A Con For The Ages

Paul Waldman writes that Donald Trump is the Whiner in Chief:

Trump weaves a narrative of constant victimhood, telling his supporters not only that they are besieged and brutalized, but also that no one is more a victim than him. There has surely never been a president who spent so much time complaining — the media aren’t good enough to me, I’m not getting the credit I deserve, the Democrats don’t give me due process, my toilet isn’t powerful enough, it’s unfair, it’s unfair, it’s unfair.

The latest -- and most absurd -- example of Trump's  whining occurred this week when he complained that the CBC had cut out his seven second cameo in Home Alone 2:

The president’s favorite TV show, the festival of nincompoopery that is “Fox & Friends,” ran a segment Thursday expressing outrage over the fact that the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. cut out Trump’s seven-second cameo in the 1992 film “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” for broadcast, a crime plainly worthy of extended discussion on national television. The inevitable response came in condemning tweets from both the president and his firstborn son to their millions of followers, delivering the day’s instruction on what to be angry about.

CNN’s Daniel Dale, who is both an indefatigable fact-checker and openly Canadian, explained that the real story is that starting in 2014, the CBC cut eight minutes out of the two-hour movie to make room for commercials, including many other scenes besides Trump’s cameo. But no matter: It’s just one more example of how snooty, elitist poutine-sucking foreigners treat Trump so terribly unfairly. His ability to take offense, and his devotees’ ability to be offended on his behalf, is without limit.

But, as absurd as the whole affair was, it illustrated why such a significant number of Americans support Trump. He tells them they have been wronged -- just like him:

To be clear, many of those people have genuine reason to feel aggrieved (not the billionaires, of course). The system has indeed failed people whose communities were devastated by the loss of manufacturing jobs and the decline of labor unions. When conservative Christians lament that modern society is hostile to many of their values, they’re right.

If you’re puzzled about why the former continue to support Trump despite the fact that he seeks to make their economic lives worse by enhancing the power of economic elites, or why the latter continue to support him despite his personal and policy immorality, this is part of the answer. Trump might spin ludicrous fantasies for them of how he’ll turn their world into a paradise, but he also encourages them to cultivate their sense of victimhood.

The lie behind it all, of course, is that Trump is no victim:

Though he may have been privileged from the moment of his birth, Trump understands that sense of loss well, and organized his presidential bid around it. When he said he’d build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, he was writing a story of the white man’s dignity regained through humiliation and domination of the foreign Other.

His failure to deliver on that promise (and many others) makes the task of keeping his supporters angry and aggrieved all the more urgent. So make no mistake: Amidst what is sure to be a campaign of uncommon, perhaps unprecedented brutality directed at his Democratic opponent, Trump will never stop whining, all the way to next November.

It's a Con For The Ages.

Image: Clean Technica

Doing Whatever He Wants

The King can do no wrong. That's a ancient legal maxim which has no place in a democracy -- because democracies aren't ruled by kings. But, Ruth Marcus writes, Donald Trump has twisted that maxim to new and absurd levels. He believes that:

The king can do whatever wrong he damn pleases, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

This approach, aggressive to the point of outlandish, was on florid display in a federal appeals court in New York this week, as the president’s private lawyer asserted that, yes, Trump could actually shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue with impunity so long as he is president.

You'd think that Trump and his lawyer would have been laughed out of court. But his lawyer -- who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- was serious:

Trump lawyer William S. Consovoy was not only asserting that the president is immune from being criminally charged while in office. He was claiming that the president cannot even be investigated.

To understand the radical nature of this claim, consider the setting in which it arose. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is seeking documents — not testimony, just information, including eight years of Trump’s tax returns. He is seeking them not from Trump himself but from his accounting firm. They would be protected from disclosure by grand jury secrecy. Apparently, however, the king’s business can do no wrong either.

Second, consider the difference between Consovoy’s assertion and the approach taken by former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Complying with Justice Department policy, Mueller accepted that Trump couldn’t be indicted. But Mueller explained that it was not only permissible to conduct an investigation while Trump was in office, it was also important to collect evidence while it was still fresh. Indeed, the very Justice Department memo on which Mueller relied made clear that a “grand jury could continue to gather evidence throughout the period of [presidential] immunity.”

This is an astonishing departure from settled law. In U.S. v. Nixon in 1974, a unanimous Supreme Court upheld a subpoena for tapes of the president’s private conversations while in office, rejecting “an absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances.” Vance’s subpoena, by contrast, calls only for Trump’s private records; it would not chill his ability to receive candid advice from aides.

In 1997, again unanimously, the court ruled that another sitting president, Bill Clinton, could be sued for sexual harassment in federal court. Although the decision did not address the question of state lawsuits, it is hard to imagine how a civil lawsuit could be allowed while a grand jury subpoena for his records would go too far. Which is a greater distraction for a sitting president?

The dangerous audacity of Trump’s position becomes clear: Whatever information his adversaries are seeking, whether in a lawsuit or a congressional inquiry, they can’t have it. And he is making the claim everywhere.

Parents recognize the behaviour. It's another example from "the terrible twos."  Two year olds throw tantrums when they don't get their way. Some of them step out of their diapers and spread their excrement everywhere. That's precisely what Donald Trump and his enablers are doing.

Image: Envisioning The American Dream

We Cannot Afford Him

Andrew Coyne writes that, for those who thought -- despite his flaws -- Donald Trump would be a better occupant of the White House than Hillary Clinton, the truth has come home to roost:

Those who had convinced themselves that, whatever Trump’s manifest unfitness for office, “at least he isn’t Hillary,” if they had not already repented of their folly over the previous six months, must surely do so now. (He said with no conviction whatever.) The presidency is not a ceremonial post; neither is it a program of policy. It is a command centre, with decisions to be made, many on short notice, sometimes with the most profound consequences. All of the U.S. Constitution’s careful separation of powers and checks and balances — though thank God for them — cannot erase the awful power of the office. Only Congress can declare war, but a president can sure start one. 

Granted, dealing with North Korea is a Gordian Knot that has defied solution:

Dealing with North Korea would tax the abilities of the ablest of presidents, and has. Trump cannot be blamed for the regime’s having acquired nuclear weapons: that was the legacy of previous presidents of both parties, whose concessions and bribes had no more effect on its actions than Trump’s threats. But now that it has nukes, it demands the most delicate and assured handling, one requiring deep experience in matters of state, subtle understanding of human nature, judgment, fortitude and sang-froid.

Having an occupant who is clearly unqualified and temperamentally unsuited for the job underscores the fact that it matters who occupies the White House:

Much speculation has surrounded Trump’s mental state, but as a madman he is not in Kim’s league. He is, rather, a fairly conventional bunkum artist — more unprincipled than most, to be sure, indeed seemingly unburdened by any commitment to fact, but ultimately a transparent bluffer. For all his attempt to play the bully, Trump can no more be counted on to deliver on a threat than a promise. Recall how his first bits of bravado, the suggestion that he might recognize Taiwan, or move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, ended: dropped at the first hint of pushback.

At this late stage in the planet's evolution, we cannot afford to have a monumental bunkum artist in the Oval Office.

Image: Merriam-Webster