The Slow Death of Democracy – Part Four

Posted on June 20, 2020 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 20, 2020

Every gambler knows that if you keep betting against house odds, you’ll eventually lose. In business, Donald Trump was a high stakes gambler, but he knew his lawyers would limit the damage when he lost, and he was adept at finding others to absorb the cost.   

Trump has governed the same way, staking out risky positions and daring everyone to stop him. He tried to lock up children at the border, shut down immigration, kill Obamacare, deprive the LGBT community of basic rights, and intimidate North Korea. He initiated trade wars and withdrew from treaties and alliances. That’s a hell of a list, especially since each bet he placed was a loss. 

Then, COVID-19 struck. Trailing Joe Biden in national polls, Trump believed a strong economy was his only path to re-election. He gambled again, denying the seriousness of the pandemic and forcing states to re-open prematurely. Health experts predict the result will be more outbreaks, new shutdowns, and greater damage to our economy. 120,000 Americans have already died from COVID-19, and based on results from countries that behaved more responsibly, at least 100,000 of those deaths were the price of Trump’s failed gamble.  

Public health officials fear that his decision to resume mass campaign rallies will infect countless more Americans and cause another exponential increase in deaths. Trump knows it too, and he is requiring all attendees to sign a waiver of liability in the event they contract the virus. Such cynical disregard for the health of supporters who follow him like lemmings speaks volumes about his lack of concern for the rest of us. 

The icing on Trump’s risk/reward cake is the Black Lives Matter movement. Trump didn’t pull the trigger when unarmed black men were killed by police, but given another opportunity to lead with compassion, rather than comfort the families of the victims or address the problem of police misconduct, he attacked the demonstrators, casting them as thugs and anarchists. Using a prison riot squad to disperse unarmed, peaceful protesters and his failed attempt to deploy the military were stark reminders of the Fascist tactics of the 1930’s.  

With Trump denying that the virus remains deadly and encouraging people to resume normal activity, epidemiologists and modelers now forecast up to 250,000 pandemic deaths. Trump’s disapproval numbers are at an unprecedented high, and even Fox News now has him trailing Biden by double digits. Desperate to remain in power, Trump repeatedly claims the election is being rigged against him, signaling that if he appears to be heading for defeat, he will provoke a national crisis rather than concede.  

That was always a possibility, but the pandemic and the BLM movement raised the stakes. Nations are most vulnerable when they are in distress and turmoil. With the president willing to endanger the lives of his own followers and risk turning an economic downturn into a Depression, are there any limits to what he will do to win? 

One oft-expressed concern is that he might provoke an armed confrontation with Iran or North Korea. That’s a terrifying thought, but our military leaders recently demonstrated that they understand our Constitution and will not blindly follow wherever he leads. Joint Chiefs Chairman, General Mark Milley refused to deploy active duty soldiers in response to Trump’s attempts to portray BLM protests as an insurrection by the largely fantastical Antifa. At the same time former Defense Secretary James Mattis told The Atlantic the president was unfit. He specifically contrasted the Nazi Slogan, “Divide and Conquer” with “In Union There is Strength,” claiming Trump prefers the former and doesn’t even pretend to care about uniting us. 

America took a step back from the brink that day, but Trump might still attempt to exacerbate and use our ongoing dual crises to his advantage. Remember that Hitler playbook? Trump’s endgame might be to declare a State of Emergency and demand special powers, among which are postponing or canceling the November election. Could he count on the loyalty his two Supreme Court appointments, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, and his lapdog Attorney General, William Barr, all of whom are advocates of a strong Executive Branch operating relatively unchecked? 

Trump has been confident that the presently constituted Court would have his back, but…not so fast, Donald. Conservative Chief Justice Roberts prevented him from completely dismantling Obamacare, and in November 2018, took the unprecedented step of rebuking Trump for attacking the independence of the Judiciary. And this week he sided against Trump’s attempts to deny basic human rights to transgender individuals and to terminate the DACA program by Executive Order.  

I believe Roberts is sending Trump a message. The November election is widely seen as the most important one since the Great Depression. The surest way to kill our democracy is to interfere with and corrupt the electoral process. The Court is telling the president that if he expects them to support any attempt to do so, he’d best think again.  

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The Slow Death of Democracy – Part Three

Posted on June 15, 2020 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 15, 2020

The 2018 Congressional election sent a message to the Trump administration that two components of his base – well-educated independents and suburban white women – had had enough of his race-baiting and divisiveness. As 2020 approached, the nation focused on the upcoming election. Trump had already signaled that his only priority in governing was winning in November, warning that if he lost it would mean the Deep State had rigged the election.  

Although he believed the economy would sustain him, he felt the need to reverse the negative blowback from the trade wars he instigated. Early in November, 2019, he initiated negotiations for a new trade deal with China that was going to be “wonderful.” But by then our intelligence sources were warning him of a dangerous new virus that appeared to be spreading uncontrollably in the Chinese city of Wuhan. They feared the disease could not be contained to China unless immediate quarantining action was taken. No one was certain, but the fear was that a pandemic could infect millions of Americans. 

Trump faced a serious quandary. It was already known that the highly contagious virus had a long incubation period during which infected, but as yet asymptomatic people were likely spreading the disease throughout the city of eleven million. With the high volume of air travel between Wuhan, the United States, and Europe, it might already be too late to prevent it from entering our country. But if Trump declared a National Emergency and tried to isolate America from China, it would derail his trade negotiations, and worse, it would cause panic in the financial markets, which he equated with the economy at large.  

That was Trump’s worst nightmare. He had to choose between his self-interest and the health and welfare of the nation. Forecasts of possible pandemic-related deaths in America ranged from 100,000 to over two million if immediate action was not taken. China withheld critical information from the rest of the world, but its highly visible actions, shutting down an entire province of forty million people, made clear that the virus was out of control. Still, Trump denied the threat calling it a hoax and yet another ploy by Democrats to undermine him.  

Trump’s calculus was that even if his failure to act blew up in his face and needlessly killed countless numbers of Americans, he could blame China and The World Health Organization. Assuring that he had credible scapegoats was more important than assuring the safety of Americans, because all that mattered was staying in power. But Trump and his advisors had failed to anticipate that when the pandemic materialized it would cripple the nation’s economy, elevating Trump’s worst nightmare by an order of magnitude.  

Poor Trump. Try as he might, he would never achieve the autocratic control of events that his Fascist role models did. Whether it was a miscalculation or a failure brought on by his narcissistic personality disorder, his gambled failed. Millions of Americans would likely be infected, tens of thousands were already dying, businesses were failing, and nearly a fifth of all adults had no source of income. Rather than accept reality and allow health care and infectious disease experts to dictate policy, Trump impeded their actions, doubling down on his quest for re-election by insisting on re-opening the economy no matter what the risks were. 

He also ignored the ancillary concern that non-white minorities were being disproportionately hurt by the pandemic, becoming sick and dying in far greater numbers than whites, and losing their jobs at a much higher rate. Again, Trump brought out the Nazi playbook, encouraging right wing militia groups to use their guns to threaten governors who refused to ignore health risks and re-open. By then he had so taken over and intimidated the Republican Party, that only a handful raised an objection. 

It’s a cliché that what goes around comes around.  The question was, as Trump crawled further out on the limb he’d tried to escape on, would it break? Would the politics of divisiveness and us-against-them eventually come back to haunt him? Perhaps it was serendipity, or maybe just the inevitable consequence of his tactic of pitting people against each other, but the decades-long problem of turning a blind eye to misconduct by a small minority of police officers around the country turned Trump’s nightmare into a perfect storm. 

He still had every opportunity to save the situation, but instead he called out his storm troopers, forgetting, again, that he governed 2020 America, not 1933 Germany. A Pew survey yesterday reported that 85% of Americans disapprove of his handling of the Black Lives Matter Protests. His re-election campaign is now in full crisis mode.  

More on this and November’s election in Part Four. 

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The Slow Death of Democracy – Part Two

Posted on June 12, 2020 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 12, 2020

No analogy is perfect. Brokerage firms warn us that past performance is not a guarantee of future success. Similarly, while the rise to power of Adolf Hitler has much in common with Donald Trump’s, America in 2020 bears little superficial resemblance to Germany in the 1930’s, and there is no reason to assume that Trump’s specific ambitions are identical to Hitler’s – not identical, but ignoring the similarities would be repeating the behaviors that enabled Nazism to flourish.

Let’s examine them. Hitler was appointed Chancellor (the nominal head of government) on January 30, 1933, five weeks before Franklin Roosevelt began his first term as President of the United States. Both leaders assumed office with their nations facing serious financial and social crises, and both proposed sweeping revolutionary changes to combat them. But while Roosevelt, like Trump, faced a fiercely divided, but strong Congress, Hitler’s Reichstag (Parliament) was fragmented and disorganized.

Using divide and conquer tactics and military-style intimidation to grow his base, Hitler’s Nazi Party demonized and destroyed the German Communist Party, and co-opted the other two major parties into passing the aptly named Enabling Act, which granted him emergency powers to dissolve and re-form the Reichstag and enact laws by executive edict that bypassed the Reichstag and in many cases, the German Constitution itself. It took Hitler only two months to gain virtually dictatorial control of the legislature.

Within two more months he had abolished Germany’s labor unions and outlawed opposition political parties. And adapting the concept of The Big Lie, Hitler labeled the thousands of newspapers that were the 1930’s equivalent of today’s media Lugenpresse, the lying press. Within a few years, he completely silenced them. And in an interesting side note, Hitler insisted that the traditional loyalty oath to the Republic sworn by the German military be changed to personal loyalty to him. He trusted no one and felt threatened by virtually everyone.

Does any of that sound familiar? Trump has repeatedly asserted that Article 2 of the U. S. Constitution gives him the right to do anything he wishes. He calls all sources of information that he disagrees with “fake news,” and he demands absolute personal loyalty from cabinet officers, political appointees, and the military. He accuses Democrats and the media of treason whenever they fail to march in lockstep with him. He claims there is a “deep state” comprised of millions of diverse individuals, including the Courts, the FBI, and God only knows who else, secretly working to undermine his presidency. He treats the Congress as an enemy and throws vulgar insults at any judge who isn’t a reactionary white male.

Trump has the same lust for absolute power that Hitler had. He has the same lack of respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. Whether or not he is actually a racist (I think not) he is a classic panderer more than willing to use race baiting to hold on to his core base of support. And of perhaps equal importance, like Hitler, he is completely tone deaf to the pain and suffering of anyone outside his loyal cadre of supporters.

Those are the similarities. The list makes me thankful that the social and political fabric of American life is not as susceptible to being taken over by Fascist-like elements as Germany was before World War 2. But that doesn’t mean we can afford to be complacent. Trump is absolutely tireless and relentless at grabbing power wherever and whenever he can. So far, most of his overreaches have been stymied by the courts, but his chief henchman, Mitch McConnell has been quietly approving every right wing judge Trump’s people nominate, the intent being to create a legal environment in which presidential power can grow unchecked and minority rights can be ignored.

Trump will never succeed at rendering our judicial system impotent, but he has already been able to place two people on the Supreme Court who are long time advocates of a strong presidency. The lower courts have been able to defend the Constitution against the president’s incursions because so much of what he attempts is so clearly unconstitutional, the issues don’t reach the Supreme Court.

But Trump’s people sense a sea change coming in November. They fear, with good reason, that their window of opportunity to change America into the white male dominated nation they believe it should be is closing. With 143 days until the 2020 election expect ever more desperate acts on their part to hold onto power.

Next time I will address how COVID-19 affects all this and Trump’s view of law enforcement and the military. This stuff is really depressing. I can only deal with it in small doses.

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The Slow Death of Democracy – Part One

Posted on June 10, 2020 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 10, 2020

There are many ways to know a thing. We start with facts to gain a cognitive understanding. We research context and solicit other people’s views to make sense of it. When possible, we observe it directly because just knowing a thing is very different from seeing and hearing it. And sometimes, whether willfully or not, we become immersed in it. Only then do we fully comprehend and feel it. 

That applies equally to the COVID-19 virus and the problem of reforming policing protocols and accountability. As critical as those challenges are, I’m more interested, today, in a subtler, more insidious danger – the diminution of our Constitution and the erosion of the principles and institutions that support our basic freedoms. 

Despite our problems as a nation, Americans tend to suffer from a smug complacency. We’re the greatest nation that ever existed, right? But many of us must be repeatedly reminded that the freedoms we take for granted do not come without a price. It’s a basic principle of nature that the universe tends continually toward disorder. If we don’t expend the energy required to defend our way of life, we will surely lose it. 

Many people have warned since the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign that his populist, nativist appeal was an ominous warning sign. We’ve seen this play out many times in history, most often when people felt oppressed. We made epic films about slave uprisings in the Roman Empire. We wrote books and musicals and created more epic films about the French Revolution. And we studied the rise of Fascism in the 1930’s that resulted in the Spanish Civil War, the Japanese invasion of China, and ultimately, the second world war. 

When I was in school in the 1950s, I asked my teachers and parents how their generation let it happen. In retrospect, we see the horrors wrought by the rise of nationalism and Fascism in Germany, Italy, and Japan as an inevitable consequence of the failure of rest of the world to acknowledge what was happening and confront it. Those of us who were awake in history class saw how Mussolini and Hitler dismantled their republics and created police states. We watched incredulously as the diplomacy of appeasement fed the appetites of the oppressors. And those questions we asked our parents and teachers? The answers were simple in the clarity of hindsight – the Fascists succeeded because no one was willing to oppose them until they were fighting for their lives. 

In the 1930s, America and Europe were still recovering from the devastation of the First World War, and the world was reeling from the Great Depression. Does that apply to us? We’ve had financial crises in the late ‘80s and the years following the banking system crash of 2007, but nothing like the what happened in the ’30s. We’ve been bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan for nearly twenty years, but that hardly compares with the world wars. And yet, here we are facing a similar threat; it may look different, but its basic elements are the same. 

Its principle element is the attack on truth. Adolf Hitler coined the phrase “The Big Lie” in Mein Kampf, wherein he proposed that revolution could be achieved by means of a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously”. Hitler’s Big Lie was that all of Germany’s problems were the result of Jewish sabotage, and that Jews controlled the media, the banking system, and the courts. Hitler understood that all he had to do to solidify power was give millions of suffering Germans a convenient scapegoat.  

When you hear people accuse Donald Trump of using the Hitler Playbook, that’s what they mean. Trump’s scapegoat is a moving target. First it was illegal immigrants, then it was legal immigrants. He quickly expanded that to the “liberal media,” activist progressive judges, welfare cheats, and all Democrats. The founder of Fox News, Roger Ailes, convinced Trump that there were millions of people in America who were angry, who felt disenfranchised by progressive political agendas, and specifically, by the presidency of Barrack Obama. All Trump needed to do was convince them that he knew who was causing all their problems. 

Trump modified the big lie theory by simply lying all the time and claiming that everyone who opposed him was part of the deep state/fake news conspiracy dedicated to destroying his presidency. And like the impotent opposition in Germany in the 1930s, Congressional Republicans, the only people who have the real power to stop him, lack the will.  

This will be continued over the next few days. Until then, remember – faced with the reality of Donald Trump, the Washington Post changed its motto to, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” 

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Facebook’s Hypocrisy

Posted on June 3, 2020 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 3, 2020

I try to base my opinions on facts, but to be honest, I have a long-standing bias against Facebook which is entirely visceral, like the way I always cringe when I encounter a snake. It’s just a perception that there’s something ominous and dangerous there, but it’s being borne out by events. 

My anti-Facebook feelings are in part influenced by several works of futuristic fiction in which the concept of formalized news reporting and fact-checking is subsumed by crowd-sourcing and unregulated publishing of opinions. Science fiction doesn’t always accurately predict the future in specific detail, but well thought out projections of social trends often hit the mark. Many of the futuristic models of how we will receive information in the not-too-distant future suggest the we will be sampling unvetted sources and opinions based on which notions are trending or most popular. That amounts to truth by democracy, deciding which facts to believe based on which point of view gets the most votes.  

Part of the problem is that the era when today’s news was the first draft of history, an idea often attributed to long-time Washington Post publisher Phil Graham, are long gone. It’s bad enough that every news outlet seems unable to report without adding its own spin, but the Trump administration has waged a war on facts since the day the president announced his candidacy five years ago. Watch the coverage of important events on each of the popular news channels and it’s sometimes difficult to tell that they’re reporting on the same occurrences.  

Many major news outlets do some form of verification or fact checking, though in a time when virtually everything can be convincingly faked by technology and the reverence once paid to truth has faded considerably, it’s often hard to discern what’s real. Compound that with a completely unregulated public forum hosting a billion users, and truth is replaced by chaos.  

In creating such a forum, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated that he is a genius in information technology and marketing, if not personal or public relations. His brilliance earned him his billionaire status and made him one of the most powerful media executives in the world. But in no way does that qualify him to decide what represents truth on behalf of his subscribers. Yet, he maintains virtually dictatorial control of how Facebook’s rules are enforced. 

If every Facebook user took the time to research the truth of every post, and if conscientious fact-checking always yielded an unambiguous conclusion, Zuckerberg’s determination to allow unedited posts for everything short of overt calls to overthrow the government might not be so dangerous. But the truth is that most users are either uninterested or unable to fact-check like a professional researcher. The evidence of manipulation by Russian intelligence operatives during the 2016 election should have forced changes in the way Facebook does business, but Zuckerberg’s intransigence and the enabling political self-interest of Trump and his allies have allowed Facebook to continue with business as usual. 

No one believes treading the fine line between First Amendment protected free speech and the greater public interest is easy, but it’s safe to say that leaving such decisions in the hands of a small number of people with clear conflicts of interest is not the answer. It is precisely because vetting specific posts is so difficult, if not impossible, that Facebook and similar platforms pose an existential threat to our country.  

This week, Zuckerberg faced criticism and outrage by many of Facebook’s employees. He has always touted the company’s transparency, but the strained logic of his decision to leave Trump post about shooting demonstrators and the revelation that he discussed the matter directly with the president had his own people in an uproar.  

If you use Facebook regularly, the best way to convey your concern to Zuckerberg is to stop using it. If you trust news stories on Facebook, you do so at your own peril, and you endanger all of us. If you use Facebook to post pictures of your family, keep in mind that there are many internet platforms that allow you to do the same thing safely and securely, without exposing you to a tsunami of false and misleading information. 

I believe Facebook is too big and too powerful to manage the impact it has on society, and the people who have taken on the responsibility of self-policing within the company have utterly failed. In the final analysis, no matter how Facebook does its job, it is ultimately the responsibility of each of us to evaluate what we read. If we allow ourselves to be led by the nose by unscrupulous or uncaring forces, we won’t like where they take us. 

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A Crumbling Presidency

Posted on June 1, 2020 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 1, 2020

Whether it was national defense, the environment, international trade, public health, or nuclear proliferation, the America Donald Trump inherited in 2017 was one that was fully engaged with the rest of the world. Over the course of three years in office, he has trashed or withdrawn from virtually every major international treaty and agreement. He has vilified our allies and lionized the autocrats who have been happily working to destroy us. If you’re a fan of isolationism, that sounds like a record of success. If you’re a student of history, you know that portends disaster for our standing as a nation. 

From day one, Trump’s base cheered his attacks on truth, science, and the media. Many of them still do, but for most of us, the Trump clown show has grown as old as rotting fish. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released today found that nearly twice as many Americans now distrust the president as believe he is honest and truthful. The poll reports that nationally, Trump, who has used the Coronavirus Task Force as an ongoing campaign rally is trailing Joe Biden, who has mostly remained silent during the pandemic, by 53-43%, and that since March, Trump’s approval/disapproval rating on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic flipped from plus seven percentage points to minus seven.  

No one takes polls very seriously five months before an election in absolute terms, but a relative change like the reversal over Trump’s response to the virus is very significant. If we break the electorate into three parts, one third who would vote for the president even if he carried out his threat to shoot someone on New York’s Fifth Avenue, one third who wouldn’t vote for him if he was running against the Devil, and one third who pay attention to facts with open  minds, that seven percent  flip is more than one fifth of group three, and from that viewpoint it’s huge. They are very likely the swing voters who will decide the next election. 

The poll was based on interviews that took place largely before the country exploded in violent protests over the murder of George Floyd by four police officers in Minneapolis, all of whom were described as complicit by the Minneapolis police chief when he fired them. It does not reflect our national horror over seeing peaceful, mournful protests taken over by anarchistic, destructive elements who would rather burn cities and relationships than heal them. It doesn’t reflect the actions of Governors, Mayors, Police Chiefs, and Sheriffs who reacted with compassion and calm leadership. Nor does it reflect the actions of thousands of police officers who faced angry mobs throwing rocks and bottles as they worked to protect citizens and property. 

It also does not reflect the actions and words of the president during this crisis. It doesn’t represent our national shock at his incendiary remarks that implied protesters should be shot. It doesn’t address his public silence or his private lambasting of governors who prefer to sympathize with and support peaceful protesters instead of ordering a military-style crackdown without distinguishing between legitimate mourners and thugs. In his conference call with governors this morning, Trump said any governor who doesn’t smash legal protests with overwhelming, indiscriminate force is weak. 

No one should be surprised by any of this. In abandoning his leadership role with respect to both the pandemic and nationwide rioting and burning, he behaved exactly as we knew he would. Donald Trump is a sociopath. Look it up – a sociopath is an antisocial individual who lacks both social responsibility and moral conscience. That sounds like a perfect description of a man who prioritizes his re-election over saving tens of thousands of lives. It correctly labels a man who hides in a bunker issuing venomous tweets against perceived enemies while ignoring the genuine pain and suffering of millions of Americans, while the real leaders are out there on the front lines. 

It’s one thing to describe Donald Trump’s severe mental health disorder in psychiatric terms. It’s another to see its impact on his ability to function in a crisis. Trump hasn’t expressed compassion and understanding for either pandemic sufferers or victims of police brutality, because he is unable to comprehend them. If we didn’t already understand that, he made it clear this morning when he told America’s governors that the whole world was laughing at them for their weak handling of the protests. Really, Mr. President? I haven’t noticed anyone laughing. I’ve heard crying and appeals for justice. My guess is that the leaders of our former allies are shaking their heads in dismay, wondering how America could have so quickly abdicated its role as leader of the free world.  

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How To Make Bad Situations Worse – A Primer

Posted on May 29, 2020 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, May 29, 2020

Regardless of how you feel about the presidency of Barrack Obama, one thing most of America concluded from it was that we had turned a corner as a nation. For a black man to have been elected president and served two full terms without an assassination attempt seemed like a genuine milestone for a nation barely a century-and-a-half out of slavery. I drank that Kool-aid too, and for eight years, even when I strongly disagreed with Obama’s Mideast policies, I consoled myself with pride in the fact that our national consciousness had evolved. 

One of the toughest body blows of Trump’s election was the recognition that the eight-year euphoria over improved race relations had been only an illusion. The haters had neither gone away nor changed their minds. They’d just melted into the shadows, waiting and watching. Roger Ailes, the founder of Fox News, knew they were there, and he knew how their anger and frustration could be harnessed politically if he could find an ambitious politician shameless enough to pander to it. To our deep regret, he found Donald Trump. 

Trump stoked the flames of hate and divisiveness at every opportunity, appealing to an unfounded paranoia that everyone but him wanted to take peoples’ guns away and affording racists and neo-Nazis a level of respect that was an affront to every decent American. After accusing his predecessors, Obama and George W. Bush, of failing to protect Americans from gun violence he reacted to the October 2017 Las Vegas massacre, the worst act of domestic terrorism since Timothy McVey blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, by caving in to the National Rifle Association. 

When armed White Supremacists terrorized the University of Virginia and the city of Charlottesville, he called them “fine people.” When desperate refugees from south of our border risked the lives of their families to legally seek asylum in our country, Trump had their children confiscated and incarcerated because they were neither white nor wealthy. When governors of both parties issued Executive Orders to protect their citizens from the COVID-19 virus, Trump undermined them at every turn and encouraged the heavily armed lunatic fringe in those states to open rebellion. 

After five years of Trump stoking the flames of hate and racism since he began his run for president, the city of Minneapolis, long regarded as one of the great melting pot success stories of modern America, erupted in violence because four white police officers were caught on video brutally executing a man who was guilty of being black. I needn’t comment on how awful that crime was. We’ve all seen the evidence with our own eyes. 

In 1968 when I worked at the Institute for Defense Analysis in Arlington, Virginia, I stood at an upper story window watching Washington burn after the assassination of Martin Luther King, as outside agitators and anarchists turned peaceful, mournful demonstrations into a deadly conflagration. In 2015 I was living outside Baltimore when another group of local police caused the death of an unarmed, chained suspect. There too, outside agitators turned angry but peaceful protests into a terrifying riot of mayhem and destruction. 

This week the justified anger of the anti-racist community in Minneapolis and St. Paul erupted into street demonstrations. Most of the demonstrators were there to protest peacefully, until once again, outside agitators and trouble makers turned the protests into a replay of Baltimore. After two nights of chaos and rioting, prosecutors finally ordered the arrest of one of the officers, who had a long record of citizen complaints against him, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz held an eighty-minute long press conference.  

Walz displayed exactly the right tone of compassion and leadership, promising to get to the root of long simmering racial anger and directly addressing the pain of its victims. He appealed for calm and restraint and several times accepted responsibility for fixing the situation. As we saw with multiple governors’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Walz accepted the cloak of leadership and wore it with distinction.  

And what did our president do? After hailing the armed protesters who stormed state capitols in Michigan and Kentucky as heroes and patriots, he suggested that unarmed protesters in Minneapolis should be shot. Governor Walz, clearly blown away by Trump’s uninvited involvement, visibly restrained himself and simply called Trump’s words “unhelpful.”

The actions of a small number of rogue police officers and the reactions of aggrieved citizens represent another horrendous stain on the reputations of law enforcement officers everywhere who risk their lives to protect us every day. But our unhinged president’s callous, deliberate disregard for everything but stoking his base in a re-election year is even worse. 

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Inciting Violence

Posted on May 27, 2020 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, May 27, 2020

Brutus said it to Julius Caesar, John Wilkes Booth screamed it at Abraham Lincoln when he shot him, and Virginia adopted it as its state motto after King George’s army surrendered at Yorktown. And on Memorial Day, when a small, angry heavily armed militia group violated the security of the governor’s mansion in Frankfort, Kentucky and hung Governor Andy Beshear in effigy, the dummy with the governor’s face on it bore the same Latin phrase: sic semper tyrannis. The effigy was placed on the front lawn where his nine- and ten-year-old children would have seen it had they been home. Why, you ask? Because they found the Governor’s attempts to save lives inconvenient.  

Beshear reacted to the despicable Memorial Day actions this way. The link is to his May 26 press briefing. It’s long, but the important part is a five-minute segment that begins ten minutes and thirty seconds (10:30) from the start. It’s worth taking the time to watch. 

Andy Beshear is a rising star in the Democratic Party, ironically because his leadership style is totally non-political. He and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo have risen to national prominence since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic because they have eschewed political games and displayed the kind of leadership we expect from governors, especially in a life and death crisis.  

Both are sons of governors who were revered for their leadership and integrity, both are Democrats, and both are men of faith and humility. But while Cuomo is in his third term as Governor, Beshear is a newbie. In office less than six months he has risen to the challenge and united a state that voted for Donald Trump by a two-to-one margin in 2016 and whose two U. S. Senators have helped foster the divisiveness of Trumpism for their own political benefit. 

Like Cuomo, whose daily briefings have been must-see TV since the virus exploded in March, Beshear almost never mentions Trump’s name. Simply by being himself, by showing compassion and continuing to stress love over hate, he is rapidly emerging as the quintessential anti-Trump. He is calm and humble and projects strength and leadership without ever raising his voice or resorting to lies, hyperbole or insults. By demonstrating what leadership in a crisis should be, he shines a light on everything our president isn’t. 

It’s significant that Beshear’s approval rating is consistently over 80%, nearly twice that of the president who is his polar opposite, even though his state voted overwhelmingly for Trump. That doesn’t mean Kentucky is about to become the center of progressive politics. But it means that Beshear’s brand of compassionate, honest leadership trumps Trump’s brand when they’re viewed side by side.  

Kentucky is one of the poorest states in the country economically, which made it ripe for the kind of populism Trump runs on. If many Kentuckians were susceptible to Trump’s blame game and the decades-long right-wing media hate campaign against Hillary Clinton, their response to Beshear says they understand the difference between truth and lies, and they prefer compassion to hateful invective. The bipartisan condemnation of the Memorial Day event speaks a lot louder than the actions of the militia group. 

What a concept! Trump rails at perceived enemies and spews sick conspiracy theories, screaming to arouse his base at rallies with his lies and personal slurs, but this year, at least, it’s the calm, reasoned sympathetic leadership of men like Beshear and Cuomo that voters have responded to positively. Most people aren’t saying it out loud, but they can’t help but notice that events like the Memorial Day demonstration in Frankfort have a clear connection to Trump’s rallying cries. He has repeatedly encouraged gun advocates to use their weapons in protest and encouraged them to liberate their states from Democratic governors who he claims abrogate their rights as free citizens.  

Trump’s public statements and tweets would be considered incitement to riot and insurrection if anyone else made them, because that is exactly what they are. In reacting to them as he does, Andy Beshear seems to have modeled himself after leaders like Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King. I’m sure Beshear knows both of them were murdered by their enemies, yet he courageously told his constituents, yesterday, that he would be neither afraid nor intimidated by armed protesters.  

I’m confident that his security personnel will keep him safe. Bullies with big guns are still bullies, and most bullies are craven cowards. But they can still be dangerous. If one of them takes a shot at Beshear, we can thank four years of enabling by Donald Trump for encouraging crazies to vote by bullet instead of ballot. 

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Checks and Balances

Posted on May 20, 2020 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, May 20, 2020

Our republic has survived in reasonably democratic fashion for two-and-a-half centuries, in part because of the checks and balances that were put in place to assure that no individual(s) can accumulate too much unchecked Executive power. The two principal ways that occurs are by Congressional Oversight and internal reviews by Inspectors General.

In the case of the former, we have seen President Trump attempt to nullify Congress’ role every time either the House or Senate questioned an executive action. Trump, more than any president in a century, has been relentless in attempting to undo the constitutionally mandated role of the Congress to oversee the actions of the Executive Branch, and he has been enabled in doing so largely by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But McConnell is only one Senator. His power to decide on behalf of the Senate only exists because most of his Republican caucus believes their self interest lies in supporting the President, right or wrong.

Every Department in the Executive Branch has an internal watchdog function directed by its Inspector General. In the past, most Inspectors General have acted with good faith and integrity, much like the internal affairs bureaus of police departments. In my thirty-seven years working for the federal government, nothing was more intimidating than a notification of a review by the IG’s office. No one ever challenged either their influence or authority – at least until now.

In the Trump Administration, undermining Inspectors General has become an accepted way of doing business. Trump fired four IGs in the past few months, most recently, Steve Linick of the Defense Department. The President has the legal authority to fire anyone in the Executive Branch, but oversight functions are supposed to be nonpolitical. Trump, on the other hand, has weaponized his power to fire and replace to retaliate against anyone who does not sufficiently demonstrate personal loyalty to him.

That’s not the way things are supposed to work in America, but Trump has made it clear from the start that he craves the kind of power wielded by Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong- Un. He is driven by a megalomaniacal compulsion for absolute control. He throws tantrums whenever anyone challenges his view that Article 2 of the Constitution gives him the power to do anything he wants. It doesn’t.

The latest example is the firing of Linick. While some have suggested that it was provoked by an investigation of personal improprieties by Defense Secretary Mike Pompeo and his wife, it’s clear that it was really about the $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia which Congress blocked in reaction to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the kingdom’s continuing involvement in the Yemenese civil war. By law, all arms sales to foreign governments must be approved by Congress. But Trump declared a national emergency to bypass Congress and directed Pompeo to proceed with the sale, which included American nuclear technology.

According to Politico, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-NY) said, “[Linick’s] office was investigating — at my request — Trump’s phony declaration of an emergency so he could send weapons to Saudi Arabia.” Although that sounds political, it is exactly what is supposed to happen when either branch of Congress suspects inappropriate behavior on the part of the Executive Branch. Pompeo made it political by requesting that Trump fire Linick to defuse his review, though the request was obviously cover for Trump, who needed an excuse to get rid of Linick.

This is especially troubling, not only because it is the latest in a long list of Trump administration power grabs, but because of the troubled history of America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. Congress felt deceived by the both the Bush Administration and the Saudis in the aftermath of nine-eleven, leading to our nearly twenty-year war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The current distrust of the relationship between the administration and Saudi Arabia isn’t partisan, as a number of Republican Senators supported blocking the arms deal.  

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), (better late than never?) introduced legislation to require Congressional review of actions like Linick’s firing, claiming that Pompeo and Trump are guilty of “circumventing the congressional role in the advise-and-consent of arms sales to foreign nations.” Nice try, Senator. Don’t hold your breath waiting for McConnell to allow Republicans to support it.

The essential point here is that Trump has systematically attempted to dismantle the protections in the Constitution intended to preserve our democracy, and the Republican majority Senate has refused to intervene for three-and-a-half years. Whether they’re willing to take a stand now will tell us a lot about our future as nation. It may also indicate how far out on a limb they’re willing to go to support Trump as the election approaches.

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Leadership or Self-Interest?

Posted on May 15, 2020 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, May 15, 2020

In the 1967 film, A Guide For the Married Man, Robert Morse tells his friend Walter Matthau that if his wife ever catches him in a lie he should, “Deny, deny, deny.” In the following scene, (watch it here,) Joey Bishop and his mistress are caught in bed by his wife (Imogene Coca.) As Coca screams her distress, Bishop and the mistress calmly get out of bed and dress, and the mistress leaves. Coca yells, “Who was that woman?” to which Bishop replies, “What woman?” Coca looks dumbfounded, and says, “What would you like for dinner?”

What made the skit funny was the absurd idea that you could convince someone that something she’d just seen and heard never happened. Donald Trump must have taken that movie to heart. He was twenty-one when it was released, a year before he launched his career of flimflamming. Fifty-three years later he’s still at it. He got away with it for most of that time because of his ruthless nature, his money, and his all or nothing, never compromise approach to life. As his bankruptcies demonstrated, he’d rather be in charge of a failing enterprise than cede control. More than five decades of getting off scot free have convinced him there’s no reason to change. His success in mobilizing his populist base has further emboldened him until it seems he knows no bounds. His antics were never amusing; now they’re frightening.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented Trump with the kind of test that makes legacies. He could have chosen to lead the country, using every resource of science and medical technology to minimize Americans’ suffering and save as many lives as possible. The nation’s infectious disease specialists knew how to accomplish that. So did the autocratic Chinese government, who were willing to sacrifice at least a half year of economic activity to shut down the virus.

Like Imogene Coca, we saw and heard everything. China tried the denial game, but actions speak louder than words, and their decision to precipitously shut down a province of more than forty million people made it clear to every observer that they were terrified of loosing a deadly pandemic on the world. Our intelligence services and military leaders understood this as early as last November. So did the president.

If protecting America were his first priority, he had several months to prepare. He could have started by reinstating the pandemic preparedness portion of the national security apparatus he trashed when he took office. He could have immediately declared a national emergency like South Korea did and activated the Defense Production Act before Christmas. While the Chinese were hardly forthcoming, the whole world saw how quickly the virus overwhelmed that country’s medical resources. Before 2019 ended, epidemiologists knew the fourteen day asymptomatic incubation period made it virtually impossible to contain the virus in China. Trump knew it was already too late to keep it from reaching Europe and North America.

As Dr. Rick Bright testified, yesterday, people who understood the threat recognized that we were woefully unprepared in terms of medical equipment and protective gear for front line workers. We could have begun manufacturing those things by January. Chinese President Xi Jinping had essentially the same choice. No one had any illusions that Xi acted out of compassion for the Chinese masses. Xi knew that if the virus got out of control there it could take decades for China to recover its position in the global economy.

Trump claims he had a choice between saving lives and protecting our economy, but Xi’s actions exploded that myth – they’re one and the same. The difference between Xi’s and Trump’s calculus was that Trump had to run for re-election. Trump equates the economy with the financial markets. His greatest fear was a panic that would cause them to crash.

Donald Trump was simply incapable of acting differently. It’s not that he didn’t understand his options. Our president suffers from a severe mental illness. His narcissistic personality disorder is not the kind of illness that gets people dragged off in straight jackets, but it’s equally serious when he has to choose between his self-interest and anything else.

We see it every day as he attempts to muzzle the doctors and scientists who’ve spent their lives preparing for the kind of pandemic we’re fighting. And with Trump trailing Joe Biden in every poll, it’s going to get worse. We’re going to see power grabs, attempts to suppress voter turnout, and the removal of everyone in power who hasn’t pledged fealty to Trump.

The next six months are going to be a nightmare of lies, misdirection, and signs of a president becoming unhinged.

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