Anybody with sense at all knew from the outset the Trump Presidency was going to be a slog. From sixteen sorry minutes of truncated dystopian gibberish passed off as an inaugural speech, to a disturbing visit to CIA Headquarters, where he unabashedly laid bare a dangerously ignorant worldview and served notice how fully disdainful he would be toward any actual preparation for carrying out his duties, Trump has only regressed with time’s passing.
For those of us invested in our nation as going concern, this Administration has provided not a moment’s pause from the worry of nihilism at the helm, complete with a near daily desire to offend the senses. Trump doesn’t simply fail, he flails and fails, exhibiting the wholesale insecurities of one certain he never stacked up, but cluelessly hostile to any notion the public could be in on the secret. After all, megalomania is simply an outgrowth of pathological fear of failure.
Yet and still, as bad as Trump showed he was capable of behaving, as low as he proved determined to descend, there was, at least in the beginning, faint hope the GOP would sooner or later lose its ability to dodge duty in favor of party. There was that glimmer of possibility Trump’s relentless assault on propriety would make the right thing harder to ignore. Alas, whatever flicker of light still shone on that fading prayer for decency was fully extinguished yesterday.
Michael Cohen devoted his best years to running interference for Trump, intervening like some rabid jackal whenever his boss’ manic amorality was challenged by a wider world predicated on reason and shared responsibility. Yesterday, Cohen was asked how many times he had to insinuate himself into situations for Trump, episodes requiring ugly threats and intimidation, relentless F-bombs and promises of nefarious litigation…. his unique skill set. Fifty times? More. One hundred? More. Two hundred? More. Five hundred? Sure, over ten years, yea, that’s sounds right. In other words too many times to count. Enough times for it to become second nature. Standard operating procedure.
And so we finally get to the center of Trump’s onion, the very heart of why he is so destructive to our system of governance. Fact is, it was there all the time, his nom du plume, the jist of who he is, the full extent of his frailty…. A clinical refusal to take responsibility for any consequences his reckless narcissism continuously mars the world with. He’s always been the kid who just wants to keep opening Christmas presents with no desire to actually claim ownership and nurture anything. Verucca Salt with bad hair and worse skin. Cohen was on-call for whenever the world had the audacity to demand Trump answer for some mindless action, pay for something he broke, a deal he welched on, a human he trampled in search of the next gift to hurriedly unwrap.
Yesterday’s House Oversight hearing was exactly as Chairman Cummings described it, a new chapter that would necessitate the President again face the world and answer for his ceaseless pursuit of a responsibility-free existence, even as he, incredibly, occupies the world’s most accountable office.
Yet and still, never let it be said the White House doesn’t kick things up a few notches. Now, instead of one wild-eyed hyena ready to tear the flesh off of anybody daring to hold Trump accountable, there are multitudes of such beasts. who Cohen, himself accurately decried as “doing just what I used to do,” even as they engaged in one frenzied attack on him after another, not a one caring an iota about the disturbing charges he backed up against the POTUS, each instead making sure their insults carried a personal touch, the better to make local Sinclair newscasts back home.
Jim Jordan, the ranking member, ever bent on distraction from scandalous recollections by former college wrestlers he coached of his indifference to sexual assaults by a now disgraced team doctor, seemed glad to lead the pack. After an opening statement straight out of a Sean Hannity monologue, Jordan constantly repeated the same set of attacks on Cohen’s credibility without ever once addressing the substance of his charges. He seeped in righteousness as he proffered again and again that the sanctity of the committee room had been forever tarnished for hosting such a scoundrel. “We’re better than this,” Jordan mourned as he ignored proof a sitting President signed checks to pay off a porn star, and used charity funds to noxiously reimburse a ringer to drive up the price of a self-portrait at an art auction.
Mark Meadows from NC made his bones as a birther. Indeed, there is footage of him on the stump imploring voters to help him send Obama “… back to Kenya or wherever.” Of course, a sense of shame has never been in vast supply within the Tea Party, and Meadows punctuated that point by literally providing Lynne Patton, a token black Trump staffer, for show and tell to illustrate how the President loves his minorities. It was deja vu of Trump campaign rallies… “there’s my black!” Meadows also had his own staffers busy looking for gotcha moments he could run with. Again, the fact none of it had the least bit to do with the plethora of charges Cohen proved against Trump didn’t bother Meadows… nor, he was certain, his target audience.
From creepy Clay Higgins of Louisiana – a cross between a very bad Gary Cooper impersonator and wingnut former Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke – to unhinged Paul Gosar from Arizona, who actually taunted Cohen with “liar liar pants on fire,” Republican committee members couldn’t froth enough as each breathlessly awaited their five minutes. How many different ways can one be called discredible scum? The GOP Rottweilers did their level best to answer that question for the nation yesterday, along with serving the clearest notice yet that Trump’s infinite peccadillos are nothing they plan to consider as liabilities. Doesn’t matter how ugly he becomes, Trump is the date these nihilists are holding close and going home with.
Several weeks ago, throughout his State of the Union address, despite having just needlessly shuttered the US Government for more than a month over a moronic campaign promise Mexico was never going to pay for, Trump was cheered on like Reagan by a faceless group of rowdy GOP adolescents. Yesterday we met some of them, and became fully acquainted with the harm they are ready to foist even in a minority capacity. This bunch is the dregs of our barrel, who owe Trump whatever relevance they can garner themselves on his gilded coattails….. and they lead the GOP House Caucus! Their shameful actions yesterday leave no doubt, until they are further marginalized with decisive electoral rebuke, we will all suffer for their servility to US history’s laziest, most corrupt and relentlessly divisive President. It’ll get worse before it gets better. BC