Has Trump Entered New and Uncharted Territory?
As I’ve mentioned, my mother and I have frequent talks on U.S. politics, and, considering we’re on different ends of the spectrum, they’re remarkably pleasant and mutually respectful. Last night I asked, “Do you think this impeachment proceeding is going to go anywhere? You might have read that (New Yorker editor since 1998) David Remnick, admittedly a liberal, but certainly one of America’s top 10 public intellectuals, wrote today that the ‘floodgates are opening.'”
Mom seemed unconcerned, and replied something to the effect that this is just “another chapter” in Trump’s presidency.
I asked, “Well, sure, but couldn’t it be the final chapter? Don’t all books end somewhere?” But as soon as the words had come out of my mouth I realized that she may be completely correct i.e., that there is literally nothing that Trump has done or could possibly do, no conceivable savaging of the U.S. Constitution, that could turn the U.S. Senate away from him.
When the Europeans came en masse to the New World in the early 16th Century, they enslaved the indigenous people, and when they encountered misbehavior, they’d pick out a perpetrator, tie him to a tree, and beat him–to death–while his fellows watched. It was reported that onlookers were actually more astonished than they were horrified, as it had never dawned on any of them that human beings were capable of acting this way to others.
This phenomenon, i.e., astonishment, is what we seem to be encountering here in the U.S. Whether it’s Trump’s encouraging violence, condoning white supremacy, committing various cruelties on small children, profiting from the presidency, obstructing justice, or asking foreign powers to help him win re-election, we seem to be frozen like so many deer in headlights. We simply don’t know how to process such a torrent of criminality, and especially not from the man in the White House.
Of course, this is hardly lost on Trump. He has a fabulously creative imagination when it comes to generating outrage; this may be his most important and special gift.
Craig,
What is astonishing is your gift of inventing your own little fantasy and substituting it for reality.
The early settlers would not have been “more astonished than horrified, as it had never dawned on any of them that human beings were capable of acting this way to others”
Flogging was a commonplace punishment for sailors and soldiers, as well as miscreants of all kinds. Public hangings were treated as festive occasions.
Traitors were publicly hanged, drawn and quartered, a particularly gruesome business involving public castration.
Indian punishments were, if anything, more torturous and cruel.
No one in the 16th or 17th century would be either “astonished’ or “horrified” by public displays of brutality.
Nor is their any evidence President Trump asked a “foreign powers to help him win re-election”. What he did ask a foreign Head of State, was if a US citizens or citizen was involved in committing crimes or corrupt activities in a foreign nation.
Not very diplomatic, and pretty brutal politics, but neither illegal nor a breach of the US Constitution. The President should have conducts such inquiries through the State Department, but it’s not without precedent for a President to talk directly.
Again, the Democrats and liberal media have confused “bad manners” and “brutal politics” with criminal behavior.
The Democrats, Never-Trumpers, Left media etc,.. have waged an hysterical, ferocious and even violent war against this President, yet that howl when the the table are turned and they are on the receiving end.