Our Trump Problem (by Bill Krystal)
The fish, as they say, rots from the head first. And Donald J. Trump is the head of the executive branch. It's not that the U.S. government isn't beset by innumerable problems and systemic dysfunction. But in the here and now, Donald Trump is the problem. The president is the dysfunction
And so while there are many questions facing the nation that deserve investigation, and many problems besetting us that need to be dealt with as best we can, the question underlying all the other questions is the question of Donald Trump.
It is increasingly difficult for those who have eyes to see to escape the conclusion—one to which we have been inclined since the beginning—that it would have been better if Trump had not become our president and that it would be better now if his service in the office were as brief as possible. But impeachment is a lengthy process . . . (Read it all)
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But impeachment is a lengthy process and requires a factual record to justify conviction that may or may not present itself. Resignation from the presidency is unusual.
So we have to deal with two facts: that Donald Trump is who he is and that he is our president. Coming to grips with this reality will require an awful lot more leadership than we have seen so far from Republicans on the Hill, an awful lot more responsibility in opposition than we have seen from Democrats, an awful lot more clarity and courage than we have seen from the most prominent conservatives, . . .
. . . an awful lot more care and fidelity to facts than we have seen from the media, and an awful lot more thoughtfulness and consideration of their duty to the public and the country than we have seen from those serving in the Trump administration.
The prerequisite to behavior worthy of the citizens and officials of a self-governing people is being sincere and candid about the situation we face. That situation will be perilous as long as Donald Trump remains in office.
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Unfortunately the odds of his berinmg impeached seem slim
Perhaps the best we can hope for-- at least for a while-- is a resounding Democratic victory in the off year Congressional election (11/2018)-- and having at least a Democratically controlled House that will block him in every way possible.
Unfortunately, it is conservatives and talking heads like 'Bill Krystal' that made Donald J. Trump a reality in the first place.
"Fish rots from the head?" Yeah, I suppose. Starting with the Koch's, Mercers, Adelson and the rest of the right wing oligarchy.
Most conservatives perhaps-- but I wonder if Krystal was also someone who supported Trump and made him a reality?
Kristol is a frequent critic of Trump and vocally opposed him throughout the 2016 primary and general election
I don't know if he ever supported Trump, but it seems he didn't. (And what many people seem to forget is that Trump is not a true Conservative. He takes many positions to support his base, but IMO he isn't really an ideologue-- rather what Trump sipports is-- Trump!
(A recent example-- his support of tariffs-- that is typically a liberal position. True conservatives are "laissez-faire capitalists"-- they believe in "free trade" and "letting "market forces" determine things, not government policies....the opposite of free trade.
P.S: I'm by no means a supporter of Krystal-- I find his ideas repugnant (with the exception, of course, of his constant criticism of Trump). The main reason I seeded this is to point out tyhat there's resistance to trump even amongst some Republicans,,, that and other factors will IMO probablylead to a stromng defeat for Republicans in the upcoming Congressional elections).
I do not believe Krystal supported Trump either. But, Krystal supported those republicans that supported Trump.
I suspect Krystal has 'issues' with Trump because he ( Krystal ) knows that Trump is a banal fraud. On the other hand, I suspect Krystal agrees with many of the Trump policies but the revulsion of the man behind them are too much for even Krystal to bear.
I saw Krystal and Max Boot on TV today. Surprisingly on MSNBC because they both look at FOX as Trump TV now. Both of them, as Conservative as two men can be (and no, I don't like their sickening neo-con positions either!), are hoping that there is a way to get rid of Trump as President, without tearing the nation apart in the process. They see him as (and I can't remember which man said it, though I think it was Boot) as Putin's toady and as an embarrassment to the U.S. in foreign policy around the world to our allies. They are right.
It was the Kremlin that made the announcement that Putin would be visiting the White House, when it is the duty of the President to announce that such an offer had been made. It is also a terrible time for a visit considering that we have just thrown out 60 spies because Putin attempted to murder a former spy in Great Britain, who happens to be our closest ally. This is not the first time that it has been Russian media that has announced the content of phone calls between Trump and Putin, when the President is supposed to release that information and only if he wants it known and is supposed to request that Putin keep it quiet otherwise. In fact this has become a standard practice, which has both Krystal and Boot confused as to who is the real leader of the United States, Trump or Putin? Personally I think the answer is very obvious and I don't like it very god damned much. Then again I don't like it very god damned much having it be Trump either.
The fact remains that it is very obvious that Putin has some sort of blackmail material on Trump. Personally I don't care if it's personally embarrassing, like something sexual or if it's something financial like money laundering, but until that blackmail material is exposed then Donald Trump is the most dangerous person to the future of the United States of America's Democracy and to all of us. It is essential for the National Security of our country for us to find out what it is.
I've never understood that argument. If the nation has a bad president then there's a moral imperative to remove him, just as there's a moral imperative to prosecute torturers and torture conspirators so that crap doesn't happen again. For example the fact that Ford pardoned Nixon meant that really bad men from the Nixon admin like Cheney and Rumsfeld continued to haunt government. Same thing with Reagan's pardons of the Iran-Contra conspirators, and the defacto retroactive pardon which Congress granted all the people involved in Bush's torture program......some of whom Trump is now elevating to key cabinet positions.
I agree. When it comes to the Trump band of, well I'm not sure what the proper label is, but whatever it is, they all need to be gutted out from the U.S. government to never be allowed to return like one would gut out a Bluegill or a Trout. And the head chopped off from the lot of them (metaphorically speaking of course) before tossing them in the frying pan. In the end I'd still toss them back into the lake and let the turtles have 'em.