Rebecca Solnit accurately describes the Trump Administration:
So at the top there’s corruption. But down below there’s dismantling and disarray. The Trump administration’s has a habit of firing or sidelining federal employees whose work is politically inconvenient. In 2017, Joel Clement, formerly head of policy analysis at the interior department, wrote about being taken away from his work on the impact of climate change on Native Alaskans and reassigned to “an unrelated job in the accounting office that collects royalty checks from fossil fuel companies.” There are numerous stories like his, of employees doing valuable work told to move across the country to keep their jobs, a maneuver that at best burdens them or renders them ineffectual, but often drives them out of their positions. The country is hemmorhaging people who provide oversight and keep key systems working.
Jeb Bush famously called Donald Trump "the chaos candidate." And he correctly predicted that, if Trump were elected, he would be "the chaos president:"
President Trump and the upper echelons of the executive branch are at war with the legislative branch, the rule of law, the constitution, federal civil servants and the American people. It’s a conflict that pulls in many directions, and if the president threatened civil war the other day as something that could happen if he doesn’t get his way, we can regard the ordinary state of things as a low-intensity civil war or a slo-mo coup that’s been going on from the beginning. Tuesday’s White House refusal to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry only escalates their defiance and their chaos.
The chaos takes so many forms. Innumerable stories have made it clear that even the president’s own aides and cabinet members treat him like a captive bear or a person having a psychotic breakdown – like someone unstable who must be kept from harming himself and others. They have done that by heaping on the flattery, and by warping and limiting the information he receives, and often by doing their best to prevent his directives from being realized.
Jeb Bush was right. The question is: Can the United States Constitution withstand The Chaos President?
8 comments:
And nobody will ever get to the voters who form the base of his support. I suppose this should have been understood long ago in view of the popularity of his moronic TV show. Who's voting now and who isn't? Spiro Agnew was right and mom had it wrong.
H.L. Mencken had a word for Trump's base, John. He called them "the booboise."
Following up on John B's comment, it is both instructive and horrifying whenever I check reactions to Trump's tweets. While many rightly ridicule him, others stoutly defend and extol him. His base seems to see Trump as the sole protector of all that is good and holy in the Benighted States of America.
Benjamin Franklin warned Americans that they would have to be wise enough to "keep" their republic, Lorne. If they believe that Trump possesses "great and unmatched wisdom," their republic is doomed.
Perhaps this is another element of what attends a nation in decline. We can see parallels between the decline of the British Empire and what is happening south of the border today. Magical thinking, a disconnect from reality, a rise in evangelism, and the late-stage transformation of an economy from agrarian to industrial to financial. Kevin Philips delves into this in his 2005 book, American Theocracy. I think it's a good time to dust off my copy.
History is about the rise and fall of nations, Mound. The United States is in decline -- and most Americans don't know it.
It's not at all clear to me that the US deserves to be called a democracy anymore. Five years ago, Profs Gilens and Page pointed out that the US was closer to an oligarchy than a democracy. Today, a single leader sets both domestic and foreign policy and resists all checks on his power. There's a name for that sort of government too.
Cap
Exactly, Cap. Several terms could apply. But one word covers them all -- tyranny.
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