Thursday, February 21, 2019

The Sheer Exhaustion of Living with Trump.

I don’t know about the rest of you , but I’m tired. Really tired.

Every day the new insanity is crazier than the insanity the day before. There is no time to be shocked by what the Trump Administration is doing because the next shocking thing comes flying out moments after the previous thing.
Which is  the point. Donald Trump is many things. dishonest, corrupt, incredibly greedy, epically insecure, racist and  the most  emotionally unintelligent person to occupy the White House since Andrew Johnson. 

 But he is not, as many people have said, stupid. He is, when it comes to his own self preservation and enrichment, remarkably clever.  So it should come as a shock to …well,, nobody that Trump’s go-to maneuver comes right out of the playbook of Adolph Hitler’s own master spin doctor; 

 “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” - Joseph Goebbels

That is Trumpism in a nutshell. When faced with facts, gaslight your opponents and as loudly as you can, accuse them of what you actually did or are doing. “Hillary colluded with Russia!” “CNN Is Fake News!” “The Democrats are racist!”. The list has gotten painfully long. Most Americans have just stopped paying all that much attention and are just hoping Bob Mueller comes out with enough to arrest Trump for …. Something. 

Political and media pundits love to pontificate on the  constant state of “Oh God! What NOW???” that most of us are in with Trump by looking earnestly at the camera and asking, “Is this the new normal?” The answer to that,  sadly is  both Yes and No. 

Yes, this is the world we are living in now, and no, it is anything but normal. There have been a number of notable casualties in this war on reason and facts that Trump and his enablers have waged for the last two plus years. But the single greatest loss in this war on sanity. waged by Donald  Trump, may well be the Republican Party itself..

There was a time when the GOP wasn't a big bucket of crazy, it was the party that stood for individual freedom as well as individual and collective responsibility. So what happened? Simple, the Republican Party lost its mind, and sold its soul to Donald Trump. In exchange for tax cuts the GOP jumped on the crazy train, and in order to justify it, truth, had to became negotiable.

Abraham Lincoln led a GOP that sought to free the oppressed, unite the nation, and punish war profiteers. We now have a GOP that still seeks to ignore real threats to,  and attacks on our democracy.  Where we ignore or worse yet, enable human rights abuses in other countries because our family and  friends have business deals there.

Dwight Eisenhower led a GOP where war was always a last resort, and an unchecked military industrial complex is a threat to democracy. Now we have the very real possibility  the GOP will support a war in Venezuela for nor other reason than to help Trump change the news cycle,  and get stories about his relationship with Russia off the front page,

Even Richard Nixon understood we live in a world of interconnected global relationships. Constructive engagement and détente' is always more successful than direct conflict. We now have a GOP that believes  in "Trump First,  America Second"  or even third...  if we are lucky.  Where  America's intelligence agencies are attacked because  facts don't support Trump's  talking points.  Where  the Presidential Daily Intelligence brief is tossed aside in favor of the "good word" of  Vladimir Putin.

Gerald Ford led a GOP where duty and the interests of the nation were more important than polls or elections. Where accepting responsibility for the actions you take in office is a president's first obligation. No matter the personal political costs.  We now have a  GOP unable to even admit mistakes, let alone learn from them, where  defending  American interests in secondary to defending the interests and ego of Donald Trump.

George H.W. Bush once urged the nation to see; "In crucial things, unity, in important things diversity, and in all things generosity". The Republican Party of Donald  Trump has as a GOAL, to divide Americans more than at  anytime since the civil war.

Here is the reality of Donald Trump, he will say anything, that he thinks will sound good to his base. And he will do anything to protect himself, even at the expense of our national security  There is no thought process beyond “Is this good for Me?” . He gives no thought as to would it be a wise thing, or an appropriate thing, or even a potentially dangerous thing to do. Donald Trump's train of thought never makes it that far down the track.

We are now in a time when there is no point in asking if this latest episode of the Trump un-reality show will be too much for the Republican Party to bear. It's not. The fact is the GOP has decided that this is who they are, and the real tragedy is, they are right. This really IS who they are, and what they have become.


I'll say it again, Donald Trump is not stupid, he just can't be bothered care about anyone or anything but himself and his immediate interests. What Donald Trump is , is a fool. Like most fools, he will do and say foolish, reckless, even dangerous and profoundly stupid things, with no thought to any potential consequences; simply for the short term gratification of it.   Like most fools, he will make mind-bogglingly bad decisions, without a moment's hesitation, if those bad choices feed his ego. If anything bad does happen as a result, he will deny, lie, accuse and contort himself incoherently in his attempt to blame anyone  but himself.

Now, with the revelations by former Acting FBI Director, Andrew McCabe we see the final death throes of the Republican Party . In briefing to the senior congressional leadership, (known as the Gang of Eight) It was made painfully clear that Donald Trump was a compromised asset of the Russian Government.  

Yet for Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOP, Tax Cuts for the top 1% and gutted government regulations are clearly more important than America’s National Security.

There are news reports that the investigations by Special Counsel Robert Mueller are about to come to a close. One can only hope that this will also bring an end to this long national nightmare of Donald Trump.   I know I hope so. 

Because frankly? I don’t know about you , but I’m really tired of it all.