With this as an introduction, I find in MAGA (Make America Great Again) an insult by Trump to all those who strove to construct the USA. The founding fathers recognized that the Union needs constant improvement -the periodic search for accommodating changing circumstances. So when Trump calls for MAGA, he turns his back on the difference between evolution and destroying what we have.
And for what purpose? To rebuild America in his own image. But what image? His is never fixed. This president stands for an America which never was. For that reason alone, Donald J. Trump is no more than a Gaga, a senile, doddering, which in French, means "an old fool."
Yet that fool, and those who stand by him, or in awe of him, has given us MAGA as a mantra which should be our tool for repairing the damage inflicted by him on this great human experiment called America.
Trump's sordid record begins with his being oblivious of what governing the US, a complex entity of 50 sovereignties (the 50 States) is all about. He has demonstrated total ignorance of the separation of powers. The US President, under our Constitution, is no Chairman of the Board. Country and company are two different entities: The former is the vehicle; the latter is a mere dependency governed and regulated by the former.
But President Gaga does not see it that way. "I can run the country and my company at the same time," he fulminated. And "I alone can fix it," he uttered at his rallies, bamboozling his captive audience. Those poor souls have been hoodwinked by The Donald deliberate methods of deceit. Trump, a bamboozler par excellence, has explained his ignorance of the US Constitution as, if I correctly recall, "archaic; an inconvenience."
To my mind, this can only mean that "We the People of the United States...," words by which the Constitution begins, have now been abbreviated by President Gaga as "We, Donald J. Trump." Article II of the Constitution which provides for "The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America," seems to be interpreted by Donald the Narcissist as a power overwhelming all others under the Constitution.
- A president who regards the Department of Justice as if it were created as a law firm whose task is to "protect" him, is a president who believes that defending the U.S. should not be allowed unless it justifies his actions regardless of their dubious legality;
- A president who uses his power of pardon as a backdoor exit for those regarded as law breakers is himself a law breaker;
- A president whose call for an "America First," yet applies it as "America is for the whites only" is a president who abets racism and thus is an agent for civil strife.
- A president who ignores George Washington's call for "no entangling alliances" is a president whose thought mechanism is incapable of comprehending that that was not a call for no alliances.
President Gaga has built walls around America, not only at the southern borders. He has isolated this great country from Canada to the north; Mexico to the south; Europe except for Russia to the east; and alienated the pacific region to the west, except for North Korea.
A president who believes American adversary, Russia, and attacks the credibility of 17 American intelligence agencies, is an executive who is courting impeachment.
A president who sees in the rise of the extreme right in Europe a vindication of his own espousal of fascism is an executive who has been unfaithful to his own oath of office. That oath is specified in Article II, Section I of the Constitution in these words: "I do solemnly swear ... that I will faithfully execute the Office of President..." In essence, President Gaga, by ignoring that he is leading a country based on the Rule of Law, has destroyed his own legitimacy to occupy the Oval Office.
As for this obsequious Congress, I shall leave that assessment to David Leonhardt, the author of an op-ed column in the New York Times of September 3. Disparaging the leaders of Congress who attended McCain's funeral services at Washington's National Cathedral, he said:
"They have refused to defend America's national security in the face of Russian attacks. They have refused to defend the rule of law against Trump's attacks. They have refused to defend the F.B.I., the Justice Department and the First Amendment. They have refused to defend the basic civil rights that Trump seeks to deny to dark-skinned American citizens, including the right to vote and the right to hold a passport."
That column closed by "They were there for show, faced with a choice, they have rejected McCain's America for Trump's."
Yes, we need MAGA to repair the daily damage, inflicted on it by Trump through his raving mania through which he sees himself as a great president. A president who believes that one day, his utterances shall be regarded by history as being at par with Lincoln's Gettysburg address!! Yet a great America shall assert itself again through reclaiming the values on which it was established 240 years ago.
Trump's exclusion from attendance at the McCain funeral services was a dignified response to Trump's autocratic governance. It was also a response to Trump's denial of McCain's heroism in the service of America. A hero is a person noted for tests of courage or nobility of purpose. None of these qualities has ever fit President Gaga.
His statement that McCain was considered a hero because he was captured is so telling about the distance between Trump and the noble zone of sacrifice. Capturing a hero is the unhappy sequence of sacrifice for principle. For all his 72 years of life, Donald Trump had experienced neither principle nor sacrifice.
So go on, Donald: In this dark period of American history stick to tweeting. It is the only language by which birds can communicate with other creatures of feather. That is until our real MAGA would cleanse the Office of the President from the stigma attached to it by President Gaga!!
Yet the most cruel joke of the Trump mal-administration is the attempt to politicize the Supreme Court. This dreary process began with denying Judge Mark Garland, an Obama nominee, even the mere courtesy of a Senate hearing. So when Justice Kennedy stepped down, the Trump ultra-right machine went into an over-drive by nominating Brett Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh's record shows a commitment to the controversial principle that a sitting US president cannot be investigated, or prosecuted or indicted. In sum, a president is above the law, except through impeachment. But impeachment through the Senate is at present impossible due to the spineless Republican majority. If confirmed, the Supreme Court of the US shall suffer a dangerous tilt to the Right which shall last for decades to come.
This tampering with the Rule of Law in the US is by a President who wishes that the US public would tolerate his role-playing of a dictator. This charade shall reach its end in a humiliating collapse. Only then shall the three branches of government reclaim their soul in the system of checks and balances -the essence of US democracy.
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