TRUMP MAKING THE U.S. UGLY, VENAL, AMORAL, UNDEMOCRATIC, AND JUST PLAIN STUPID

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TRUMP MAKING THE U.S. UGLY, VENAL, AMORAL, UNDEMOCRATIC, AND JUST PLAIN STUPID

Dr. Common Good

Here’s just a sampler, and I will be blunt. The list is so long it would require a voluminous tome, and it just keeps getting longer every day to the point that it is near-impossible to track the litany of outrage, violation, or scandal that happened just days before. 

Ugly, venal and amoral…

  • The lying, the lying – so constant, so brazen, and lying even in the face of video or other evidence that documents, for example, a previous statement or sentiment that Trump subsequently denies. His routine, wild exaggeration and invention of numbers and statistics. His penchant for making false statements and attributing them to “they say” or “people are saying” or similar lame and specious sources. Along with that, the ridiculous charlatan boasting, as in a recent speech where he claimed that he invented the concept of “forest management” (which he described as “keeping forest floors clean, like forest countries do”).  
  • The juvenile, repulsive name-calling and disrespect – We have seen this from the outset, from his treatment of fellow Republicans in the primaries, his repugnant characterizations of John McCain, calling African and other countries “shithole countries,” and on and on. Most recently, he called Republican Justin Amash – the lone Republican with enough courage to publicly advocate impeachment, a “lightweight” and a “loser, and he called the British ambassador (yes, the British ambassador!) “a very stupid guy” and a “pompous fool.” Just yesterday, he tweeted that Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and two others should “go back to the …broken and crime infested places” from which they came (they are, of course, all citizens).
  • Coddling dictators and rejecting friends – Trump’s brand of “most favored nation” treatment has been given, consistently, to Putin’s Russia, Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, and to Saudi Arabia, despite the latter country’s egregious murder of a U.S. – based journalist and routine violations of human rights. And this is combined with a habit of spurning our longtime allies, who have, collectively, helped to keep us safe. 
  • Trump’s Secretary of State Pompeo starting up a commission to “review the role of human rights” in U.S. foreign policy. This, from a country that was a founding member of the United Nations.  
  • How we treat migrant children on the border – This is unconscionable, inhuman, and a violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Trump has shown the world America the Ugly, putting children in crowded, dirty cages, separating them from parents.
  • Staging sickening displays of obsequious cabinet member servitude – I have never, ever seen anything like the televised sessions in which Trump’s advisors and cabinet members stand around and, on-call, praise some policy or action of his. It is unprecedented, and as for so many other things, unfathomable. Why would otherwise respected individuals consent to such humility?
  • Staging an ego-driven 4th of July – That was just plain disgusting. Trump, like the little, spoiled boy that inhabits his psyche wanted a military glorification of himself (not America). He could not get his parade, so he settled for this, at an estimated cost (to taxpayers) of $5.4 million, with a VIP section where only his political supporters were invited. No other president in recent memory has ever done anything like this at an event that is traditionally supposed to celebrate all of America’s best qualities.  
  • Siding with hardline right wing Israeli policy at the expense of Palestinian rights – I do not care how Mr. Kushner or anyone else involved in the Trump Administration’s so-called Israeli-Palestinian initiative packages it. There is no semblance of equal or just treatment of Palestinian rights as enshrined in multiple UN resolutions, no framing of a political solution, and no pressure whatsoever on Israel to stop the human rights violation of continuing settlements and appropriation of Palestinian territory and property. Trump’s ambassador to Israel is David Friedman, a bankruptcy lawyer with no foreign policy experience and well-known hard-right views, and he went ahead and moved the embassy to Jerusalem — in conflict with every previous American president since Israel became a state, all of whom have understood the nuance of including the expressed desire by Israel to have its embassy there in general policy planks, but not actually taking that step because of its inflammatory message. 
  • Constant pandering to the extreme right – Another consistent Trump characteristic. There was his rabidly racist and shameful labeling of Latino immigrants (as rapists, criminals, etc.), Charlottesville of course, this past week’s White House “social media summit” to which no major social media organization was invited, only a collection of conservative and extreme right-wing media, the likes of Bill Mitchell (radio host and promotor of the QAnon conspiracy theory), James O’Keefe (Project Veritas), Carpe Donktum (a right-wing troll organization), and others, and just this weekend the series of ugly and racist tweets mentioned above denigrating several Congresswoman who are his vocal opponents – the ugly tone of which was actually echoed by Senator Lindsey Graham and other Republicans.  
  • Immigration policy – His blatant attempts to exclude immigrants from countries whose people are culturally, ethnically or religiously different than his view of acceptable immigrants, such as those from Norway. His repeated, outrageously false and racist characterizations of immigrants.

Undemocratic (putting his interests above those of the country)…

  • Almost everything he does or seeks to do, basically. His general stance is that “America” is essentially “Trumpland,” and he would like free reign to make it that way, free from interference by the press (which he constantly mocks and criticizes) or courts (which he constantly denigrates when decisions are not in his favor), or any opposition in Congress.
  • The entire obstruction of justice pattern – The multiple attempts to block evidence and testimony, the intimidation of witnesses, influencing witnesses by holding out potential pardons, the attempts to exert influence over judicial proceedings, all well-documented in the Mueller report.
  • Constant executive orders and assertion of executive privilege – To be fair, most Presidents use executive orders from time to time. Obama did. But Trump is using those as a routine means of governing, and using executive privilege to withhold evidence, obstruct justice and obstruct Constitutional oversight. His latest – the use of an executive order to try and get around the Supreme Court’s decision against including a citizenship question on the 2020 Census.
  • Finding and deploying a compliant attorney general who is like no other I have ever seen, more a mafia henchman than attorney general of a country. He made false statements to Congress about the Mueller report, mislead the American people about that report, and has spearheaded a campaign to persecute those who initiated the investigation of Trump campaign Russia ties.
  • Colluding with adversaries to gain advantage in his election, and openly showing a lack of concern for a repeat in 2020. These actions are clearly documented in the Mueller report.

Just plain stupid…

  • Wide-ranging ignorance – This is not an “elite” judgment. Trump knows nothing about global history, diplomacy, U.S. history, the Constitution, climate science, economics, or much else – all the while proclaiming himself a “genius.” The one thing he does have is a well-developed sense of how to manipulate and bully.
  • Pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership – While this was indeed advocated by some Democrats, it is plainly evident that doing so was and remains senseless. What President Obama had conceived as a part-trade and part-strategic initiative to cement our relationships with nations close to China and in turn serve as a check on China’s rapid expansionism, is now left as an empty vacuum that China is only too happy to fill, as these countries now have no counterweight.
  • Ill-informed diplomatic initiatives designed for Trump’s ego, not serious political results – That in a phrase, describes his overtures to Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who has only gained, at Trump’s expense.   
  • The ignorance of climate change, pulling out of the Paris Accords, and rejection of a move to a green economy – This is unfathomable, as well as stupid. Not only for all the environmental and security reasons that are well-documented, but because abdicating a key global leadership role has simply opened the door for others to step in and lead, not only in a political sense but in an economic one. And, again, because Trump, as the representative of the United States, exhibits such a colossal ignorance and lack of concern, he situates the U.S. as a backwater nation.
  • Discounting and mocking the advice of his entire national security team, repeatedly, when the professional and evidence-based conclusions of that team contradict the picture he wants to paint – as in the “no Russian interference in his election” scenario. This is not only stupid, but dangerous, and a dereliction of duty.
  • Ignoring the extant and growing cyber-threat – Trump, the ostensible commander-in-chief, dismisses this major threat to U.S. security and the security of allies. It’s all about ego – he does not want to concede that any such activity contributed to his election. Again, it is Trump uber alles, and monumentally stupid.
  • Pulling out of the Iran deal – a deal that by all counts, and by all reputable evidence, was working, at least regarding its primary purpose of stopping Iran’s progression to a nuclear weapon. Instead, this idiotic move has dramatically increased tensions with Iran and in the region and started Iran back on the path to nuclear weapons.  
  • Lack of any strategic or productive Middle East policy or strategy, other than an apparent strengthening of ties to Saudi Arabia and the Israeli hard right. In Syria, simply handing the Russians control, more or less, and leaving Bashir al-Assad in control. The lack of any sensible Israeli-Palestinian policy substantially decreases the likelihood of peace, and has ruined whatever credibility the U.S. had as a force for peace.  
  • Tariff policy – Colossally stupid, and no way to conduct trade relationships, with anybody. He has slapped tariffs or threatened to do so on our allies (Canada, the EU, Mexico) as well as China and others. No one disputes that there are issues to be addressed in China’s trade policies, but the reliance on tariffs sets a terrible precedent, and has thus far produced little if any benefit. In fact, it is hurting American exporters and beginning to dry up markets that American exporters – particularly in agriculture – worked hard to gain. Yet, in total ignorance of how tariffs work, Trump routinely and flagrantly lies, claiming that the tariffs are bringing in “billions.”
  • The tax cut – Sure, there was some short-term benefit. The economic numbers seem to bear that out, though it is hard to separate the drop in unemployment from the continuous dropping of that rate ever since the recovery began under the Obama administration. But few people have actually seen any pay raise, and corporations – according to Forbes magazine — have not put the massive gains they received into raising worker pay or re-investment in their companies to create new jobs. Instead, it has largely gone elsewhere, including to stock buy-backs which pump up the value of stock (hence the stock market rise). On top of that, the tax cuts have slashed the amount of money available to the government and led to the largest federal deficit ever.
  • Lack of any immigration policy other than enforcement and a “wall” – There are almost no words to describe how stupid this is, and how ill-informed (that is putting it nicely) in terms of the causal factors driving immigration.