Tag Archives: Romney

The Fork in the Road to Democracy or Dictatorship

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An article published in The Hill suggests that Donald Trump’s promises that if re-elected he will engage in violent retribution against his enemies have inspired members of Congress to breach protocol and almost come to blows. Trump’s violent talk shows signs of taking over Congress  https://tinyurl.com/djbp5rss Those threats are, of course, among many other Trump/GOP assaults on the centuries-old system of American democratic government.

The article was inspired by a first-term Republican Senator from Oklahoma challenging the president of the Teamsters union to a fistfight in a hearing. The article also reports that Mitt Romney had much to say about the situation, noting the self-evident fact that “the Republican Party has become the party of Trump.” Romney, the master of understatement when it comes to criticizing looney Republicans, said the fight challenge was “clearly unfortunate.” Bold stuff from the man who in 2016 had said that Trump was “worthless”, a “fraud”, and that “he’s playing the American public for suckers: he gets a free ride to the White House and all we get is a lousy hat.” https://tinyurl.com/5dsvuy5x

Romney, you will recall, promptly bent the knee to president-elect Trump to seek a Cabinet post – which was, of course, denied. Trump knows how to treat “disloyal” people.

The article notes that “Trump’s use of violent rhetoric has since become almost routine,” accurate except for the “almost” modifier. Trump now engages in violent talk every day, using language identical to that made famous by Adolf Hitler and other dictators of the past. GOP Trump loyalists aren’t concerned. Their plan to steal the 2020 election and stay in power didn’t work as they imagined but the playbook remains valid for their purposes. The 2024 election is just another chance for them.

When a politician tells you he wants to “take over” your country, you should believe him. Trump aspires to fascist domination of the entire federal and state government apparatus. Republican politicians are so busy trying to avoid Trump’s wrath that they continue to make “both sides” false equivalencies and to equivocate about what is really happening. One example is Republican Senator Mike Rounds:

 It’s not the route that I’d like to see any of us go,” … I understand the reason why there was anger.

both individuals should have had a different approach to resolving it.

you’re seeing folks on both sides of the political spectrum being less respectful of other people.

I don’t know if he changed [norms] or simply responded to what he saw from other people. I think he sensed that the American people were allowing this to go on, and he’s taken advantage of it, but it’s not the direction that I think our country should go.

Powerful stuff, those Republicans speak. I’m sure you didn’t miss the “both sides” he snuck in there. Brings to mind Trump’s comment about the Nazi march in Charlottesville: “very fine people, on both sides.” The Post article goes on to cite other incidents including one in which former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was accused of elbowing another Republican representative in the back.

The First Amendment and the associated long history of American acceptance of “free speech” allow for this kind of violent rhetoric in the absence of an imminent threat of violence by the speaker or someone in league with him. That is what happened on January 6. We now learn from Mediaite.com that Republicans are cheering the release of previously withheld security footage from January 6 because they have somehow reached the conclusion that it shows police collusion and thus sustains their belief that the entire episode was an “inside job” by the “left.” Trump Supporters Cheer Release of Jan. 6 Footage Showing Trump Supporters Storming the Capitol  https://tinyurl.com/bderutcr

Republicans have learned nothing. And some of the January 6 Capitol-desecrators have recanted their professions of error and remorse that were used performatively for compliant judges to secure lesser sentences. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66169914

Many questions leap to mind. One of the most prominent is whether American corporations are going to continue playing deaf and dumb while spraying advertising dollars and PAC contributions on rightwing Republican candidates. Historically, American corporations, armed with “personhood” by the Supreme Court Citizens United case, have tried to have it both ways. Those days must end now. If the corporate community is indifferent to the fate of American democracy, consumers must show them the consequences by withholding purchases.

Donald Trump and his supporters have made clear their intention to destroy the American administrative state that accounts for massive amounts of economy-stimulating expenditures while assuring that the worst short-term instincts of capitalism are at least to some degree regulated in the public interest. Trump has, for example, made clear he will wreck the civil service system to assure that only workers completely loyal to him have federal jobs.

The United States is not alone in the world. Among numerous others, Russia, under the complete control of dictator Vladimir Putin, is waiting for an opportunity to strike a fatal blow against this country. Trump has previously subordinated himself to Putin in open displays of obsequious submission. Once Trump is back in power, Putin will have a free hand. At the end of the day, Putin, whom Trump openly admires, is no different than Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

I had occasion recently to be reminded of some of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton’s more salient observations about government in the Federalist Papers that helped secure ratification of the Constitution. Some of the more relevant ones include:

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
― James Madison, Federalist Papers

It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.
― Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

― Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.
― Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good.
― Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

Have Progressives Been Unfair to Donald Trump?

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On Facebook and other places I have seen many “conservatives” argue that “progressives,” or “ libtards” or “haters” more pejoratively, have been unfair to the “duly elected” president from some unspecified time before he was elected to the present. The argument, they seem to offer, is that Trump is president of all the people and thus deserves everyone’s 100% devotion. They believe Trump is acting in good faith, doing his best in the face of massive resistance at every turn and, as Trump himself proclaims on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, is being treated in a fundamentally unfair way.

I have reflected on this at some length and done some research which, in the interest of comity and intellectual honesty, I present herewith. Let’s begin at the beginning — with people who know Trump best.

On March 3, 2016, Mitt Romney spoke about Trump, calling his promises worthless, labeling him a “fraud.” https://nyti.ms/2JkGFH6 The speech listed a long list of failed business ventures bearing Trump’s name. He noted that on foreign policy Trump was “very not smart.” Dishonesty is Trump’s hallmark, Romney explained. Many Republicans were unhappy with Romney’s comments, but Senator John McCain, a fixture in the classical conservative wing of the Republican Party, agreed with Romney’s descriptions of Trump.

Senator Ted Cruz referred to Trump as a “bully” and “sniveling coward” who was “consistently disgraceful.” And,

“This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth, and in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology text book, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying,” …. “The man cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist—a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen.”

https://bit.ly/3bsGoO8

Senator Lindsey Graham said the following about Trump:

“I don’t think he has the temperament or judgment to be commander in chief.”

I just don’t think Donald is a reliable conservative Republican and quite frankly, he lost me when he said my friend John McCain was a loser because he was captured as a POW. He lost me when he accused George W. Bush of lying to the American people about the Iraq War, and he thinks Putin’s a good guy, so, I just can’t go there.

I’ve just got a hard time supporting somebody who claims that Ted Cruz’s dad was associated with Lee Harvey Oswald and involved in the Kennedy assassination. I’ve got a hard time supporting somebody for president who spent thousands of dollars of their own money trying to find out if President Obama was born in Kenya versus Hawaii. I think that’s crazy.

I just believe his temperament and judgment is not sufficient to be commander in chief of the finest fighting force in the world. I think his foreign policy is gibberish.

… embracing Donald Trump is embracing demographic death.

[https://bit.ly/2UzpKp6]

“I’m not going to try to get into the mind of Donald Trump because I don’t think there’s a whole lot of space there. I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office.”   [https://bit.ly/2UMttA6]

Trump lied about giving up his active interests in his business empire.  He lied about disclosing his tax returns.

Then, Trump appointed his cabinet of incompetents and grifters, including Scott Pruitt, Tom Price and Ryan Zinke who, when they weren’t enacting anti-health insurance, anti-environmental protection and similar policies, were basically run out of town for corruption in office.

When Neo-Nazis descended on Charlottesville, VA, leading to the murder of a counter-protester, Trump declared there were “very fine people on both sides.” He said other things, to be sure, but overall the tenor of his comments about the white supremacists bearing swastikas & other Nazi paraphernalia was to equate their cause as equal to those protesting their presence. Trump’s history of equivocation and making false equivalencies is well-established on the public record. This has not stopped Trump from making outrageous and often outright false statements that are recorded on videos, then simply denying he made the statements thereafter.

He mocked a disabled reporter at a rally, urged violence against protesters, refused to read intelligence briefings, insulted U.S. intelligence authorities, insulted long-standing allies around the world, including shoving a world leader out of the way so he could stand in front for a photo opportunity.

Trump relishes giving demeaning nicknames to his political opponents, gets most of his “information” from the Fox News propaganda channel, demands unending praise from everyone around him at all times and constantly brags about his claimed achievements which are always the “greatest of any administration in history.”

All of that is on the public record and undeniable. The Washington Post Fact Checker has determined that Trump does hold one record: the most false and/or misleading statements in the history of American politics. This brings us to the current moment of national peril, the scenario that Trump’s critics have always feared the most: an existential crisis that Trump would prove incompetent to handle.

Again, the record on this is clear and indisputable by anyone able to face reality. Trump had reason to know in January that the coronavirus threatened the world with a death-dealing pandemic. He made multiple public statements downplaying the threat, boasting that he had the situation under control. He was supported in this by some of his sycophantic cabinet members who have learned they dare not criticize him if they want to keep their jobs. Trump essential dismissed the coronavirus threat, saying the cases would be down to zero in no time.

And, here we are. The number of cases has skyrocketed. The virus is present in every state. The death toll mounts hourly and is now in the thousands. Trump continues to publicly contradict the advice and public statements of the best medical advisors in the world. His penchant to say whatever he thinks will play well in the media has led him to make threats such as quarantining the entire states of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. In a rare victory for reason, his staff apparently persuaded him that a “strong travel advisory” would be the better approach, but his swing-from-the-hip statements caused alarm in the region.

Trump’s equivocation has other consequences. His sway over right-wing politicians is so strong now that his resistance to recognizing the truth about the coronavirus has infected many of them and led to rejection of sound medical advice that might limit the spread of the virus. Unnecessary deaths will inevitably result.

Without belaboring this further, the question I posed at the outset can have only one answer: Trump has not been treated unfairly. He and he alone is responsible for his standing as the most dishonest and incompetent president in the history of the United States. I have only touched on a few of the lowlights of his mal-administration of the public trust but these are sufficient to show that Trump is fully deserving of every criticism leveled at him. His reputation for lying, for bullying, for self-glorification and all the rest is both well-earned and documented for all time on the public record. It will never be erased and nothing about his current conduct indicates he has the capacity to resurrect a functioning leadership role for himself. His legacy is established. It is time to remove him from office before it is too late.