A Week is a Lifetime
This morning I heard Morning Joe say that a week is a lifetime in politics. And this past week was a lifetime for Democrats in a bad way since the Mueller Report was not the condemning document they hoped it would be. For Trump and Trump-following Republicans, this past week was a lifetime in a good way. TO use Trump’s own exaggerated and false narrative, it was a complete exoneration of the President. I would say that this week was just another middle-of-the-road week that is neither insignificant nor as important as a lifetime.
What is incontrovertible? There were no findings of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the election, even though the Russians have been proven to have dramatically influenced the election in favor of the Trump team. That should not surprise anyone altogether. Trump didn’t expect to win the election. We all suspected that, and we have had that confirmed in many ways. He was busy trying to screw up the electoral process while building his brand and trying to do a big deal (the biggest of his career supposedly) in Russia with his Trump Moscow building. That fact set alone is damning of the Trump Presidency.
What else is incontrovertible? That six of Trump’s closest advisors have been proven or have pleaded guilty to being criminal in their dealings on all sorts of things that are contrary to the best interests of the country. That Trump is far and away the least prepared President in our history and the least able to be the leader of the free world. He is a proven and unbelievably regular liar of the ultimate order. He does not just distort the truth or exaggerate. He lies in boldface manner daily…multiple times per day. No leader can be a valid and functional leader with such a degree of deception.
What is simply true? That Trump operates in a manner which is bad for the country. Whether you feel he is horribly racist or not, he is divisive to the extreme and abuses his powers in extreme manner. Neither of those things appear to be criminal, but they are horribly bad. Great empires and nations fail with divisive elements the likes of which he promotes regularly. As for abuse of power, his in-the-open and unabashed attempts to interfere with and possibly obstruct the rule of law borders on the obscene. Bullies are rarely subtle. They play to the crowd and their baser instincts. Trump is an expert at that sort of lowly pursuit.
I look at the Democrat response to the recent Barr letter on the Mueller Report. They have parsed it six ways to Sunday (a funny turn of phrase since it was released on Sunday afternoon). Fundamentally they have accepted the no collusion conclusion. This is what responsible people do. Had it gone differently, is there any among us that feels Trump would have done anything short of deny its validity and reject its conclusions? To suggest that all politicians are the same is to deny the reality that Democrats, while hardly perfect, simply play by the rules in most part where Republicans say and do anything to support their views and positions.
Until the full Mueller Report is released, which I do believe will happen, this speculation will be debated ad nauseum. When the Report is released it will be analyzed to death by the full array of cable news reporters, whose raison d’etre is to do just that. When the smoke settles we should not lose sight of some simple facts. A large part of this nation, generally the better educated and better-informed portion, feel very strongly that this Presidency is either or both illegitimate and destructive to our values. The problem is that we live in a nation, nay world, that have different values. Some think in terms of their own interests and some think in terms of the interests of all. Trump is the leader and symbol of the former coalition.
This is a monumental difference in values if its true. It is the sort of difference that breeds war and purges. It is interesting that a recent spate of horror movies emphasizes the concept of purges, where one night per year is offered as an opportunity for people to get rid of whomever they wish without recrimination. That alone says way too much about where our thinking has gone. I for one have never seen thee movies since I fundamentally disagree with the notion that you set aside your values to deal with a thorny problem.
The only way to solve this divide in thinking that is non-violent is to talk it all out. That may be the best thing about cable news. If only with there were only one station for everyone to watch. Having one group watch MSBC and another watch Fox doesn’t do much to solve the divide. I wish I could believe that we can just solve it through another election. To begin with it will be a hard-fought election by both sides and that will serve to deepen the divide. Then the outcome is unlikely to lead to satisfaction for one large part of the country or another.
Now I am going to get radical. What brings people together. We have lived through Sandy Hook, and if dead children cannot bring about unity, I’m not sure tragedy can do the job. Perhaps a collective effort would heal the divide. Maybe that is the best element of war (what a horrible thought!). The country came together after Pearl Harbor, but what a price to pay for unity.
Maybe we need a good worldwide crisis to bring us together. Well, climate change presents such a crisis, but it just isn’t imminent enough to galvanize thinking across the board. Where is a meteor headed towards earth when you need it?