The greats hardly ever describe themselves as such. Trump is an embarrassing exception. His call to "Make America Great Again" does not mean what it says. Its practical meaning is: "America shall be for whites only." All others are potentially un-American.
Never in the history of the cabinet meetings at the White House has there been one like that held by Trump in June. It was for the sole purpose of having himself being praised by members of his own cabinet. It was a disgusting show of servility. Cravenly submissive to the narcissist, egocentrism of Trump, they bathed him, one at a time, in adulating "thank you for the honor of serving under your leadership."
One of the most sickening behavioral traits of that mindless American President is his lashing at any critic. On May 13, he spoke at the commencement exercises of Liberty University, a bastion of religious evangelism. In that address, he said of criticism:
"Nothing is easier or more pathetic than being a critic, because they're people that can't get the job done."
Yet it is well established that the primary lesson of a liberal democracy is how to live with critics. It was the composer Jean Sibelius who quipped: "No one ever put up a statue of a critic." Egomaniacal Trump has his name on every building or a golf course he owns, leases, or has licensed his name to be stamped on it. This is typical of Trump's delusional mental disorder that is marked by infantile feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur.
Trump's famous "I alone can fix it" could now be added to "I know more than the generals know." This is to appreciate the total nonsense of these irresponsible utterances revealing the gap between his empty words and their empty results.
His first baptism by fire was in Yemen where one of the seals was killed. But Trump blamed that mishap on the Pentagon.
Now finding it expedient to leave the generals face the blame for future mishaps, he has n ow ceded his central function as Commander In Chief to General Jim Mattis, his Defense Secretary.
It is now the Pentagon which would decide on a useless military surge in Afghanistan of 5000 more troops to be thrust in that unwinnable 16-years-old war. A war that rages on without any American arching strategy, and from which Obama had wisely begun to disengage as a gradual exit strategy.
Nonetheless, Trump focus on being not responsible for any bad outcome (his sole focus is on garnering ritualized flattery), shall not shield him from what The New York Times of June 16 has aptly characterized. The paper mocked Trump's self-absorbed tweet celebrating the 242nd birthday of the US army. Trump, the Tweeter-In-Chief has said: "Proud to be your commander-in-chief." This is the man who sought multiple deferments from military service. Thus the paper mocked his escapist decision to give General Mattis "the authority to determine troop levels in Afghanistan."
In the 1950's I witnessed as a UN staff member the Permanent Representative of Israel disparaging Saudi Arabia by a novel attack. He, in effect, said that the only UN member which is a family business is Saudi Arabia. Well, by that measurement of statehood, it would not be far fetched to apply it today to the Trump administration. But not as a State, but as a government. Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, partake of official meetings with visiting Heads of State.
The fact of that American family business masquerading as the apex of executive power in the US is more compounded by other factors outside of blood relations. The intertwining of family and State business, representing violations of both ethical and legal nature, has been tolerated by a supinely-submissive Republican controlled Congress. A collective exhibition of mutual and moral slackness.
With the accumulation of portfolios of vital national interest in the hands of Kushner, from government organization to Middle East peace, comes the issues of conflict of interest. Trump and his enablers have vouched for a legal impossibility: The President is immune from conflict of interest. By what legal standard? None, except by dictatorial fiat. As a mindless president, Trump has declared that he could run his world-flung business and the U.S. simultaneously.
From all indications, especially through the avalanche of executive orders, paraded before cameras as Trump jabs his pen on folders bearing his tower-like signature, Trump fancies the US a corporation. His cabinet is his corporate board, his angry look as a threatening menace.
In his hallucinatory state of mind, Trump believes that his signature moves programs forward. No major legislation has so far moved forward, especially in the areas of health care, tax reform, trade promotion and national security. Only in the matter of appointing a very conservative justice to the Supreme Court, deregulation to benefit Wall Street, and environmental degradation through exiting the Paris accord on climate change.
All are nearly negatives, which Trump counts as "fulfilling my promises to the American people." The outcome has been the federal judiciary issuing stays of the application of his bans, including the Muslim ban which he declares to be not a ban. This is while his acolytes claimed it to be a non-ban. But the courts took Trump's own words as evidence of unconstitutionality.
This is while we see the rise of states and cities declaring their own defiance of federal power regarding rounding up illegal immigrants. Their police departments shall not cooperate with federal authorities in the pursuit of unconstitutional measures.
The American Declaration of Independence unanimously approved by the 13 United States of America on July 4, 1776 includes several passages which in their totality constitute obstruction of justice when violated by the Executive. One of these refers to endeavoring "to prevent the population of these states," through "refusing to pass (laws) to encourage their migrations hither." Trump bans against Muslims and plans to build walls on the Mexican-American border should be taken by the judiciary into account with these passages in mind.
As to the Constitution, Article III, Section 3 states: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies giving them aid and comfort."
President, Donald Trump, assisted by others like General Flynn, his former national security advisor, have by Trump's silence on Russia's interference in the 2016 elections, given eloquent evidence of culpability. Not one word of protest against Russia's cyber attack during the campaign and transition has issued from the mouth of that mindless president.
- His firing of FBI Director, James Comey, for investigating what Trump called "the Russia thing." By his own admission in a TV interview with Lester Holt, he provided the Russian investigation as the reason for that firing;
- During his testimony on June 8, 2017 before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the question of Trump's attempt to have Comey abandon the Flynn investigation was confirmed. An honest finger pointing to Trump's attempt at obstruction of justice;
- During that historic testimony, the former FBI Director called Trump's trail of statements by which that mindless president tried to put the onus of firing Comey on Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General: "Those were lies, plain and simple." For the first time ever has an American president been called "a liar," repeatedly before Congress by an officer of the U.S. ;
- Trump, by his professed anger at Comey's refusal to publicly disclose that the President was not personally under investigation, has made himself actually the target of investigation.
- The revelation that Trump has cajoled Comey to pledge "loyalty" to him could not but point to the bubble in which Trump exists as a pretended potentate.
- Instead, Comey, being the then director of an independent law enforcement agency, promised only his "honesty." Not enough for Trump "the Predator in Chief." An apt characterization by the New York Times of June 9, 2017.
- The day following Comey's testimony, Trump accused the dismissed FBI Director of lying. At a rambling press conference in the White House Rose Garden, Trump, in the presence of Romania's President said: "Yesterday showed no collusion (with Russia), no obstruction."
- Then he hinted that he had tapes of his conversations with Comey. Comey, in his testimony, said: "I hope there are tapes." Various challenges to Trump to produce these tapes have gone unheeded. Pure bluster!!
- The misdeeds committed by Trump's aides and close associates shall, under agency law, be regarded as amounting to impeachable offenses. Said Elizabeth Drew in her article in the New York Review of Books of June 22, 2017. "Mike Flynn, Trump's former campaign adviser and dismissed national security advisor is obviously a problem for the president." Her article is titled "Trump: The Presidency in Peril."
- No less than seven Trump associates have been linked to Russia including his own son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Kushner is now a subject of a criminal investigation. He is suspected of having discussed with Russia's Ambassador to the US a secret back channel using the Russian Embassy as a conduit. The purpose is to deny US Intelligence Services the possibility of tracking those channels. If such an infantile attempt at hiding secrets from the powerful American intelligence community (16 such organizations) is proven, it could amount to a charge of espionage.
- With Trump and his entire phalanx and Trump himself lawyering up, important Republican Senators, and even senior Cabinet officers (e.g. Defense Secretary Mattis), are beginning to distance themselves from that toxic president.
- In a rare such example, Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina presiding over the Intelligence Committee, asked Comey: "Do you have any doubts that Russia attempted to interfere in the 2016 elections?" Comey's response was a single lethal word: "None."
Trump's test balloon launched on June 13 by his friend, Christopher Ruddy, suggesting that Trump may fire Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, is either a phony attempt at intimidation, or a terrible misreading of the pulse of the American people. They will have to conclude that their president is a crook. That admission by Ruddy may also indicate that Trump uses and abuses his executive privilege which prevents the divulgence of private conversation with the president.
Loosening that rule is also a manifestation of Trump's mistaken belief that he is above the law. He, as the saying goes, could run, but can't hide. His attempt to protect Flynn, his chipping away at the elaborate American civil rights edifice, his feverish attempts to dismantle the Obama legacy including the opening to Cuba, and his calling the investigations in the Russian connection a "witch hunt" is a reminder of a concerned rat moving in all directions in the hope of escaping capture.
Donald: What is happening in the way of multiple investigations is not "a witch hunt." It is a hunt for the truth. And the only recognizable truth about your five months presidency is what your main strategist, Steve Bannon, has admitted to: "The destruction of the administrative State."
That administrative State seems to be marching towards an inevitable goal: Putting an end to the charade of the presidency of a mindless president.
Statistical fact checking shows that Trump has lied 500 times since June 2015. The most recent lie being his bluffing that his conversations with Jim Comey had been taped. Now under the pressure of a Congressional subpoena to force Trump to disgorge these tapes, he came out on June 22 admitting that there were no such tapes.
The implication of that forced divulgence from the American Liar-in-Chief is clear: He intentionally meant that lie for possibly these purposes: (a) to intimidate Comey into silence; (b) to distract public attention away from the Russian investigation; and/or (c) to heap scorn on law enforcement.
There is a new theory called "Mindfulness." It advocates knowing yourself as a means of constructive engagement. By that standard, Trump, through his utterances and actions, is entitled to the counter-theory: "Mindlessness." It advocates self-absorption combined with always being on the offensive.
Donald the Mindless has been, if not on the defensive, in a constant attacking mode: From "crooked Hillary," to "I have inherited a mess." From "That judge is Mexican," to "The intelligence services have failed." From "The Muslims hate us," to "China is ripping us off." From: "The Media is the enemy," to "I heard it from someone."
The superlatives are his lexicon. His imperial presidency is not to "Make America Great Again." It is to "Make America Hate Again." Where are all the allies gone? Even Mexico and Canada are no more America's longest unarmed borders.
Note: New blog postings will resume on a weekly basis after my new book is ready for the press this Fall. Its title: "War on Jihadism By Ideology: The New Islamic Religious Revolution"
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