You probably know what that headline is talking about. The 46th president of the U.S.
We can't absolutely conclude that 46 is unprecedented among presidents, "never been anything like it." But in living memory....say from FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, to Obama, has their been a president so woefully incompetent and so certain of himself and his policies?
This morning's NYTimes brings the matter to the fore: stories of ICE agents beating protestors in Portland; of threats by 46 to send more paramilitary types to cities run by Democratic mayors; and of fears by Republican operatives and donors that they're wasting their time and money at the top of the ticket and are thinking of shifting resources to the Senate races.
Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman report that given the failure of his crusading rallies, 46 will resume his corona virus briefings to the trepidation of many of his own staff and almost certainly to the medical and scientific officials who will be dragged onto the TV screen. 46: “I was doing them and we had a lot of people watching, record numbers
watching in the history of cable television. There’s never been anything
like it,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “It’s a great
way to get information out to the public as to where we are with the
vaccines, with the therapeutics.”
If you get beyond the Times paywall, there are stories about Portland and the fascistic behavior or U.S. federal officers, about mayors and governors of threatened states pleading with Washington not to send the armed feds, and there is Michelle Goldberg quoting from Timothy Snyder's 2017 book "On Tyranny."
“Be wary of paramilitaries.” He wrote, “When the pro-leader paramilitary
and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.” In
2017, the idea of unidentified agents in camouflage snatching leftists
off the streets without warrants might have seemed like a febrile
Resistance fantasy. Now it’s happening."
Ugh. He'll be gone by January 20th. Let's just hope that we're all alive by then. I'll be so glad when the media don't feel obligated to treat his every tweet and superlative-laden claim as legitimate news.
ReplyDeleteLet's also hope that RBG is still alive by then! If the Orange A$$hat gets to replace her we are effed big-time for the next 50+ years … even worse than we are already.
DeleteEven though one objects to the politicization of SCOTUS, the people he appoints are better than Trump is. Hard to see how they could be worse. Some of them have even demonstrated a little independence, including Roberts (who wasn't a Trump appointee.
DeleteI have nothing but respect for Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She shouldn't have to spend what are surely her last months in a kind of martyrdom for her country. I have maintained for a long time that we need term limits for SCOTUS so that vacancies are at predictable intervals.
We'll certainly hope that the 45th and 46th presidents are not the same person. Actually I don't think 45 could call himself 46 unless there were one or more intervening terms, with someone else serving between.
ReplyDelete46 will have so much work to do, repairing the damage done by 45.
The Bret (Stephens) and Gail Collins routine in the NYT has been reduced to late nite TV with The Don sucking all the air out of what conservatives and liberals used to argue about. But this passage today almost sounds like me talking to myself:
ReplyDeleteBret: I have invincible faith that our soldiers, officers, Secret Service, D.C. police and Melania Trump herself wouldn’t allow that to happen, even if some Department of Homeland Security goon squads support him. I also think Trump doesn’t have the guts. A guy who can’t fire people to their face is too much of a coward to attempt a coup.
Gail: Thanks for reminding me of that. A guy who became famous pretending to fire people on TV very clearly doesn’t have the guts to do the real thing. It’s all up to some junior assistant intern to deliver the bad news.
Bret: That said, the way in which the feds are handling the Portland protesters is one of the uglier spectacles in recent U.S. history. And I say this as someone who, obviously, isn’t politically sympathetic to the more extreme protesters, much less to the vandalism and violence some of them have perpetrated. That said, the civil rights of some obnoxious people mean a lot more to the Constitution of liberty than whether a federal building gets spray-painted.
Don't follow the Gail-Bret show, so thank you.
DeletePer spray painting fed buildings: I live in a city that has a regular recurrence of spray painting anything that is solid and is motionless at least temporarily. The last big one was MTA subway cars mostly on the exterior but sometimes inside. Much gnashing of the teeth at the time, but since many have been declared "ART," and are probably selling for gazillions (carefully removed, of course, from the surface on which they first appeared).
So feds, fear not, "ART" will yet save us from the world historic deficit.
Consider Banksy, from graffiti (clever, but still...) to commercial success. Pretty soon he will be able to join George Soros, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Dr. Fauci in this humongous plot to take over the world.
DeleteBTW: Isn't that spray paint on the avenue in front of the venerable and historic Trump Tower?
Trump is not an extraterrestrial disease injected into our political process from outer space. He was the outcome of the way things were. If Biden is elected, it does not mean things should go back to "normal". We should identify the parts of "normal" that led us to this disaster and make the requisite changes.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Trump was not something foisted upon us, but something we inflicted on ourselves. I am not in any way, shape, or form confident that he won't be re-elected. I am seeing Trump flags all over my area of Michigan. Three on my street alone.
DeleteToday he abrogated the fifth sentence of the Constitution. Whether he stays or goes, opera will never be the same.
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