Trump’s Vision of a Greater America

Posted on July 15, 2018 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, July 15, 2018
Donald Trump famously began his presidential campaign with his signature slogan, “Make America Great Again” combined with a virulent attack against Muslim immigrants. When he went on to attack Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals, he was accused of being a racist. But while the connection in Trump’s mind between making America great and immigration was obvious, most of us didn’t grasp the broader implications then.

I suggested early on that Trump was not a racist, but was in fact something worse: a panderer who was willing to appeal to racists, white supremacists, and other assorted Despicables to win their votes. I wasn’t wrong in that assessment, but I too missed the point, and it’s taken until now to finally begin to grasp it.

Trump’s administration has been marked by a soaring stock market, a tax law that significantly enriched the already wealthy while throwing a small bone to the middle class and working people, and a couple of intensely fought attempts to reduce health care options for people who depend on help from state, local, or federal government programs. There has been a constant and loud appeal to seal our southern border and to assure that America will no longer be a haven for refugees and asylum seekers.

I hear that our military has been strengthened, but I cannot identify what that means specifically. And at the same time that we’re allegedly strengthening our strategic ability to defend ourselves, our administration has relentlessly attacked our allies and weakened our treaty commitments. We have withdrawn from international attempts to achieve barrier-free trade and protect our environment, and the political rhetoric out of Washington sounds more isolationist than it has in a hundred years.

That sounds like a pretty diverse basket of unrelated events and policies, but there is a subtle common thread that clarifies what Trump really means by making America great again. The key word in his motto is “again,” because Trump believes the country has lost its way and ought to return to what it was in an earlier time. But most of us who’ve been around for a few decades know the “Good Old Days” really weren’t all that good. Since World War II we’ve seen major conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan which have drained our national vitality without resulting in anything we can reasonably call victory. And in the past thirty years we’ve lived through three financial shocks that came close to wrecking our economy.

Exactly what are the good old days that Trump views as a greater America than the one we live in? There were some clues in the new tax law and the failed attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Both were driven by a concerted effort from the political Right to head off what it saw as an intolerable transfer of wealth. The simple, obvious truth was that providing health care to every American was going to be expensive, and most of the bill would be have to be paid by taxing the wealthiest Americans.

It was also obvious that while the all-out attack against immigration was advertised as a need to protect the security of our nation, it is in fact an attempt to halt the browning of America. The white majority has been steadily decreasing for decades, and it was in jeopardy of becoming a minority that would shift the balance of power in future elections.

Trump’s remarks in Europe and the UK over the last few days brought all this into focus. His most blistering attacks were against Europe’s two strong female leaders and he warned them that immigration was destroying Europe’s culture and undermining its security. But that’s just semantic code for the same white supremacy-enabling rhetoric we heard in Charlottesville. Changing culture is a euphemism for allowing non-whites and women to have equal rights and permitting Islam to gain a foothold. It’s a fascist mentality that we thought we had suppressed after World War II, but apparently it is alive and well in the mind of Donald Trump.

Our relatively uneducated, ignorant president never learned the lessons of either history or science. Everything evolves, and that includes cultures and planetary environments. Nothing in the universe remains static and fighting against change is inevitably a losing battle. Trump’s better America is one in which its wealth is concentrated in the hands of a white, male, Christian oligarchy. His lack of respect for women in general and his unsubtle attempts to reduce their access to health care are similarly code for returning to an era when they stayed home raising children while men controlled business, commerce, and governments.

Trump’s dream of a greater America looks like a 1950s sitcom. But under that superficial veneer, it’s about greed and selfishness and excluding anyone who doesn’t look like Trump’s ideal American. And it’s not the world most of us want our grandchildren growing up in.

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The Evolution of Trump

Posted on July 11, 2018 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, July 11, 2018

Though it seems like we’ve been living this nightmare a lot longer, it’s been only three years since real estate tycoon and reality TV star Donald Trump announced that he was running for president. He began his campaign by unleashing the most outrageous side of his character. From his opening speech to the nation it was clear that he wasn’t going to pull any punches, and most of them would be aimed at people who were either disenfranchised or powerless to defend themselves.

He demonstrated complete disdain for people who had spent their entire lives learning the nuances of government craft. He claimed he didn’t need generals, diplomats or politicians telling him what to do. He knew better than anyone. And in the first act of the drama he has shown so much skill at orchestrating, he got us to shift our attention away from the truly hateful things he said to a debate over whether he would soften his rhetoric if he was elected.

The Master of the Deal was supposed to be an expert tactician when it came to negotiating. As he’d said over and over again, the way to get a successful deal was to stake out an extreme position and then see how much the opposition was able to chip away. The Trump model was to attack with no filters, put up a tough face at all times, and never admit he was wrong. But surely, if was elected he wouldn’t govern that way, would he?

The sixty percent of Americans who were not part of his rabid base let themselves be reduced to an audience. Such was the spectacle of Trump running roughshod over every norm and standard of decency, we were rooted to our seats as if we were watching an apocalyptic film in IMAX-3D. We stopped being horrified by the things he said in the same way that watching people being hacked up with chain saws eventually dulled our senses.

And then he was elected, and the sixty percent were in shock. Most of us couldn’t bear to look. We knew Donald Trump only from the persona he’d put forward, but we still had no idea what was in his heart. We knew he was driven by extreme narcissism and arrogance, but even so, watching him preen when senior generals and admirals were forced to cowtow to him was downright creepy. We already knew he was a sexual predator, but it seemed that his perverse pleasures had even more sinister aspects.

We were told not to worry. Jared and Ivanka would temper him, and he would surround himself with competent advisors. And once the shock wore off and his own party realized how they’d been hijacked, they’d stand and fight, wouldn’t they? Jared and Ivanka appear to have had no effect on him. Ivanka sat by and watched him encourage racism and hatred, and attack the health care net women and children depend on without saying a word.

As his attacks on our allies intensified and he moved to isolate us from the rest of world, a new reality emerged. Rather than mellowing and growing into the responsibility of leading the free world, he seemed to revel in tearing it apart. He also seemed to enjoy defying everyone from the media to his “advisers” over Russia and Vladimir Putin. It turned out that the Donald Trump who claimed to know better than everyone else on every subject had meant every word.

We’ve seen Trump evolve for three years, and the emerging reality of who he really is is more frightening than what we feared he might be three years ago. He is more arrogant and belligerent than ever, looking more than ever like the fascists of the last century. He’s essentially told the world he doesn’t need them, and he means it. He’s been tweeting these things since long before he ran for president. Why are we so surprised?

And here’s the really frightening part. He not only has no trouble believing he’s right and everyone else is wrong, but he is driven to prove it to the rest of the world. His narcissism is even more dangerous than we realized, as it blinds him to everything but the fights he picks and his need to win them.

The problem is that he is the President of the United States, and he has effectively silenced or co-opted Congress so that there is no significant opposition. When he isolated himself from our traditional allies, he isolated all of us. It’s not just one egomaniac picking fights, it’s putting the health and welfare of 326 million Americans in jeopardy. Most of us didn’t ask for this fight, and we don’t want it, but unless we elect a Congress that’s willing to resist, we’re stuck with it.

The left and the right have chosen sides. Our future lies in the hands of those who sat on them in the last election because they were so repulsed by the process. We can’t treat politics as a spectator sport this time around. Distasteful as it may be, if we don’t do our part things can only get worse.

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Distractions

Posted on July 6, 2018 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, July 5, 2018

The announcement of the retirement of Associate Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy ushered in a week of chaos, depression, anger, and anxiety. In other words, it had exactly the effect Donald Trump hoped it would. For a week, the media obsessed on the impending loss of women’s rights and affirmative action, and the death knell for Roe v Wade, paying little or no attention to much else that the administration did. To listen to most of the talking heads, finding a way to preserve abortion rights was the most urgent problem facing our nation.

It isn’t. In the worst case, the Supreme Court might decree that abortion rights should be adjudicated by the states, but the populous left-leaning states in the Northeast, the West, and the northern lakes won’t be changing their laws. Frankly, the abortion issue is mostly a distraction right now, with no certainty about whether the Court will weigh precedent over politics.

We can’t do anything to derail Trump’s American Idol-style spectacle scheduled for next Monday when he says he’ll announce his choice to replace Kennedy. There’s no point speculating who he’ll pick because he places as much emphasis on confounding the so-called experts as finding the best judge. Whoever he picks, the confirmation drama will play out in the Senate, much the way the health care bill was decided.

Will Senators Collins and Murkowski be bought off if Trump selects a woman, even one like Amy Coney Barrett, whose extreme religious views go against all the things they say they believe in? Will Trump be able to coerce the red state Democrats who are on the ballot in November to vote his way? Will John McCain make a surprise appearance when it’s time to vote? Tune in Monday night for this must-see television event – or don’t.

Whatever you decide, don’t waste your time wondering if Michael Cohen is going to flip on the President and don’t forget about North Korea, which may already be cheating on the deal that hasn’t even been agreed to yet. Pay close attention to Trump’s words when he visits Putin next week, especially after the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed Russia’s election tampering in a bipartisan report. And watch carefully as Trump’s trade war heats up. Keep track of how many American companies are hurt by tariffs, how many of your neighbors lose their jobs, and how much more you pay for the things you need. Personally, I have no intention of giving up Canadian maple syrup.

Above all, don’t take your eye off the ball. The midterm elections will be here in 124 days. November 6, 2018 could be our last opportunity to derail the Trump juggernaut before the damage he does is too advanced to reverse.

It’s possible that the most significant event this month will be the resignation of Scott Pruitt as EPA Administrator. Not because Trump is likely to finally realize how important protecting the environment is or because he could appoint a new administrator who isn’t a tool of the industries the EPA is supposed to regulate. The real significance of Pruitt’s departure is what it tells us about the administration’s priorities.

Pruitt wasn’t fired. The only way that could have happened was if he had publicly called Trump out for his ignorant attitude toward science and the health of our planet. If Trump had awakened one morning and decided to fire him because his scandalous behavior was an affront to every American, or if Trump had a moral center of his own that felt violated by Pruitt’s outrageous and possibly illegal behavior, we might have reason to rejoice. But instead, Trump continues to claim Pruitt did a great job and praises him because he reminds him of himself – brash, bold, unrepentant, acting in complete disregard of laws, public sentiment, and common decency. Sound familiar?

Pruitt is gone simply because Trump got tired of the bad press he was getting over Pruitt. He was spending too much time defending him that he would rather spend aping for the cameras and bragging about all the wonderful things he’s accomplished. You don’t rain on Trump’s parade the way Pruitt did and expect to survive forever.

Look at Pruitt’s departure in its proper light. It’s nothing to celebrate. It only confirms how corrupt this administration’s values are. It won’t be long before Pruitt is sitting pretty in some energy company penthouse where he has his choice of hand lotions.

And remember what’s important when November rolls around. That’s all that matters now.

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Stewart and Ocasio

Posted on June 29, 2018 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 29, 2018

For nearly a decade, Stephen Colbert played a whacked-out, ultra-conservative TV host, but when he took over The Late Show from David Letterman in September of 2015, shortly after Donald Trump announced that he was running for president, he revealed his true self. Colbert was the first television personality to address the dark side of Trump’s campaign rhetoric to a network audience on a daily basis.

Taking on the role of Gadfly-in-Chief was a huge risk as his initial ratings left his future in jeopardy. But as Trump’s personality emerged, Colbert relentlessly held the worst aspects of it up to public scrutiny. Make no mistake – Trump won the election, but he has never owned the hearts of the majority. Only two out of every five Americans approve of him, and Colbert has the ears of much of the other sixty percent who are repulsed by his behavior.

But fighting off Trump’s hateful rhetoric is exhausting, and every so often the Gadfly-in-Chief Emeritus shows up to assist. Yesterday was one such time when Jon Stewart stepped in to lend a hand. Though Stewart is a comedian by nature, when he speaks seriously, he’s more than capable of bringing tears to my eyes.

He began by stating the case perfectly. It’s not so much that we hate Trump for his policies, though many of them, like his decision to separate families at the border are undeniably despicable. What raises the hackles of the majority, in Stewart’s words, is that no matter what Trump does, “it always comes with an extra layer of gleeful cruelty and dickishness.” Could anyone have said it better?

The part of Stewart’s presentation that hit home was his quote from the Cooper Union address delivered in New York City on February 27, 1860, that propelled Abraham Lincoln from a relative unknown to the 1860 Republican Nomination for President. Since I can’t possibly improve on Stewart’s words, I’ll just repeat them.

 “What Lincoln said in his Cooper Union speech was to point out the one thing Southern slaveholders really wanted from the free states. ‘This and only this: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right.’ It was on this point that Lincoln said the Union could not bend, and what Donald Trump wants is for us to stop calling his cruelty and fear and divisiveness wrong, but to join him in calling it right — and this we cannot do. And I say, by not yielding, we will prevail.”

That’s when the tears flowed. Sometimes, when things seem relatively hopeless, the best we can do utter inspiring words, like when FDR said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” after Pearl Harbor. What Jon Stewart said staring earnestly into the camera after five minutes of clowning and aping went viral instantly. He was masterful. It won’t be easy, but we have a chance to at least throw a roadblock in the path of the Trump juggernaut of hate when we go to the polls in November.

Despite the gerrymanding that has made a mockery of the electoral system our founders devised, and despite Trump’s bullying of anyone who opposes him, it’s we the voters who get to decide the course of the remainder of his presidency, and if we don’t we have only ourselves to blame. We must change the face of Congress to one that is willing to defend the principles and values that Trump refuses to.

We don’t need marches and protests. We don’t have to mimic Trump’s calls to violence against the dissent that is a right guaranteed to us by our Constitution. We need to counteract the apathy and ennui that caused millions of people to stay home in 2016. That’s what got Trump elected, and only reversing that error can stop him from destroying all that is good about America.

Of course, we also need to have candidates worth voting for. We need people who can inspire the opposite of what Trump arouses in his base. In what was perhaps the perfect epilogue to Jon Stewart, he was followed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was fresh from staging the electoral upset of the year, when she defeated the fourth ranking Democrat in the House in Tuesday’s primary.

Young, bright, forward-looking, and energetic, when she was asked if she could stand up to Donald Trump, she responded with a brilliant smile: “Well you know, the president is from Queens, and … half of my district is from Queens. I don’t think he knows how to deal with a girl from the Bronx.” I don’t think he does either. My wife is from the Bronx, and I’d love to see Trump try to talk to her the way he does to most women.

We used to live in Ocasio’s district. I wish we still did so I could cast my vote for her in November.

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Immigration Referendum

Posted on June 22, 2018 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 22, 2018

It’s safe to say the midterm elections could turn on the immigration debacle. Consider the hot button issues of the past twelve months.

The North Korea summit didn’t move Trump’s approval rating appreciably, and if as seems likely, the aftermath drags along in the kind of stalemate that usually follows optimistic starts with one of the Kims, the summit will have faded into a frustrated memory by November.

The economy, mostly on the coattails of the stock market has been a consistent rallying point for the Trump Republicans. But the markets have stalled in 2018: the Dow Jones Industrial Index is down 1.5%, the S&P 500 is up 2.0%, and the NYSE Composite Index is down 2.7%. Employment numbers are good, but when Trump’s tariffs make everything cost more and retaliatory tariffs from China and other countries shrink American export markets, those numbers may not hold.

American voters have notoriously short memories. We’ve already seen signs of concern by farmers and manufacturers about the effects of a trade war. Project all that to November, and if Trump hasn’t delivered on his promise to fix immigration, he may have trouble convincing anyone but his base that his administration has been good for the country. Trump’s love of hyperbole when talking about himself and the blame he continually heaps on his predecessors leave no one to shift responsibility to if he fails to deliver.

His performance this week has left Republicans in a deep hole. His misstatements about separating families and the relevant laws have so far accomplished nothing of substance. He created the child incarceration crisis, and then tried to slap a bandaid on it with an executive order. But that order is a temporary fix at best, and at worst (and more likely) it will be impossible to execute because the White House is playing everything by ear with no organization or planning.

We’ve seen this act before, though the level of misinformation Trump disseminated this week is exceptional even for him. It’s not entirely clear how it occurred, but there are only three possibilities: he was deliberately lying, he was misinformed by his staff, or his administration is so mired in chaos, no one even knows what’s true. It really doesn’t matter which interpretation is correct – they’re all unacceptable.

He’s blamed Democrats, Mexico, drug lords, human traffickers, and the three presidents who preceded him for what he calls the worst immigration laws in the world. He says the rest of the world is laughing at us, and he may be right, but he’s dead wrong about why.

The “Democrat law” that Trump blames for the family separation crisis is a complete fiction. What caused it in reality was a succession of bi-partisan actions and orders that reflect Congress’s inability to reach a consensus on reasonable compromise legislation because extremists on both sides wouldn’t allow it. His contention that only Congressional action could put an end to child detention was simply false. Did Trump know he was lying or was his staff incompetently derelict in their research?

The fact is, he could have ended it by making a phone call, but instead he used the fragile fates of over two thousand children (aka hostages) as bargaining chips until the pressure from all sides forced him to back off. Now he hopes that appealing to a federal court for relief from the twenty-day limit on federal child detention will solve the problem. But even if the court that has already rejected a similar request in the past grants it this time, it will only result in a backlog of entry and asylum applications that could drag well past the election before it is resolved. And let’s not forget those DACA kids who have been left dangling with no clear future because Trump has never cared what happens to them.

Three days ago, Trump punted the responsibility back to Congress, and while he was probably correct to do so, he doesn’t appreciate that the problem can only be solved with a bipartisan effort. He still thinks he can play chicken with House Republicans who don’t seem to able to agree among themselves and with Senate Democrats who he needs if he expects to pass meaningful legislation.

But it’s clear today that he’s only setting Congress up to fail so he can blame them, just as he did with health care. This morning, after challenging them to fix immigration, Trump pulled the rug out from under the House Republicans which had been scrambling to try to pass something. He told them not to bother until after the election when he’s certain his majority in Congress will increase, and he can be even more hard line than he is now.

Think of it, 535 people elected by the people to represent them in Congress, scurrying around doing his bidding. It must make him feel almost king-like. Of course, if the rest of us get off our butts and vote next November, the 39% of voters who still approve of him won’t be enough to save his Congressional majority much less increase it. It’s up to us to show him he’s not a king after all.

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The Greatest Threats We Face

Posted on June 20, 2018 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 20, 2018

The greatest threat to America is not North Korea. It’s not Iran. It’s not radical Islamist terrorism. It’s not gun violence, the millions of people who can’t afford healthcare, or Social Security potentially going bankrupt. It’s us.

An inflection point is a moment in time that signals when positive trends turn negative or vice versa. 2016 was such a point for our nation. We all knew our corrupt government was trapped in the polarized swamp of gridlock, and there was no quick fix for the divisiveness that was threatening to unravel decades of progress at leveling the playing field for all Americans.

We know from science that order can be maintained only with constant vigilance because the universe abhors stability. Indifference and indolence are seductively benign, but no less deadly for not being overtly menacing. 2016 was a moment in time when resolve and determination might have headed off entering the slippery slope we’ve been on since then, but despite the fact that many of us saw where we were heading, we just stared in fascination like watching a train go off the rails in slow motion.

2016 showed once again that our obsolete electoral college system is a clear and present danger to the republic. Changing it will be a long, laborious process, but its evil cousin, gerrymandering, ought to be fixable. When the Supreme Court unanimously chose to duck the issue earlier this week, it was another victory for the forces of chaos. The diverse court of nine justices decided without dissent, that gerrymandering wasn’t their problem, and that the parties involved ought to be able to work it out themselves.

Gerrymandering is one of the greatest threats to our democracy. But it’s clear that unless they are forced to change their ways, politicians will continue to use voting majorities to exacerbate divisiveness and partisanship, violating the principle that every citizen has a right to equal representation. One of the cases on which the Supreme Court punted was a Wisconsin voting map that a lower court had already ruled unconstitutional. Because of the way the people in power drew district boundaries, the party that received 61% of the vote in a statewide election won only 49% of the legislative seats.

When children fight, things only get resolved when the adult in the room steps in. With respect to gerrymandering, the adult in the room is the Court. It would be nice if partisan politicians could work out their differences, but counting on that only makes the slope more slippery.

Yesterday may have been an inflection point in our history in more ways than one. When President Trump was asked why he speaks so admiringly of Kim Jong Un, he talked about what a strong leader the North Korean dictator is. When Kim gives an order, there’s no argument, no disagreement. “That’s what I want,” Trump concluded. That’s quite an admission for someone who has sworn to uphold our Constitution.

It’s not exactly a revelation that Trump craves absolute power and cannot tolerate any form of dissent. When other people or other countries won’t play by Trump’s rules he picks up his marbles and goes home. He walked away from the Trans-pacific trade agreement and the Paris accords on climate change, and appears to be doing the same thing with NAFTA. He insults our allies and ignores our partners in Canada, NATO, and the EU. When he doesn’t get what he wants he stamps his foot like a five-year-old and throws a Twitter tantrum.

He treats the other two branches of our Government the same way. His zero tolerance policy on immigration has resulted in the spectacle of thousands of children being separated from their parents at our borders. Yet he blames Democrats for the problem. Using the twisted logic of a would-be dictator, the Democrats are to blame, because they won’t roll over and rubber stamp Trump’s demands on immigration.

Trump’s executive orders are using immigrant and refugee children as hostages to get the immigration changes he wants. It’s now clear why, despite the insults and attacks Trump has leveled at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, he hasn’t fired him. Trump knew when he appointed Sessions that there was no one more rabid in his anti-immigration sentiments.

Remember when the media were filled with recriminations over ISIS using innocent women and children as human shields? What Trump and Sessions are doing is different only in that there are no bullets and bombs tearing those children apart. When we ask ourselves what poses the greatest threats to our nation, the erosion of values that we see symbolized as we march children into detention centers must surely rank at the top of the list.

When I look back at yesterday I see us at a tipping point. We can still change things, but if we sit idly and watch the way we did in 2016, we may regret our inaction for decades.

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Life After Singapore

Posted on June 13, 2018 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 13, 2018

Now that things have percolated for a day, it turns out that I do have some thoughts about the Trump-Kim Summit.

Ever since Ronald Reagan used the phrase “Trust but Verify,” it has been America’s mantra for all subsequent disarmament negotiations. It’s actually the literal translation of a Russian proverb, which, given President Trump’s admiration for Russia’s leadership, makes his reaction to Kim Jong Un even more shocking than it sounds on its face.

When asked if he could trust Kim to keep his word when he pledged to denuclearize North Korea, Trump said. “We will have a terrific relationship, I have no doubt … I don’t have to verify because I have one of the great memories of all time.” As the Washington Post’s James Hohmann noted in today’s “Daily 202” newsletter, that’s eerily reminiscent of when George W. Bush “peered into Vladimir Putin’s eyes, saw his soul and concluded that the Russian leader was trustworthy.” We know how that worked out.

Prior to the Singapore Summit, Trump told us it would take him about one minute to size up Kim and know whether he could trust him. He assured us that as the master deal maker he is, he would know right away if a deal was possible, and he promised to come away with one that would be a win for America. When the summit was over, Trump completed his circular reasoning by assuring us that he had accomplished what he said he would. Bush once declared victory on the deck of an aircraft carrier. We know how that worked out, too.

Is that why the entire world isn’t cheering? Why is the other world leader who has the most to gain from a genuine rapprochement with North Korea, South Korean President Moon reacting as if he was slapped upside his head with a two-by-four?

I was surprised by the level of skepticism expressed by people who really understand the key players and their history. I felt it too, but I cautioned myself not to let my fundamental dislike for our president influence me too much. I care very deeply about the future I’m leaving for my grandchildren, and if Trump could actually do what he promised, I’d have to tip my hat to him like everyone else.

But now that the dust is settling, things are becoming clearer. Trump watchers have often said he may not be the ultimate deal-maker he touts himself to be. Any professional negotiator will tell you that a good deal is one that lets every party walk away feeling like he or she won something, but that hasn’t been the case with most of his deals. Trump has his name on a lot of buildings, but he’s achieved that by trampling a lot of people, and ruthlessly cutting his losses and running whenever things went south. He was schooled by the best in the art of shifting blame and using his money to settle court battles.

He thinks he can buy Kim off with the promises of riches, and says Kim wants to do the right thing for his people, as though Kim would be following the example he, Trump, has set. But there is no evidence either that Trump has ever cared much about anything except making money and increasing his own power and influence, and even less that Kim would ever be  inclined to be motivated that way.

There is no evidence that Trump came away from Singapore with anything of substance that benefits either America or its allies, and if this deal falls apart, Trump can’t just pay off an aggrieved plaintiff and walk away. We’ll all be paying for a long time. The only country that seems to have immediately benefited from the talks is China, which quickly resumed its profitable trade relationship with Kim, without waiting to see if he was going to follow through on his promises. Does that give the wily Kim much incentive to fully denuclearize?

Trump eagerly committed to ending joint military exercises with South Korea and laid the initial groundwork for withdrawing our forces from the south. Both are things he campaigned for since long before becoming a presidential candidate, claiming they wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Most military professionals disagree and were shocked by what they saw as a one-sided concession, but for Trump it felt like a win because he appeared to get his way on a contentious issue, when the “experts” all said he was wrong. It might make Trump feel like a King, but the main beneficiary of his decision will again be China, which loves the idea of American troops leaving the region.

While we got empty promises from a distinctly evil, untrustworthy dictator, there was one other winner in Singapore. Vladimir Putin now claims that he was right all along in telling Trump that only direct talks with Kim would reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula. Is it possible Putin also understood that Trump’s arrogance would be no match for Little Rocket Man?

Mel Brooks famously said, “It’s good to be the King.” Let’s hope that works out better for Trump than it did for Louis XVI.

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Trump on the World Stage

Posted on June 12, 2018 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 12, 2018

No, I’m not writing about the Trump-Kim Singapore summit. You’ve already heard enough from pundits who know a lot more than I do about it, yet despite that, no matter who is espousing wisdom, it seems to boil down to, “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

However, something else is becoming clear in light of the last few days of Trump-style diplomacy. For months, those very same “experts” have been shaking their heads in wonderment. Why, they ask, does Trump treat our adversaries with so much respect, often warmly praising them, while he is so crudely offensive to our allies? If we simply pose the question differently, and I think more accurately, the answer becomes clear.

The issue isn’t adversaries versus allies as much as strength and power versus weakness. Since the day he was inaugurated, Trump has clearly demonstrated a craving for unfettered power and authority. He chafes whenever he’s reminded that he shares power with the Congress and the Judiciary, so much so that he seems to have nothing but contempt for the Constitution he swore an oath to defend.

That really shouldn’t surprise anyone, given what we know about his narcissistic nature and his utter disdain for rules and norms. He had a moment, yesterday, after his meetings with Kim Jong Un, which was both disarmingly honest and so arrogant as to defy words, when he acknowledged that six months from now he might have to accept that he was wrong to trust his gut feeling about Kim’s good faith. But then, as if remembering who he is, Trump added, “I don’t know that I’ll ever admit that, but I’ll find some kind of an excuse.” And therein lies the answer the pundits have been seeking.

In Trump’s mind, being a leader means never having to admit he’s wrong. It means always finding a way to claim victory, even when he loses. It means never having his word or authority challenged. He may personally decry the murders carried out by Kim’s henchmen, the lack of individual rights in North Korea, and the false commitments made by decades of North Korean regimes, yet at a different level, Trump craves autocracy and admires Kim’s ruthless control of his enemies. Trump thinks he should be entrusted with godlike power, which only he would know how to wield benevolently for the good of everyone.

Look carefully at the leaders he seems to respect, and ask yourself what they have in common: Kim, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. All very different in nature, they are alike only in that they rule with virtually absolute power, at least until the next coup brings one of them down. It’s that power that Trump lusts after and makes him admire, perhaps even adore them as leaders.

Compare them with the leaders he treats with contempt: Justin Trudeau, Teresa May, Emmanuel Macron, Angela Merkel. What they have in common is that they all represent some form of constitutional representative government. They must stand for re-election, put up with vocal and outspoken opposition, and accept they will not always get their way. When Trump looks at them he sees only weakness, which angers him and causes him to disrespect them. The elected leaders of our traditional allies are not the kind of people Trump wishes they were, nor are they people he aspires to emulate.

Perhaps the best example is Moon Jae-in, the current president of South Korea. He too must stand for election and in his country, leaders are actually impeached − in fact that’s how Moon became president. He’s polite and soft-spoken, which to Trump makes him seem even weaker than the others. Consider how he treats Moon. When Trump initially canceled the Kim summit, he didn’t even have the courtesy to alert Moon ahead of time, although Moon did more to assure that it would happen than anyone. And yesterday, when Trump promised Kim that there would be no more war games with the South Korean military, Moon was again blindsided.

It’s no wonder that Trump thinks he should be allowed to wage a trade war all by himself. He thinks he’ll win easily against our allies because he has no respect for them. And he thinks he will win against our adversaries because he is certain that they view him as their equal and will therefore have to negotiate in good faith with him, and of course, no one can negotiate deals like Donald Trump.

So there you have it, pundits. Donald Trump’s treatment of foreign leaders is a direct measure of the degree of autonomy they wield at home. It has nothing at all to do with morality, honesty, criminality, or humanity. It’s all about Trump’s worship of absolute power.

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King Donald

Posted on June 7, 2018 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 6, 2018

The frightening but inescapable reality is that in 2016 we elected a president who thinks he’s a king. More likely, he simply doesn’t know the difference. Schooled in the world of business and mentored by experts in the shadiest ways of achieving his ends, he still hasn’t grasped that it’s far more difficult to get away with overstepping legally established boundaries than trampling people in civil court where money generally rules.

But this isn’t just semantics – it’s dangerous. We fought a revolution to escape being governed by an absolute monarch, and people who cheer Trump on when he’s guilty of these excesses forget the lessons of history. His base doesn’t mind when he attacks Muslims, immigrants, judges he disagrees with, the “liberal” media, or his political opponents. They even cheer him on when he goes after the FBI and the rest of his own Justice Department.

It’s ironic that a large segment of his base believes Trump when he tells them he’s fighting to protect them from the tyranny of a corrupt system. What could be more corrupt than a small group of people wielding absolute power who are answerable to no one? That’s exactly the kind of despotism our founders freed us from when they overthrew the yoke of King George III.

There’s yet another irony here. As described on history.com, while George III was portrayed as an “inflexible tyrant…Parliamentary ministers, not the crown, were responsible for colonial policies,” though the king could have overruled their decisions instead of endorsing them. Today, in America, we have the reverse situation: a president who believes his power is absolute with a Congress that is too cowed politically to exercise its constitutional responsibility to apply required checks and balances.

But we’re starting to see cracks in congressional indifference, or cowardice as its harshest critics might put it. Last week, I noted that Congressman Trey Gowdy, who is not running for re-election, defended the FBI’s investigation of allegations of Russian interference with the election in defiance of the president’s assertion that they illegally spied on his campaign. Today, another prominent Republican, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr said he agrees with Gowdy that the FBI’s actions were appropriate, and the president’s accusations are without merit.

Perhaps the strongest indication that congressional Republicans have not completely abdicated their responsibility to defend our institutions was Speaker Paul Ryan’s statement that there is nothing to support Trump’s claims. Ryan is also leaving the Congress, but publicly implying that Trump is wrong is a clear departure from his typical refusal to say anything to challenge the president’s authority.

The issue that may finally cause Republicans to stand up to the president is trade. Trump seems to be on a one-man crusade to fight a trade war with adversaries and allies alike. But the tariffs he has announced have stirred up considerable discomfort among his own party. Free trade has always been a consistent plank in Conservative platforms, and many Conservatives in Congress are feeling heat from their constituents, much of which is fueled by the Koch brothers. If fear of losing their seats in November is what has prevented them from confronting Trump until now, they may be trapped between the classic rock and hard place.

Long-time Conservative Senator Bob Corker, who has also decided not to seek re-election, is working on legislation to negate what he described as the “president’s abuse of the powers granted to him under a National Security Waiver.”  The intention is to push back against tariffs and the inappropriate use of laws that were never intended for the purposes Trump is applying them. In a lengthy phone call, today, the president angrily insisted that Corker back off from trying to curb his power to wage a trade war. Corker responded, “I am a United States senator, and I have responsibilities and I’m going to continue to carry them out.”

This is a very hopeful first step in curbing Trump’s march toward autocracy. Read the history of the post-World War I Weimar Republic in Germany, which functioned effectively for fifteen years until Adolf Hitler seized dictatorial powers and subverted it to his own ends. Hitler could only have done that with the compliance of an ineffectual Reichstag (legislature). If that doesn’t set off alarm bells, you’re in a coma.

Still not convinced that Trump will grab every bit of power he can until someone stops him? Consider what unnamed White House sources have described as his obsession with pardons. Presidential pardons were intended by our founders as acts of forgiveness, not attempts to intimidate enemies or encourage people who committed crimes to remain silent to protect the president. But Trump’s total disregard of propriety and rules, combined with his boundless narcissism make presidential pardons irresistible to him.

As one commentator put it today, the presidential pardon is the last remaining holdover of the British monarchy system, an opportunity to yield absolute power that no one can challenge. Is it any wonder that King Donald is so enamored with the process?

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Above the Law?

Posted on June 4, 2018 by alanpzendell

Alan Zendell, June 4, 2018

Three years after he resigned the presidency, Richard Nixon sat for four televised interviews with noted journalist David Frost. At one point, Frost asked Nixon, “Would you say that there are certain situations…where the president can decide that it’s in the best interests of the nation, and do something illegal?” Nixon replied, “Well, when the President does it that means it’s not illegal.”

Donald Trump’s legal team like to refer back to that interview to remind people that Trump is not the first president to make the argument that he can do things that are illegal without liability for prosecution. Nixon went on to remind Frost that where the president is concerned there are other remedies: he must stand for re-election, he must obtain funding authorization from Congress, and he can be impeached.

Trump’s attorney, Rudy Guiliani made a similar argument last weekend while discussing whether the president has the legal right to pardon himself. Nixon had raised that question too, and in an August 5, 1974 opinion, Mary Lawton, Nixon’s Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel wrote, “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself.” She also noted that the president had the option to declare himself unable to continue in office under the 25th Amendment, which would allow the Vice President (as Acting President) to pardon him.

The issue of the president pardoning himself arose out of the debate over whether he could be indicted for committing illegal actions while serving in that office. That question had also been previously addressed by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. On October 16, 2000, Assistant AG Randolph Moss wrote, “…all federal civil officers except the President are subject to indictment and criminal prosecution while still in office; the President is uniquely immune from such process.” This decision was in support of a Justice Department ruling, the previous year, “…that the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”

In the same vein, Nixon had told Frost that sometimes a president must order actions that are technically illegal in the interests of national security, in part to shield subordinates who are charged with executing those orders. That’s important, because it defines an extremely narrow context in which illegal acts taken by a president might be appropriate.  It’s even more important now, because President Trump’s view of presidential power and authority seems to suggest the president can do anything he pleases with complete impunity. Even Nixon never made such a claim.

Neither of the Justice Department’s policies cited above has been tested in court, and they place no restrictions on the scope of the Mueller investigation. Mueller’s charge from the Deputy Attorney General includes the investigation of anything arising from the initial question of possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 election campaign.

All this is currently being discussed because, as Guiliani candidly admitted, the president’s legal strategy is that even if Mueller finds evidence that Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice, he cannot be indicted or prosecuted. Guiliani says the only remedy would be impeachment, and that would throw the entire discussion into the political arena of the 2018 mid-term elections. The assumption is that a House of Representatives dominated by Republicans would never impeach the president, but should the balance of power shift to the Democrats after the election, that might change.

The president’s strategy counts on assuring that Republicans retain control of the House, which is problematic for two reasons. First it ignores the fact that it was Nixon’s own Republican party that forced his resignation by telling him they were prepared to impeach him for obstructing the Watergate investigation and attempting to cover up his own involvement in a number of illegal actions. There might just be enough integrity in the current Republican-controlled Congress for the same thing to occur if Mueller’s final report is sufficiently damning.

But by far, the more important point is that permitting a president to act with impunity, regardless of the technicalities of what the Constitution intended, is a slippery slope that must ultimately result in disaster for our nation. It’s clear that the spirit of our Constitution requires a president who does not have ultimate, unrestrained power who is not above the law. No president can be allowed to disregard all of the established norms of behavior, procedures, and common decency that have protected us from tyranny for two-and-a-half centuries.

Guiliani appears to be saying, “Let the voters decide,” and perhaps he’s right. In the end, it’s our responsibility. We created this monster, and it’s up to us to shackle it.

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