MORE FROM THE REAL SWAMP
Dr. Common Good
I used it in the title of this post, but the swamp metaphor has become completely inadequate to capture the degraded, defiled, dishonorable rot that is the Trump presidency – and by that I include the truly shameless minions in Congress and at Fox News who willingly disgorge the surreal web of lies and conspiracy theories that Trump spouts or retweets daily to cover up the most aberrant, vile and inept administration this country has ever seen, and who support the thoughtless, amoral, corrupt, self-serving and essentially un-American “policies” this observer has ever witnessed or even read about. Yes, I just used strings of adjectives to describe the situation. Why? Because there is no one adjective that will suffice. Here are a few selected items from recent weeks (and this compilation doesn’t include at least half of what has occurred):
- The combined weight of the testimony from a litany of (mostly) stalwart impeachment witnesses has painted a clear picture of a President and his personal crew of carpetbaggers and bag-men (starring Rudy Giuliani) who had no qualms about extorting a vulnerable Ukraine, a U.S. ally, to dig up dirt on Trump’s political opponent Joe Biden and son as a condition for receiving military assistance that Congress had already approved and securing a meeting with the president. What gaps exist in the record of this sordid escapade have been blocked by Trump’s refusal to allow key witnesses to testify or pertinent documents to be released — yet another obstruction of justice. But really, this is all of a piece with the violations well-documented in the Mueller Report (despite continuing and false assertions to the contrary by the likes of Representatives Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan), and validated anew with evidence from the trial and conviction of Roger Stone indicating, among other things, that Trump lied to Mueller about his communications with Stone regarding WikiLeaks.
- Trump’s minion Pompeo blithely declared Israeli settlements legal, contravening all previous U.S. policy, international law, and human rights, and violating the Fourth Geneva Convention. This was announced in a week so rife with Trump-scandal that it hardly caused a ripple in the news. This is – to use a word that has long reached its semiotic ceiling in these times – an absolute outrage, and may very well have been done to coincide with a perceived need to support Netanyahu, Trump’s fellow-in-corruption Israeli PM, or right-wing evangelicals who believe that the Second Coming will happen when all of the West Bank is returned to Israel.
- Trump has pardoned soldiers convicted of committing war crimes, including the unlawful killing of civilians and illegal execution, and restored to full rank a Navy Seal who was convicted of posing with a Taliban corpse (and accused of much more). These pardons occurred in the face of strong objections from the military itself, charging that Trump’s actions undermine military justice and America’s moral authority – what little we have left since Trump became president.
- I don’t need to elaborate, but Trump’s disgusting betrayal of Kurds in Syria who bore the brunt of casualties in support of U.S. efforts to defeat ISIS is also a betrayal of American values, policies, and national security. Then, throwing salt in the wound, he hosted fellow autocrat President Erdogan of Turkey at the White House – to whom the Kurds were betrayed — right in the middle of impeachment hearings.
- Trump and the Republican’s tax cut has, in yet another report, been revealed as a shell game and a deception of the American public. Few jobs were created as a direct result (contrary to promise), and most corporations have pumped gains from the tax cuts into their own stock, thereby driving up stock prices. That is largely why we are seeing stock market gains, fellow Americans.
And through all of this, the Democratic Party has proved unable to mount an effective counter-narrative that will help the American public more fully realize what we are facing, and what kind of a charlatan and scoundrel the president really is. As stated in a previous post, Trump continues to defile the Constitution, abuse his office, and disgrace the name and standing of the United States in the world.