As promised, I finished Bob Woodward’s book, Rage, over the weekend. Some words from his book close out this post but I wanted to share some thoughts before we get there. In a couple of my recent posts I compared Donald Trump to Bernie Madoff and I think with the latest story in the New York Times regarding Trump’s tax returns, that comparison is even more apropos now. I have said for a long time that Trump is a con man and a fraud. That seems to be being borne out. In addition, I have stated that Trump is a bigger threat to our national security than anyone in my lifetime, citing the acronym ‘MICE’ which is used in counter-espionage briefings to detail reasons why people commit crimes against their country. MICE stands for ‘Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego’ and now that Trump’s true financial picture is finally emerging into the open, it seems like he is a ripe target. If Putin has any idea how much financial jeopardy Trump is in, you can bet Trump is in his crosshairs.
In a previous post I stated that I believed the only reason that Trump was so desperate to keep his tax returns from being released and to win reelection was because his reelection is the only thing standing between him and the indictment of he and his whole family. I believe that Trump will have the distinction of being the only president in the history of this country to be indicted and prosecuted once he leaves office. I wonder if prison orange will clash with his hair? Or I wonder if it’s a good color for Ivanka? Professor Richardson does a great job of discussing this whole tax return issue. The link to her blog is below. I will take a brief deter talking about Woodward’s book.
“Acirema Fo Setats Detinu” is the ‘United States of America’ spelled backwards and backwards is the direction that I feel this country is going in. There was a time when America was viewed as being on the forefront of innovation and science and even public policy and human rights. Now we are abandoning science on an alarming scale and are about to have the most conservative judiciary at any time since 1930.
The Trump administration pulled out of the Paris Accords on climate change and continues to put ‘climate change deniers’ in agencies like the EPA and NOAA when virtually all of the most credible scientists around the world are stating (backed with scientific evidence) that climate change is possibly the most existential threat to the planet of our lifetimes and certainly the lifetimes of our children.
We are in the midst of a global pandemic, have only 4% of the world’s population and 25% of the COVID-related deaths, and rather than let science and medical experts take the lead in how to get this thing under some semblance of control, the current administration is undermining the CDC, NIH and FDA to the point where their entire credibility is questioned.
Although the US has a long and troubled history with discrimination, the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. The decision on Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1972. And there has been a constant inching forward towards true equality for everyone. Even the recent Supreme Court decision that said LGBTQ people could not be discriminated against in the work place was another step forward towards true equality for everyone.
Well more than 50% of Americans believe the government is not doing enough to address climate change. That is certainly true of Democrats and ‘Democratic leaning’ independents but even a majority of Republicans believe the government should be doing more.1
Two thirds of Americans believe that same-sex marriage should be legal.2 In addition, “Abortion rights in the U.S. are as popular now as they’ve ever been. Last year, nearly every major poll on abortion rights found support for Roe v. Wade at record highs. A June CBS poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans want to keep Roe v. Wade’s protections in place, while less than one-third want to overturn them. It wasn’t just Democrats: A strong majority of independents and a plurality of Republicans said they wanted to keep Roe v. Wade around, too”3
So, what the hell is happening? We have a government being filled with science deniers and a conservative judiciary who will likely start chipping away at all of the rights that have been afforded to various segments of the population over the last 60 years and all of that against the will of the majority of the American populace. If democracy is supposed to be a government of ‘majority rule’, this is certainly not that. The simple answer is this is all about power – and how to keep it.
As I stated in an earlier post, the Republican party represents a minority of Americans. However, they have been able to win and keep control of many state legislatures through gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts. Once a party that had real platform planks and real strategic goals, the Republican party has become a party focused almost solely on retaining power at all costs. Just look at who is behind the large majority of lawsuits regarding mail-in voting and other election procedures leading up to this election. The Republicans. It’s like the motto has become, “If we can’t win the popular vote, we’ll figure out another way to manipulate the system and the electorate so we can stay in power.” The hell with fiscal responsibility. The hell with free trade. The hell with ‘family values.’ The hell with everything except whatever it takes to stay in power.
After reading Bob Woodward’s latest book, Rage, (and the other books I have read on Trump), it is clear that Trump is not capable of putting together a long-term strategic vision/ plan for the country. As I have stated before, “Make America Great Again,” is a slogan not a strategy. He views everything as a monetary transaction, i.e. money will make everything better – at least for those who have it.
When Woodward pressed him repeatedly about his response to the pandemic, his standard response was to talk about the economy and the stock market. When Woodward pressed him about the issues surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement and all of the protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, he went to his standard (and provably false) rhetoric about how he has done more for black Americans in this country than any president since Abraham Lincoln. It’s like his entire world view revolves around the economy and the stock market.
The whole concept of ‘leading’ implies moving forward. Trump is not a leader and as a result, the country is drifting and, in fact, worse than that, the country is drifting backwards. There is no vision. There is no plan. As you may recall, there was no ‘Republican platform’ outlining a vision for the future coming out of the Republican convention. It was basically – “whatever Trump wants to do”. And since Trump does not have a strategic vision, the entire Republican ‘vision’ or ‘strategy’ has devolved into ‘whatever it takes to stay in power.’ [It will be interesting to see all of the rationalizations coming out of the Republicans now that Trump’s image as ‘astute business mogul’ has been blown to hell!]
I am going to end this post with some final words from the epilogue in Bob Woodward’s book. And remember, in addition to all of the other individuals he interviewed for this book, Woodward conducted 17 interviews with Trump himself, 16 of those recorded (with permission) and 1 with note taking by Woodward. During one of these interviews in February of this year, Trump made a statement to the effect that “there is dynamite behind every door.” So, in Bob Woodward’s words:
“But now, I’ve come to the conclusion that the “dynamite behind the door” was in plain sight. It was Trump himself. The oversized personality. The failure to organize. The lack of discipline. The lack of trust in others he had picked, in experts. The undermining or the attempted undermining of so many American institutions. The failure to be a calming, healing voice. The unwillingness to acknowledge error. The failure to do his homework. The extend the olive branch. To listen carefully to others. To craft a plan.
Mattis, Tillerson and Coats are all conservatives or apolitical people who wanted to help him and the country. Imperfect men who answered the call to public service. They were not the deep state. Yet each departed with cruel words from their leader. They concluded that Trump was an unstable threat to their country. Think about that for a moment: The top national security leaders thought the president of the United States was a danger to the country.”….
“When his performance as president is taken in its entirety, I can only reach one conclusion: Trump is the wrong man for the job.”4
And this from a man who has written about nine presidents and shared two Pulitzer prizes for his work.
- https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-views-on-climate-and-energy/
- https://news.gallup.com/poll/311672/support-sex-marriage-matches-record-high.aspx
- https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/majority-americans-support-abortion-access.html
- Rage, Bob Woodward, Simon & Schuster, 2020
- Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson’s blog
Another good article. I believe the “Deep State” was created by Trump and the Republicans as a diversionary tactic to produce a fictitious enemy that would produce hatred in the masses. That became their political tool to displace all their crimes and project that as the fault of the Deep State. It is so obvious of what they are doing because that’s how dictators came to power i.e. Hitler and Mussolini. I can’t believe so many people in our country were duped.