.  But any single-issue voters out there, especially pro-life or second amendment supporters, please give serious thought about wiping the slate clean.  Protect your beliefs, just don’t put your faith in a despicable man who’s loyalty is only to himself and is slowly undermining the very institutions that serve to protect all of us.

Now Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, like Pecker, is providing information with immunity protection.  This is the beginning of path through the money trail, and as many have predicted, it is probably what leads to the end of this presidency.  Resigning might at least save Trump from some embarrassment, but it would definitely save the country from dysfunction and discord that is only going to get worse if he doesn’t.  if a person picks a peck of profiteering peckers for protection, that particular person will probably end up in a pickle.

SHARE and know you will feel good about yourself 

Let’s face it.  The national polarization created by Trump is something you could say we have not seen since the U.S. Civil War.  Discussions involving  opposing viewpoints are exercises in futility, and when they do occur, they very often become alarmingly incendiary.  How can one man create such a furor?  The allure of Trumpism is something that is difficult for me to get my head around. Having said that,  I like to think I am educated and empathic enough to at least listen to someone who feels differently than I do.  And  I understand how parts of Trump’s campaign messaging resonated with his voters.  I was not enthralled with any of our 2016 presidential candidates.  I could see how people were more than willing to take a chance with a left field candidate.

Yes, I get that.  But what I can’t figure out is the mind set of people attending a typical Trump political rally.  Honest to god  a Trump rally for me is the equivalent of watching a troop of squatting monkeys perform a shit-flinging show.   I don’t waste my time watching any of them on television, but it’s difficult to escape all the snippets  the national news programs present.  If you are like me you just can’t help focusing on the people lined up behind Trump at one of these things.  Admittedly there are always a few that look like they might be riding the distal point of a bad meth trip, but heck, take a photo of a large group of the people I hang out with and to a casual observer one or two of them would probably look out of sorts also.  But the majority standing there cheering on the president seem perfectly normal to me.  That is until once again something  unforgivingly stupid spills out of his mouth.  Then the normal people just vanish.  They were there, but then they’re gone.

To prove my point, I need only refer to the comment Trump made in Tampa about purchasing groceries.  He emphatically stated if you intend to leave the supermarket with all those items you have piled up in your shopping cart, you damn well better show ID.  The statement is so blatantly incorrect and shows such a complete disconnect from the very people standing behind him that you would think there would be at least a smattering of people with quizzical expressions on their faces.  If my wife and I were there what we would be doing is glancing at each other and those around us, and if not actually saying “what the fuck,” at the very least our stunned appearance would convey to the entire viewing audience that we consider what we just heard to be unconditionally moronic.

But no, what you see are normal people turning abnormal.  There is nothing about those attendees standing behind Trump that would indicate they find anything out of the ordinary in what he just said.  Just glazed looks of acceptance.  What is going on there?  Sure Trump lies all the time.  His lying during ambiguous political and social commentary that can’t be readily fact-checked is one thing.  But geezuz even the nine year old kids who were dragged to the event by moms and dads with questionably commendable parenting skills  know how to grocery shop.  I refuse to believe all those people are that stupid.

So are they brainwashed?  Is there something behind all the talk about gas-lighting?  What in the hell goes on at Fox News anyway?   Is there some kind of subliminal message Sean Hannity is surreptitiously transmitting?  Does Fox News broadcast via a secret wave length that is able to worm its way into the subconscious and gradually abduct the human mind?

I guess I don’t know what’s worse- stupidity or perverse psychological manipulation.  Whichever, it becomes even more perilous when people so afflicted are coerced into hostility.  Trump’s use of the term “fake news” has certainly  instilled vocal provocation in those attending his political gatherings.  However, calling the main stream media the “enemy of the people,” a phrase that normal people consider to be outrageous subterfuge,  somehow triggers people at a Trump rally to react in a very abnormal, extremely vitriolic manner.  For a frightfully long period of time it looked like CNN’s Jim Acosta might not get out of that arena in Tampa alive.  Trump rally attendees display their displeasure with hot dog vendor when he runs out of mustard

I know there are decent Trump supporters out there.  If you considerer yourself to be decent and normal, I encourage you to attend your local Trump rally, only please, do your best to shoulder your way through the crowd and position yourself directly in front of any television camera you happen to notice..  And then when the president of the United States says something incoherently implausible, maliciously insulting,  or blatantly incorrect, restore my faith in humanity and evoke all the normal powers within yourself and stay normal.  And for your own safety and well being, it wouldn’t hurt to wear a tin foil hat while watching Fox News.

SHARE- and you will rest tonight in peaceful slumber knowing people might think you really aren’t an asshole after all.

You know what’s really hard for me?   Reacting to the latest of Trump’s cockamamie remarks.  They are flung out there, one after another, and it is humanly impossible for one person to comment on all of them.  Practically every time he opens his mouth or tweets I scramble for my Macbook, but alas, by the time I have something in mind to transcribe he says something even more dumbfounding.  It’s all completely overwhelming, but of course that is exactly what he wants.  Creating confusion to the point where a normal person just says “fuck it I give up” is a method Trump has fine tuned and I believe something intentional that he is critically counting  on.

It’s exactly for that reason I am taking on the project that follows.  Always keeping in mind this propensity of Trump to deflect and confuse, I naturally have had to pick and choose what topic particularly disturbs me.  I have to tell you a couple recently stick out.  After the disastrous Helsinki summit (addressed in my previous blog), Trump addressed the VFW in Kansas City.  Typically enough Trump turned the event into a political rally but he made a comment that to me was particularly jarring.  “What you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening,” were the Orwellian words that made my hands sweat.

Then there was this. Trump TV Tantrum  Fox News is basically “State Television.”  I know first-hand.  My mother lives in an assisted living facility in the retirement community of St. George Utah, and practically  any television set you happen to see or hear will be tuned to that channel, including my mother’s.  Everywhere you go, in rooms  up and down the hallways of hospitals, rehab facilities, and even in the faraway corners of many businesses, there is Fox News blaring away.

I know there has been resurgent sales of George Orwell’s novel “1984.”  That makes perfect sense given our current political/social environment.  I read it in high school.  But it was not till the occurrence of these two successive incidents that I was personally motivated  to revisit the novel.  So what I am about to do is mention salient points of the novel, and juxtapose related political/social events that have taken place during the Trump administration.  Sorry, this will be long.  I had forgotten how involved and forboding this work is.  I extracted my information from a great You Tube video “The Dystopian World of 1984 Explained”  If you have the time I encourage you to google it as well as read the book.

At its core the Orwellian Dystopia is totalitarianism to the extreme.  The party’s grip on the mind is so powerful what once was unquestionable fact is similar to a dream and you question if it even happened or was ever real at all.  Then, you forget about it.—- Sound familiar?  Trump is so good and persistent at lying and twisting facts we reach a point of total exasperation that progresses to numbed insouciance.  We get worn out trying to defend logic and truth- basically everything I’ve mentioned so far- believe only Trump, state TV.

INGSOC  (the PARTY).  The party controls all, sees all. INGSOC controls information to the extent that facts are not reality and reality can be changed at the whim of Big Brother and the party,  INGSOC is able to normalize aberrant social behavior and conditions- class division, censorship, a general uneducated population, even mass atrocities.  These are allowed to be commonplace because anyone who didn’t agree with it is either too unimportant or doesn’t care.—- Sorry Republicans, but by enabling Trump and all his disinformation and lies you are a 21st century INGSOC. Investigation obstructionists like  Nunes and Jordan types are especially accusable, but McConnell and Ryan are just as complicit by doing nothing.  Their behavior runs pertinently parallel to INGSOC’s Inner and Outer Parties.

Inner Party- 2% of population in 1984 and basically heads of state.  Outer Party- 13% of population and mostly bureaucratic people.  The party only has to worry about its own stability to survive.  The general population is too simple to matter.—-  Republicans are willing to put up with Trump as long as their agenda moves forward.

Proles- the general population- the easy to manipulate, uneducated, simpletons—-  Pretty much how Trump and his cronies feel about the rest of us.

Ministry of Truth- One of four main governmental sectors, the propaganda arm of the party.  The purpose of the party is to rewrite, prevent, or destroy any conflicting bit of news or history that goes against the party.  Examples in the novel are heroes who do not exist.—- Might as well go ahead and label Fox News our modern Ministry of Truth.  Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs, Tucker Carlson- who better to distort the truth and promote Trump’s alternative facts.  Minister of Truth Sean Hannity

Purges- at some point in time INGSOC purged those not loyal to the party’s ideology.—- Trump’s willingness to even consider Russian interrogation of American citizens, one a former U.S ambassador to Russia, more than stands out here.

Solidify the party’s base with new, fanatical, nationalistic adults.  Obviously healthy for your ideology.  In the novel, children are likely to report their parents for “thought crimes.” —-  I could see that happening in the not too distant future. Have you seen those children going berserk  shouting “lock her up” at a Trump rally?   Who let’s their kids attend one of those things anyway?

Newspeak- The official language of the party.  It is simplistic and limited to small bits.  It makes debate controllable or refutable.  INGSOC has a monopoly on discourse because it made the words up.  This goes deeper than a weird language however.  Brainwashing is a cultural manifestation of newspeak.  Reality and history can be changed with the stroke of a bureaucratic pen—-  Trump talk is often a two or three word sound bite.  “Believe me,” “Locker her up,” “Fake news,”  “Little rocket man.” “Witch hunt.”  Trump and Fox News opinion staff repeat his favorite phrases over and over.  No doubt it has an impact at some point on a lot of people.   Simplistic and limited pretty much describe Trump’s vocabulary,  and it is obvious grammar and sentence structure were subjects he never took seriously in school.  And who can forget “Covfefe.?”

Doublethink- a Newspeak term that holds two conflicting beliefs as equal.—-  This happens all the time in Trumpworld.  Friend and foe are interchangeable.  U.S. intelligence agencies are to be believed one day, disbelieved the next.

2018, welcome to 1984.

GO AHEAD AND SHARE.  SOMEONE OUT THERE MIGHT ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT

As it was with his meeting with Kim Jong Un, the one certain take away from the disastrous Helsinki Summit is this:  When it comes to direct confrontation with demagogues, the “tough guy” image Trump would like us to believe he portrays is pretty much nothing but vaporous prattling.  The entire world was left wondering WTF was this?  Whatever was or was not accomplished, we are left with one of two stark conclusions about the man running our country.  Is the president of the United States an out of control narcissist, or does Putin have something egregiously compromising on him?  The most defensible explanation for his bazaar performance is the first- that he is absolutely obsessed with the idea that nothing must taint his questionable election, to the point of  embarrassing himself and the country in order to put his mind at  ease.

At the summit press conference however, President Putin was asked a question by Reuters reporter Jeff Mason that is puzzlingly contradictory, but was answered in such a way Trump must have felt he was kicked in the balls.  Mason asked if he directed any of his officials to help Trump get elected.  Putin replied yes, he did, because he felt Trump could more normalize relations between the two countries.  In fairness, before Putin thus responded, there was a lengthy discussion where both Putin and Trump interjected remarks.  But still, after repeatedly denying any involvement, Putin gave that answer to that question.  Slip of the tongue?

Putin also “offered” to allow the Mueller team to come to Russia to conduct investigations, but of course only after Russia reciprocated with their own investigations.  During that discussion, Putin suggested the U.S. extradite Bill Browder, the financier who was the driving force behind the Magnitsky Act. There is probably no one else on the entire planet that Putin would rather get his hands on.   And astonishingly, Trump thought the whole concept of Russian involvement in a U.S. investigation about Russia was a perfectly peachy idea.

Trump’s conduct during the entire conference was mind-boggling.  Perhaps feeling that the international community would be just as likely to appreciate his campaign rhetoric as those attending one of his political rallies in a red midwestern state, he took the opportunity once again to expound on his smashing electoral college victory and interject comments about Hillary’s e-mails. One wonders if he felt crushed when neither uproarious applause nor raucous cheering were forthcoming.

Trump’s performance in Helsinki convinced me more than ever that at some point in time our nation will be confronted by that second explanation, that underneath Trump’s hyper protestations about any connection he has with Russia, there is something  lurking that must be  exceedingly  distressing to the president.  We have seen this man’s attempts to undermine our democratic norms and institutions since his inauguration, and what we saw in Helsinki was an even more sinister extension of that behavior.  This is a president who threatens the free press,  and stakes a claim to patriotism by using the American flag to provoke national dissension and deny first amendment rights.  Even more  hypocritical and unpatriotic is a president who won’t defend the citizens* or intelligence agencies of his own country, but does the bidding of the adversarial president of another.

*Besides Bill Browder, we later learned in the mix of U.S. citizens  Trump is considering offering up to Putin is former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.  The fact that I am sitting here typing the previous sentence should scare the shit out of all of us.

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