Category: Howard Sosbee’s posts

We have been wondering how (finally) “the Donald” would react to having one of his executive orders invalidated or put on hold by a Federal Court. Now we know, and it is not reassuring. A top aide, one Stephen Miller, has clarified the Trump administration policy, which is that the president’s orders “shall not be questioned.” In other words: the presidency is above the law. What “the Donald” says or does cannot be reviewed by any court of law. Okay. If this is official Trump policy, and if it is allowed to stand, it would be an attempt to thwart the very clear separation of powers principle of the United States Constitution, leaving the country at the tender mercy of a mildly deranged dictator. Not nearly as bad as Kim Jong Un, of course, but bad enough to warrant the full fledged reaction by both parties in both houses of Congress. This should be a good test of Republican backbone.

By now there should be no uncertainty about The Donald, either as a person, or as President of the United States. He is completely unaware of his own weaknesses and vulnerabilities; firmly vindictive, inflexible, and misogynistic; totally lacking in compassion ; vain to a fault; hyper-materialistic; of limited intellect, without the ability to absorb information not in line with his own restrictive ideology; but the most distressing is his straight-faced mendacity, which makes his every utterance suspect. You never know what to believe. Then, there is the problem of his judgment: how he reacts to pressure; what issues to pursue; whether to divest or show his tax returns. In these situations, he has shown the poorest of judgment. So whoever has any dealings with this guy, has to be constantly on guard. And what does all this say about America?

So much has already been written about the train wreck on its way in the form of Donald J. Trump, it would be redundant to repeat. We know what “the Donald” is. We know how he operates, how he treats people, how untrustworthy his word, how totally unfit for the office he now occupies. We try to anticipate what problems his scatterbrained egomania will concoct next, and what we can do to mitigate them. But trying to whack-a- mole the next Trumpism is not really our worst problem. That would be the Republican Party itself. Trump gets his way precisely because he is doing what the Republicans have wanted to do all along. Trump is Reaganism in spades. Remember, Ronald Reagan started the Republican quest for total control in 1980. Now that they have it, anything goes, and it has already started, specifically: Deregulation that will allow energy companies to dump coal waste into freshwater streams, (ugh!) , and also he would allow the big banks to create another meltdown of the exact type that brought on the current recession. One of these Bush recessions was obviously not enough. “The Donald” wants to allow his Republican friends to create another one. The guys with the big bucks can ride out these economic storms. Ordinary people cannot.

David Ignatius in his January 29, 2017 Commentary, suggests: “as with any other form of self destructive behavior, it is time for intervention by those closest to him.” The trouble is, those closest to him all think the same way, and so do the Republicans who put him over the top in the electoral college. Just think for a moment how quickly “never Trump” became “ever Trump” before the election. The Donald is doing what Republicans have fervently hoped-for ever since the Reagan “revolution” of the 80s. He brought them total control of the federal government, which is all they ever wanted. Now, we do not know how long it will take these Republican enablers to realize how destructive this administration really is. What we do know is: it will take active resistance at every turn to keep the worst from happening.

Anyone with knowledge of mental health who has observed the sayings and actions of Donald Trump during the recent election campaign, but especially after the inauguration, would readily conclude that this man is not in his right mind. So, America now has a man, not in his right mind, who has nuclear weapons. Ouch!

“Give Trump a chance”. That is what Republicans are saying now. But what if they had demonstrated that same attitude toward a new president in 2008, and given Obama a chance? Even half a chance would have made a world of difference.

The way the Republicans treated our first black president was so disgraceful, so indescribably awful, so unprecedented in history, it can only be compared to the worst of the Jim Crow era in the South. In fact, if Barack Obama were not black, you can be sure the Republicans would never have tried to pull off such a massive dirty trick. They needed the acquiescence of their party members and they got it. We’ll never know how much better off the general population of America would be if Obama had been allowed to govern in the regular way.

Someone should tell Dennis Moyer (January 5, 2017) that 35 red states with more electoral votes that shoehorned Trump into the presidency did not, in any way, offset the 2.8 million votes by which he lost the popular election. All the anticipated regression the Republicans are now gloating over will not be legitimized by popular mandate. Not by a long shot.

Someone should tell George Will the “hate Obama” campaign is over, no longer needed. Obama is not running for any office, so Will’s January 5, 2017, diatribe was completely unnecessary.

Will the Black History Museum describe how a Republican-controlled Congress refused to allow Pres. Obama to govern during his last six years in office, refusing to approve his appointments to critical government positions, etc.? They should have a special section devoted to Mitch McConnell.