After the Mueller

And so, all is well and Trump is the greatest Mafia Boss in the history of the world.  And I am not holding my breath until Barr decides to release the full Mueller report. What I am awaiting, with bated breath, is what Mueller decides to do once he is subpoenaed by Nancy and asked to testify before the house.  By all accounts, Mueller is a decent and honorable man.  He has done his best to investigate all the possible crimes committed by or in the name of our president (see Mafia Boss). And, although he could not find clear proof that Trump personally “colluded” with Putin to throw the election to him, we know that Putin did exactly that. That much is beyond question.

It seems also fairly clear, given the number of indictments of Trump campaign associates—Stone, Manafort, Flynn, Cohen, Papadopoulos—all soon to head off to prison—that The Trump team was/is as crooked as it is possible to be.  But because Trump is unlike any president before him, he has no conscience, no ethical dimension, so he will never concede and will likely remain free, and, more importantly, in office. Even Nixon finally conceded and quit the job. But not Trump. He has declared victory and is likely off to Mara Lago to play golf and celebrate.

And I listened to one Trump supporter who declared that, reading the Barr summary, his support for Trump will continue and he will vote for him again in 2020. And I thought . . . “really . . . you actually continue to support him, regardless of everything you have seen and read??? Really?” 

Because, apparently it is true that Trump supporters would actually have applauded had Trump taken a gun and shot someone out on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.  They would conclude, “well, the guy obviously had it coming. Trump did nothing wrong”.  Trump has written himself a kind of universal “Stand Your Ground” rule for anything and everything he does.  It’s always for a reason –his reason. And that makes it all ok.

And the fact that most of his associates are headed off to prison, but not Trump is simply the classic Mafia boss scenario. Until and unless they all begin ratting him out, he will likely be drenched in the stench, but otherwise unharmed.  It will be fun to see Jared and a couple more of his family indicted and maybe convicted in a New York court, while daddy looks on and heads off to a golf date, but still the main mafia dude needs to be brought before the National Court of Opinion and tried for being himself.  And that National Court is beginning to assemble. We will know in 2020 whether the American people have decided that ethics is “so last century”, or whether our nation remains intact and viable.

Personally, I am placing no money on that election. Mainly, I am so astonished that more than 3-5% of the American public still supports him, that I no longer have any expectations about our country. And it really is a shame. I have memories of Presidents dating all the way back to FDR.  And most of them at least had some concept of what being president means. They had some respect for the Nation and its highest elective office.  Yes, Nixon was a dirty rotten scoundrel, but at least he resigned.  And yes, Reagan was an idiot and made it ok again to be a racist, but still he appeared to show some respect for his office.  And of course Bush II (aka Shrub) was a fool who allowed himself to be led into war by his scoundrally aides when it was clearly unnecessary, but he was merely stupid and too anxious to convince his daddy that he could “do president” too.

Mainly though, I come away from all that historical navel gazing with one large conclusion—that the republican party has diminished itself over the 7 or 8 decades to a tool for monied interests to do with the country whatever they wanted. The party has given up any pretense of being a public party of the people. Apparently, they have ceded that job to its main opponents, the democrats.  Whether the people will opt for a party that seems in perpetual disarray remains a very large question, hovering over the next (last??) election. We will know in 2020 whether the American people still want a democracy, or perhaps that they have lost faith in such approaches to governance, and now wish for a more monarchical system. For, like it or not, that is where Trump and his republican party are headed, including the now republican Supreme Court (another subject).  We know certain things about Trump and his party:

1. They despise public education, preferring a largely ignorant population, while continuing to make believe on education generally (let’s pretend we care about private education);

       

.       2. They despise public health and do not believe in the notion that health care is a right, rather than a gift given to the hard working white people of our land

             

         3. They despise universal voting rights, believing instead that only good (white) republicans deserve to vote;

          

         4. They believe that private corporations are the only source of wisdom in the land, and that government should never interfere;

h       5. They believe that Might is Right and we must remain heavily armed,

·         

          6. They believe that women do not have any “right to choose” on any subject, and women must remain firmly behind their males on all subjects;, and finally

           7. They believe that we are a Christian nation and that all other religions suck, and that religion can and should provide guidance for all matters throughout our land.

In 2020, we will discover whether this new governing philosophy will become the once and forever rule of law in this once proud nation.

We can and should vote, unless we no longer care what kind of country we inhabit.

May the best humans prevail.