Institutions like checks and balances, federal and state interaction, constitutional observance of limits of presidential power, respect for the Department of Justice, and non-interference with the freedom of the press, taking together, have been the hallmarks of American governance. They, not Trump single-handedly, have made America great.
But the very notion of "Make America Great Again," in the Trump era, is a revisionist vow to undo the America of 240 years of tradition. Only to replace it with an America gone rogue. Internally and externally. Never in my 66 years of life in the U.S. have I felt that the warning uttered in 1954 by one of my professors at Rutgers University, New Jersey's State University, might actually become real.
Professor Sidney Ratner, for whom I was a teaching assistant in American economic history, said at one of his seminars: "Under our Constitution, the President, if he is so inclined, could become a dictator." We thought that Ratner was being hyperbolic. Now I could see in Trump the very materialization of a dictator. For the Donald, the primary concern is loyalty to him, not to America's decades-old institutions.
No more can the word of Trump as president, be credible. Buzz-feed and other fact-checkers have attributed to him no less than 2000 lies, deliberately uttered in 2016 and 2017. A conman by both upbringing and temperament, like the Donald, shall eventually go down in history as a charlatan whose age's of one darkness.
Citing selectivity some manifestations of Trump's America gone rogue, one might start with the phenomenon of the House Speaker, Paul Ryan, choosing to stand aside as Trump treats Congress as if it were a subsidiary of the Trump organization. The episode of the release of a document impugning the credibility of the Department of Justice and the FBI, in spite of the opposition of those law enforcement agencies, is truly shameful.
That shame is allowed to envelope today's America, without a whimper by the House Speaker, shall forever attach. For the only beneficiary of that flagrant violation of America's need to protect its national secrets from the mischief of a hostile foreign power, Russia, shall not soon be forgotten. Saving Trump from the possible results of the ongoing investigation by the special counsel, Mueller, has become to the Republican establishment of today more important than protecting America's democracy.
In Trump's first State of the Union message, delivered on January 30, there was not even one word by that fake president against Russia. That is although no less than 517 votes were cast in the House of Representatives for the imposition of sanctions on Russia for its imperial designs on Europe. It is truly laughable.
Full throatedly in his State of the Union message, Trump characterized his efforts to place himself above the law as "our new American moment." Then, after applauding for himself in the style of a cheerleader, he declared: "Together, we can achieve absolutely anything."
So let us look at Trump's view of "Our new American moment" in the context of today's American realities.
Disposing of the veracity of the phony rallying cry of "Togetherness," no American president before Trump has ever divided this great nation. His "America First" is no more than a code phrase for "America is for the Whites only." He has supported the extreme American right, equated between American Nazis and American supporters of diversity, and lambasted African States as "shit hole States." Trump has stood with the deprivation of minorities of the right to vote through gerrymander and vote-suppression. And has hatefully claimed that "the Muslims hate us."
As to "Our New American Moment," it is "his" not "our" American moment. His guru, Steven Bannon, has called for "the destruction of the Administrative State," and his spokesmen have railed against "the deep State," a code name for "conspiracy" built in the State Department, the Department of Justice, and the 17 security agencies of the US, including the FBI. The Trumpist efforts are aimed at diversion, disbelief in the free-press (he called it "enemy of the people"), and preparation for either dismissing the Special Counsel, or casting doubts on the outcome of his investigations.
Today's Trump fascism has become clear in various ways: Indicators of his involvement in the obstruction of justice multiply. Whatever the outcome of the Mueller investigation, Donald Trump shall forever be stigmatized, at least as a non-convicted felon. For that rogue White House occupant has:
- Demanded from James Comey, former FBI Director, at the White House on January 27, 2017, a pledge of loyalty. At that time, Comey was overseeing the investigation of the Trump campaign;
- On February 14, 2017, Trump, acting in a mafia-mode, directed several officials to leave the Oval Office so he could be alone with Comey. At that unlawful tete-a-tete, he asked Comey to "let" the investigation of Michael Flynn "go." Flynn (the instigator of "lock her up about Hillary) had resigned the previous day as Trump's national security advisor.
- But that resignation had come about eighteen days after Trump was warned by the Department of Justice about Flynn's criminal involvement with Russia, in detriment to American national interest.
- With Comey standing his constitutional grounds, as his oath of office as FBI Director was to uphold the US Constitution and laws, Trump, on May 9, fired Comey.
- On the following day, the President of the United States told the Russian Foreign Minister, Lavrov, and the Russian Ambassador to Washington that the firing had "taken off the great pressure" of the Russian investigation. No US press was allowed to witness that treasonous admission. Only Russian media was permitted to record that unbelievable obsequious self-prostration in the mode of a Putin agent.
- No loyalty to country, to flag, to an oath of office, or to the Constitution. Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution, provides for the following Oath or Affirmation by the President-elect at inauguration: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my abilities, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
- On May 11, 2017, Trump told NBC News for the whole world to see, that the firing of Comey was because of "this Russia thing." Being unfaithful to your country, Mr. President, is not a "thing."
- If proven, your collusion with Russian interference in the 2016 elections, if proven by the ongoing Mueller investigation, (forget about the sham of congressional investigations) is an impeachable offense. It falls within "Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors." (Article II, Section 4 of the US Constitution).
Trump's totality of illegal actions shall have to be judged by the same standard used in Nixon's article of impeachment. It reads as follows: "made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States." At the Constitutional Convention, when the framers were debating impeachment, George Mason asked: "Shall any man be above justice?"
To that basic principle on which America was established, I should add these words of Daniel Webster: "There are men, in all ages ... who mean to govern well; but they mean to govern. They promise to be kind masters; but they mean to be masters... They think there need be but little restraint upon themselves... The Love of power may sink too deep in their own hearts..."
In North Korea, Kim is reported to kill those who do not applaud him with gusto. And in America, Trump has called the Democrats who did not join in applauding his "State of the Union" message last month "un-American" and even "treasonous." Conclusion: Kim and Trump, as dictators, are on the same page. Though not fully on the same authoritarian page. Kim is slightly better than his American clone. He does not attack his own law enforcement agencies.
In only one year of his chaotic presidency, Donald J. Trump has sunk even below the limits of "love of power." His narcissism, his divisiveness, his steering the ship of states over the shoals of destructive boulders, his kindness towards hostile foreign powers, and his mischief abroad, including his declaration of contested Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, are all sure signs of an unhinged potentate.
One of the recently published books sums up this dilemma. It is by David Frum, titled: Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic.
