Illustration by Carl Muecke.
The resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis moves us into a dangerous new phase of Donald Trump's illegitimate presidency.
I've asked several people who worked in the field as to whether Trump could use the launch codes carried by an aide in the "football" to unilaterally unleash thermonuclear armageddon. The answers are mixed. We do know that at the worst of the Watergate scandal, Defense Secretary James Schlesinger required that any launch order from President Richard Nixon go through him or Secretary of State Henry Kissinger first.
Mattis was our Schlesinger. I never subscribed to the "adults in the room" theory or the "principled conservatives" in the administration working secretly to undercut the worst of Trump's impulses. I come from the older American tradition that doesn't worship people merely because they have stars on their epaulets. Mattis moving directly from being a four-star Marine general to a cabinet post discomfited me (only the uniquely upright George Marshall had done so before). Still, I understood his duty-bound motive. And soon he'll be gone.
Remember, just after the 2016 election when I warned you that things would be worse than you could imagine? I was right, but we're not even halfway down the express elevator to hell. With the Mueller investigation closing in, co-conspirators flipping, the New York Attorney General, and U.S. Attorney from the Southern District in New York — all these probes tightening the web on the Don and his family... He's capable of anything.
The Republican Party is equally guilty in this criminal enterprise — never forget that. In any normal time, the House would have impeached and the Senate removed a president who was installed thanks to the help of a hostile foreign power. "Individual 1" survives to work his rackets and policy disasters because the GOP-controlled Congress has failed in its constitutional responsibilities. (Another failure was the Electoral College, which the Framers envisioned as a firewall against just such a person as Trump).
Manhattan ad executive Donnie Deutsch made a powerful assessment of Trump recently, saying "What is going to put him in jail eventually... destroy anything he's ever built, and his children, is a 30 year dishonest criminal enterprise. One thing will take him out of the presidency, the other will ruin him forever..." Deutsch continued:
The political incentive for every U.S. Attorney in New York or Virginia to do this…this guy showed up and tried to undo what 250 years of people have been dying for in this country—who we are, what we stand for. So there is a moral imperative, rule of law, what our grandfathers died for — democracy — he single-handedly is the first guy in our lifetime to try to undo that. He’s going to pay for that for the rest of his life as they pick apart his criminal enterprise. This is the very, very beginning of the story.
Maybe. I hope so. Constitutional checks and balances, the rule of law, and operation of career civil servants (the deep state) are all designed to thwart tyrants and momentary mob passions. But Trump has managed to do great damage in his half-term already and maintains a staunch base that wants to keep a white majority by any means. In the long run, the worst destruction has been backsliding and failing to act decisively on the existential threat of climate change.
We have been extremely fortunate over the past two years in avoiding any international crisis. It's almost as if the pucker factor has kicked in for even the world's bad guys. Perhaps Trump's former KGB handler is helping here. If that changed, Trump is capable of using it as his "Reichstag fire" moment, attempting to suspend civil liberties, shut down the press ("enemies of the people"), and lash out — conveniently shutting down his criminal troubles. This is somewhat less likely with a Democratic-controlled House...but only somewhat.
Meanwhile, the Republican Party showed in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Michigan that it will not accept the results of elections. God help us come 2020.
If we make it that far.
I share Rogue's pessimism. I don't see America recovering from Republican pyromania because democracy doesn't come in a fire-proof structure. It's always depended on people of reasonably good values putting country ahead of party along with a respect for reality (e.g., science, empiricism, expertise). Talk radio, social media, Fox News, et al, can do a lot of damage to the necessary buffers that protect democracy. What we're seeing now is pure tribalism at war with the transcendant ideal of America itself. The fears of the Founding Fathers have come to pass. The republic is burning down because the principal pyromaniac is a cult figure to nearly half the nation.
When a president chooses to get his foreign policy advice from a boorish blowhard (Rush Limbaugh) while not even bothering to consult his Secretary of Defense, it's probably a good time to count the blessings we've enjoyed before our nation decided to live dangerously in its reptilian brain. There's no return to some status quo ante because anyone on the right who tells the truth now is read out of the tribe. Mitt Romney won't save the party next year just as Bob Corker and Jeff Flake wouldn't this year. Any major Republican who would light a candle of truth-telling would necessarily burn down the party itself. The entire GOP is a toxic cult now of white victimhood. This is their devil's bargain. They thought they could contain the power of their dark magic but it infected the entire GOP instead. America is now at war and the enemy is within.
Posted by: soleri | December 21, 2018 at 12:28 PM
Deutsch is a very savvy adman. A good reader of people. Trump, however, is reasonably easy to read. A maniacally driven sociopath (I think he passed the point of being dubbed a mere narcissist), Trump will do anything to protect himself. As he drives full speed to the bottom, replacing good to marginally competent senior advisers with bottom-of-the-barrel sycophants, the American people and the Western Alliances are in peril. I never thought I'd say this, but even Pence (literally and figuratively the most colorless person in politics) is preferable to Trump.
Posted by: Phil Motta | December 21, 2018 at 01:43 PM
Sorry to veer off topic, but are any of you guys familiar with the episodes of the early sixties drama Route 66 that were filmed in Phoenix? It's some of the best footage I've seen of old Phoenix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH0DuFn-aZY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZafBjNr3oUg
Posted by: Joey | December 21, 2018 at 02:46 PM
Joey, I am. I linked to those same episodes on this site several years ago. You're right: it's some of the best footage of old Phoenix you can find, even better than the opening scan of downtown in Psycho.
Posted by: soleri | December 21, 2018 at 03:59 PM
Soleri, do you or anyone else here remember when the show came to town? I wonder if everyone would have tuned in to see how their city was portrayed or if Phoenix had already grown so much by that point that a TV show coming to film a few episodes wouldn't be such a big deal.
Posted by: Joey | December 21, 2018 at 04:25 PM
It’s easy to imagine trump windmilling, throwing turd bags where ever he can to see what sticks running up to 2020. I can’t fault the ME tosses; they’re Nixonian in setup. We won, goodbye. After 17 years and $1 trillion both Dems and Know-Nothings had a strategy that only enabled big military spending. Lets see what anything else gets us. Expect trump to turn and say, “I saved $250 billion this year alone, give me $5 billion for my wall.
How do you say no? Why didn’t you declare a win when you could have? Listening to folks with their hand in the till ain’t smart.
Trump will now throw more turd bags anywhere, everywhere. What hasn’t he already defiled; women, soldiers, FBI, justices. The law of averages says he will also hit drug dealers, child molesters, libertarians, plus the usual grifters, mobsters. With his crowd there’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of seeing Lucifer day tripping. It could be the End of Times. It doesn’t have to be if enough good folk get involved.
Posted by: ed dravo | December 21, 2018 at 05:49 PM
Joey, I have no memory of this, which does puzzle me. I loved the show Route 66 and I would tune into anything about Phoenix. But I don't recall these episodes at all.
In 1960, Newsweek had a cover story about Phoenix titled Miracle in the Desert. The picture showed north Central looking south to downtown, with Park Central on one side and the Mayer Central Building, under construction, on the other. That same week, Time had a big spread about Phoenix, showing among other things the armored knight on a horse/parking valet in front of the restaurant Green Gables. I mention this to suggest how plugged in I was to Phoenix hoopla.
There was a TV show set in Phoenix back then called The Brothers Brannigan. It involved a pair of fraternal detectives who worked out of Mountain Shadows. It was so bad even I didn't watch it.
Posted by: soleri | December 21, 2018 at 05:56 PM
Wow, thanks for the tip about The Brothers Brannagan. A TV show from 1960 set in Phoenix is insanely intriguing to me, even if it is a turkey. There are some bootleg episodes available that I might have to buy.
Posted by: Joey | December 21, 2018 at 07:37 PM
Be interesting to see how Marco Rubio plays this continuing felonious crisis.
Could give him a shot at president.
Posted by: Cal Lash | December 21, 2018 at 08:41 PM
The horrors of this administration will never end as the flaws of the Constitution are on full display and the ability and chance to correct it is now beyond compromise or any other reach.
Posted by: Jerry McKenzie | December 22, 2018 at 08:25 AM
I agree with Jerry here that the Constitution is an antique artifact more suited to preserving a slave economy than addressing 21st century issues. The problem is that we're stuck with it, certainly for the duration of our lives, and probably for the duration of this nation as well. In this light, we can waste a lot of time advocating for the end of the Electoral College, or "term limits", or killing the 2nd Amendment. Ain't ever gonna happen.
One reason why I play the centrist scold on the Internet is that reality is a harsh taskmaster. We won't win if we ignore where most voters are, and they're obviously not as smart or edgy as we'd like them to be. It's why I don't buy the idea that Bernie or some other savior du jour is going to rescue us from the nitty-gritty of political logrolling and compromise. It might be different if we lived under a more democratic parliamentary system. Sad to say, we don't.
Trump is proof that Republicans will not go gently into that good night. They will lie, cheat, collude, betray, and destroy before they'll give up power. We're not going to beat them with our good intentions and lofty ideals. We'll beat them by creating the biggest movement we can, including those who disagree with our pet issues.
I'm not optimistic about the future because even if Trump is dethroned, most Americans will remain idiots who still get their news from Facebook and television. We are doomed. But maybe we can hold back the dawn for a decade or two if we somehow find the middle way and keep the system working despite the best efforts of Russia and the GOP. In the end, it will likely collapse given the environmental tsunami bearing down on us. Trump is prelude to the abyss in that sense. Humanity is not going to get smart about this in time and our epitaph will be written by the random robots who survive us.
Posted by: soleri | December 22, 2018 at 04:14 PM
“Thanks, to some degree, to the ever-presence of and pandemic addiction to social media, we live in an era in which appearances seem more important than reality.” Gordon Marino, PhD.
The future: After Trump
http://globalvisioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Mohammad-Rakibul-Hasan-climate-victim.jpg
cal your card carrying Pessimist
CCCP
Posted by: Cal Lash | December 22, 2018 at 05:40 PM
The future: After Trump
http://globalvisioninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Mohammad-Rakibul-Hasan-climate-victim.jpg
cal your card carrying Pessimist
CCCP
Posted by: Cal Lash | December 22, 2018 at 05:47 PM
The planet after Trump
https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-global-warming-business-greed-apocalypse-businessman-stands-desolate-desert-has-polluting-smokestack-head-image93074508
Posted by: Cal Lash | December 22, 2018 at 05:53 PM
We are going to "make it that far." I have no doubt or angst about that. The ride for the rest of Trump's term -- no matter how long it lasts -- will be rough and dangerous.
Posted by: John Kanelis | December 22, 2018 at 07:34 PM
This post can only be satire. As such, welcome to conservatism, Rogue!
Posted by: ὀστρακισμός | December 26, 2018 at 01:15 PM
Conservatism will be forever remembered as the midwife of Trumpism, a raw and visceral celebration of cruelty, stupidity, and pathological lying. It's the Dunning Kruger effect but with armbands, red hats, and blonde bimbos playing the victim card on cable TV. Satire is no longer Springtime for Hitler. It's Donald Trump tweeting self-pitying rants to his racist base while pretending to be the smartest person who ever lived.
Posted by: soleri | December 27, 2018 at 07:36 AM
RBG is out for a second day. Y'all have already openly admitted how the Electoral College should be destroyed (Oh ye Oh - Rogue followers and how wise they are when compared to our founders).
I can't wait to see how long it takes all of you to articulate the proposition that packing the court with activist judges isn't only acceptable, but necessary!
I'm calling it now - the eloquent racist wants 11 SCJustices. The ineloquent racist wants 13.
Posted by: ὀστρακισμός | January 08, 2019 at 06:34 PM
RBG is still out because she's dead. It's a cover-up. The lunatic leftists and their deep state cronies, both puppets of the satanic international bankers, will stop at nothing to destroy the U.S.
Mattis wasn't the "adult in the room", he was a deep state Neocon pissed about having to pull out of Syria. Good riddance.
Posted by: Ruckus | February 01, 2019 at 10:16 PM
Quit writing about politics, Jon. You're embarrassing yourself.
Posted by: Ruckus | February 01, 2019 at 10:17 PM
Try to remember what they taught you in college, Jon. You know, the part about "write what you know".
You remember that, right?
Stick to local topics.
Posted by: Ruckus | February 01, 2019 at 10:20 PM