An Unhinged And Unbound President

"...a president is fully above the law in the most dangerous kind of way. This is how democracies die.”

- Former U.S. attorney Joyce White Vance

Those who have been reading this blog over the years will have noticed that I post far less than I used to. The reason is a simple one: my disenchantment with the world and its politics has reached new depths. Consequently, I do wonder if writing about this broken world is the best use of whatever time remains to me, given that if I am very fortunate, I likely have little more than two decades left.

Nonetheless, like a moth drawn to a flame, I read things that erode what little faith I have left in this world but also sometimes demand a catharsis that only writing about them can on occasion provide.

Case in point: Edward Keenan writes about how, post-impeachment, the unhinged Donald Trump is now also unbound, using the levers of power to punish all who have crossed him:

Trump has always had strongman tendencies — the grandiose rallies and military parades, proclaimed admiration for dictators, declarations that his actions are beyond scrutiny — but his actions this week amplified that affinity in ways that could do lasting damage. Jason Stanley, a Yale University professor and the author of “How Fascism Works” told Business Insider that the tactics employed by the president and his Republican Party are “straight from the literature on authoritarianism.”

First there was the punishment of his perceived enemies: Trump dismissed his ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, and marched decorated war veteran Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman out of the White House — along with Vindman’s twin brother, Yevgeny, who also worked in the White House but played no role in the impeachment trial.

His chilling message of retribution is a clear warning of the consequences of crossing him in any way, something only worthy of the world's worst dictators.

And it's not just to individuals that this message is directed:

More explicit was Trump’s proclamation that he would use policy to punish New York unless it dropped investigations and lawsuits into his taxes. New York’s attorney general has been investigating several matters related to Trump and his businesses; recently, the Department of Homeland Security suspended the state’s access to trusted traveller programs that speed entry at border crossings. Trump appeared to connect the two when he tweeted that Gov. Andrew Cuomo needs to understand, in the context of the “national security” issues, that “New York must stop all of its unnecessary lawsuits & harassment.”

Then there is the special attention directed toward those who Trump perceives as his loyalists:

On Monday, the U.S. attorneys who successfully prosecuted former Trump adviser Roger Stone for crimes related to Trump’s 2016 campaign suggested a prison sentence of seven to nine years, which was in line with the standards set out in federal guidelines. On Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted that the recommendation was “horrible and unfair,” and insisted that “the real crimes were on the other side.”

Hours later, the Justice Department intervened to overrule its own staff and suggest leniency for Stone. In response, all four prosecutors withdrew from the case, with one even resigning from the department.

So much for the rule of law and the independence of the Justice Depart, a tradition that dates back to the Watergate era.

Perhaps Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown sums it up best:

Trump’s “retribution tour” shows he has indeed learned something from acquittal: “The lesson is he can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.”

After the election of Trump, I made a pledge not to visit the U.S. as long as he was in office. I am beginning to think that that pledge will wind up being a long-term one, not just because of the very real possibility that he will be re-elected in November, but also because under his presidency, he may in fact be making changes to the very complexion and nature of American politics and society that his successors will either be unwilling or unable to reverse.

Truly, the United States is a nation in precipitous and likely irreversible decline.

A Timely Message For Mr. Trump And His Fellow Travellers

A Truly Alien Nation

This weekend we celebrate with family and friends our Canadian Thanksgiving. As is the custom, we reflect upon the things for which we are grateful, and duly give thanks for them. This day, I am particularly thankful for what I am not - a resident of the United States.

The benighted nation south of us, which calls itself, without a hint of irony, "the greatest country on earth," suffers from a serious rupture from reality. To me, it is an egregiously failed country, one so foreign from my experience and understanding of what constitutes a civilized and mature society that it might as well exist on a another planet. It is truly an alien nation.

In today's Star, Daniel Dales writes about the most conspicuous aspect of the United States' moral sickness: its insane gun laws which, signs suggest, are about to go even further down the rabbit hole.

Even with so many deaths and grievous injuring marring the American landscape, including the latest massacre of 58 people in Las Vegas, the full-court press to make guns even more accessible proceeds apace:

This year, for example, Missouri Republicans allowed people to carry guns without obtaining a permit. Georgia Republicans allowed permit-holders to carry on college campuses. Ohio Republicans allowed gun licence holders to carry their guns at daycares that don’t put up No Guns signs and to store their guns in their cars on school property.

Before the Las Vegas shooting, House Republicans had been pushing a bill to make it easier to buy gun silencers [the euphemistically-titled Hearing Protection Act] . They have now delayed that effort a second time. The first delay came after a shooter attacked party congressmen on a baseball field in nearby Virginia — which, tellingly, prompted some to talk about loosening gun laws, for self-defence.

While a few states have slightly tighted rules, most are embracing, even extolling, looser restriction:

Charles Heller, a spokesperson for the Arizona Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group, said Arizona has passed “58 positive bills, signed by three governors, over 13 years.” He is pushing for more — such as a law allowing people with gun licences to bypass metal detectors at government buildings, as at the Texas state capitol, and a law making it legal to brandish a gun against assailants who have not yet caused physical harm.

Americans, it seems, have become inured to statistical evidence of the carnage caused by guns:

More than 33,000 Americans were killed by guns in 2014 — more than 90 per day. In 2015, the Washington Post found, 23 children were shot every day. Almost two-thirds of the gun deaths were suicides, which tend to receive the least attention.

One always reads that the main obstacle to passing laws controlling and restricting these weapons of mass destruction is the NRA. Of that I am not so certain. Sure, that dark organization has an almost unlimited war chest when it comes to influencing and buying legislators, but I doubt its agenda could reign supreme without one other element: a citizenry so deeply flawed, so deeply divided and so deeply fearful of their neigbours that only brute force and personal arsenals can offer a balm to their deeply, deeply debased psyches.