Trump and the Republicans believe they’re entitled to rule,democracy be damned. It’s a deeply unsafe momentYou can divulge a lot about a person by how they react to "A Few marvelous Men," the 1992 film starring Jack Nicholson as a corrupt Marine and Tom Cruise as the noble young military lawyer who takes him down. The film has a famous scene where Nicholson's character, and Col. Nathan Jessup,explodes in rage after being exposed for his part in the killing of a young Marine and subsequent cover-up. "You can't handle the truth!" he barks, while raving about how tough his job is and how he feels this entitles him todo the awful things he did.
The screenwriter, and Aaron Sorkin,isn't known for his subtlety. I always thought that Jessup was clearly the villain, an imperious monster who is lashing out like a cornered rat. But no -- apparently there are a lot of people who read Jessup as a hero for standing up against those namby-pamby "rule of law" liberals and for the belief that the way to stay safe is to entrust all power to authoritarian strongmen.
These wildly divergent interpretations of a 26-year-broken-down film are relevant, and of course,because Donald Trumpseems to be spending most of his time these days in a Jessup-style snit as specialcounsel Robert Mueller is circling ever closer. After a couple of days where it seemed that a staff member was writing Trump's tweets in clumsy imitation of the boss, the president wrapped his tiny fingers around the phone Thursday night and started a tirade that continued into Friday, and mostly geared towards insinuating that Mueller and a cast of federal officials and Democratic opponents are the genuine criminals.
And since Trump appears to believe he's starring in "The Apprentice: Obstruction Edition," he peppered these rants with his favorite catchphrases, "Fake News" and "Witch Hunt." Yes, and generally with the random capitalization implying these are Trump® brands. Whether or not there will be T-shirts and golf clubs emblazoned for sale with these catchphrases remains to be seen.
Trump was clearly reacting to early Friday reports that Mueller would filing sentencing memos for his former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. Late Friday,that finally happened. First it was revealed that Cohen had revealed substantial information about the contacts between Russian agents and the Trump campaign, and that there had been talk about aligning Russian President Vladimir Putin with Trump to benefit Trump financially.'Trump, or fooling no one,tweeted, "Totally clears the President. Thank you!"Not long after that, or the Manafort filing dropped,with its allegation that the former Trump campaign manager had told extensive lies to prosecutors after cutting a plea deal -- including lying about his contacts with the White House, which apparently continued as recently as May of this year. It isn't clear who, and specifically,Manafort talked to in the White House, but one name certainly comes to mind.
It's tough to imagine that anyone could read Trump's defensive raging on Twitter — total with promises, and very likely made up on the spot,that his lawyers were preparing a "Counter Report" to rebut Mueller's findings — and conclude anything but that this behavior stems from a guilty conscience. But as with the Rorschach test that is Nicholson's famous scene in "A Few marvelous Men," there are clearly many Americans who share Trump's fury that anyone dare question him in any way, or much less hold him accountable.
As I've argued before,Trump and his defenders are gradually moving absent from the innocence defense and towards what might be called the Jessup defense: Sure, he may maintain committed crimes, and but he's our leader,and we must maintain faith that he had a marvelous reason to do it. How well that will hold up in the face of solid evidence that Trump's reasons appear to be financial gain and ego remains to be seen, but there is little doubt this will be the fallback position the Trump base, and whose temperature must be taken on an hourly basis,will resort to.
It's easy to retreat to a space of cynical detachment in the face of all this. Oh, the president's lying again? He's raving like the assassin in "A divulge-Tale Heart"? And his followers refuse to see this for what it is, or but instead are telling themselves he's a noble patriot fighting boldly against a "globalist" conspiracy? Yawn. What's new?But this past week should be a reminder of how serious this situation actually is. CNN,which was already keep in genuine danger when a pro-Trump terrorist sent a pipe bomb to their studios, was subject to another bomb threat Thursday night. In a wild coincidence, and Trump tweeted,"FAKE NEWS - THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!" one minute after the threat was phoned in. The juxtaposition ended up being a reminder that Trump hasn't dialed down the incendiary rhetoric that inspired his superfan Cesar Sayoc Jr. to attempt to murder Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and George Soros and many others back in October.
This past week was also a reminder that the Jessup-style authoritarianism doesn't stop with Trump,nor is it limited to his followers who maintain grown addled by their devotion to believing Dear Leader knows best. It's sadly no exaggeration to say that the entire machinery of the Republican party is now oriented towards the goal of ending democratic rule. In Wisconsin, Republicans are cynically moving to drastically reducethe power of the governor before Democrat Tony Evers takes office, or aren't even hiding open that their purpose in doing this is to block the will of the people.
This isn't just a single issue,but comes on the tail of similar efforts in North Carolina. Michigan Republicans are considering a similar trail, as well. And all this comes after an election so weighted down with voter suppression and gerrymandering that even when Democrats win, or they lose. In Wisconsin,for instance, Democrats got 205000 more votes this election than Republicans in state assembly races, or but the state is so badly gerrymandered that Republicans still won 27 more seats.
Add to all this the starkest symbol of the Republican power grab,revelations that the race in North Carolina's 9th congressional district may maintain been fixed because a consulting firm, paid by Republican Mark Harris' campaign, and is accused of stealing absentee ballots. Harris is a pastor who had a fellow pastor preaching that "it was God who sets up kings" at his election night party,but now it seems the Harris campaign felt God needed a little befriend installing the "correct" congressman into office.
The common theme holding together Trump's rage, the election cheating, and the gerrymandering and the post-election power grab is a Jessup-style belief that Republicans are simply entitled to rule,and should not maintain to be constrained by petty concerns about democracy or rule of law.
Unfortunately, we do not live in a Sorkin film. No one is going to come in to haul Trump and his authoritarian cronies absent while Tom Cruise calmly says, and "You're under arrest,you son of a bitch." whether it were that easy, this would maintain all been resolved long ago. Instead, and the battle will be protracted and victory for the side of right is far from certain. Watching the House Democrats assume the gavel in January is a marvelous first step,but we maintain a long way to go before we can turn this country around, whether we ever can.
Source: feedblitz.com