Next Act

“From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia…could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.”

Abraham Lincoln

At least four in ten Americans are in the thrall of nihilism. There simply is no better word to describe the malady. They use no context for assessing the world other than hopeless cynicism engendered by a media platform dedicated to nothing else. The problems they see, the fears they constantly experience, the visceral anger they espouse and the bone-deep resentment they feel all emanate from one enemy…. progress, and the cabal who promotes and employs it with nothing but sinister motivation.

This bloc of fellow citizens was long ago overwhelmed by the relentless march forward the basic human inclination to adapt to and better coalesce with our surroundings produced. They are a societal tipping point of a breathless sprint forward by humankind in the 20th and 21st century that, in just several generations, changed more than dozens before it combined. The results have overwhelmed the capacity of many for tolerance, leaving them susceptible to vile and regressive messaging, which advancing technology has rendered proximate at all times. A cottage communications sector, that started simply trying to distinguish itself from the competition and carve out its share of a burgeoning news and information market, has morphed into a massive and nefarious force, dedicated only to continually fomenting the division that has secured it many billions of dollars.

The Republican Party tried in 2010 to manipulate this malevolent tide to its benefit, picking and choosing issues it could tweak to its advantage, the better to expand the base. But after initial success the monster quickly ate its master and in 2016 turned its attention outward. Bill Barr yesterday embodied the carnage we now experience as this mindless Godzilla tramples the essential foundations that gird our system of governance.

More than 45 years ago John Mitchell was educated on the personal ruin tied to mistaking the role of the Attorney General with that of a racketeer. Yesterday, Bill Barr seemed not a bit impressed by those lessons. In fact, he did a soiled President’s bidding with confidence, like a man who understood the race was won, and he had picked the right horse, Elliot Richardson he wasn’t!

The Mueller Report provides extensive documentation of the civic catastrophe suffered from Decision 2016. More than uncovering a near constant disregard for truth, and a casual embrace of illegal actions, it opens a window for a close look at the antithesis of responsible government. The report describes a ship of fools disdainful of any legal constrictions on its compulsive corruption. Over and over again investigators uncover inept schemes, undertaken with full criminal intent, modified only by their incompetence. Time and again ignorance and failure to realize illegal objectives seem to provide sanctuary from further prosecution, as if ineptitude entitles one to clemency. Mueller’s reticence to push his mandate’s envelope and prosecute the inner circle of Trumpism’s malfeasance runs afoul of expectations his partisans adopted, and increasingly leaned on as the President clarified hourly his disinterest in rising to the demands of his office.

The report places emphasis on DOJ legal opinion that the President is protected from indictment and Trump’s refusal to personally meet with investigators for deciding to merely provide facts without action or even any concrete recommendations. Yet and still, the report offers and entirely different picture than Barr has offered both times he was relied on, and the President emerges anything but unscathed and vindicated by the findings.

Barr declared Trump’s “sincere beliefs” more than enough to excuse ten meticulously documented episodes of trying to dismantle a process he previously expressed certainty would end his Presidency. And lost in the hideous muck Trump has dirged about any mention of Russian efforts to interfere in Decision 2016, Barr fully confirmed the entire exercise’s most basic premise: that what the President termed a conspiracy by Democrats to taint him was in fact a concerted foreign attack on US democracy. Even as he declared, in direct conflict with the publication he was summarizing, Trump was vindicated, Barr granted unarguable credibility to the process Trump had always shrilly denounced as a sham. That nobody even thinks to hold Trump accountable on that score punctuates how distracted we have become.

The report describes a campaign team open to uncovering “dirt” on its opponent by any means necessary. Far from ambivalence, team Trump members from George Papadopoulos and Carter Page, to inner circle members such as Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort exhibited unbridled enthusiasm toward any useful material Russian operatives could provide. Moreover, Mueller’s team clarifies Trump and his braintrust constantly cited, shared and retweeted pure lies conjured by Russian hackers and bots, not merely to tarnish Hillary Clinton, but to caustically divide American voters and weaponize established biases.

We can now be sure, once in office, Trump never subordinated his insecurity and paranoia to the national interest, never seriously considered anything but nurturing a bloc of support at the expense of national unity. From the outset, this Administration was flailing at enemies rather than governing, attacking basic institutions instead of promoting any constructive ideas to encourage consensus. Nothing has been done for any purpose other than to weaken opposition, discredit criticism. Regardless of how safe or precarious the Mueller Report leaves his legal position, no responsive human being can read it and believe Donald Trump has any genuine concern for much beyond machinations that serve to allay his destructive narcissism.

Incredibly, the report implies Trump was saved from himself by subordinates who refused to carry out his directives. White House Counsel Don McGahn was ready to resign rather than dismiss Mueller, and apparently refused to carry out the order. It’s now clear a big job requirement for this White House is a willingness to lie as casually as Trump, whatever the consequences. It seems the reluctance of a number of staffers, like short-timer national security aide KT McFarland, to create emails in line with Trump’s compulsions to create false stories – prominently on display as early as the transition – spared the President from liability.

Throughout all 448 pages of the Mueller Report one is struck by the chaotically unstructured nature of the Trump Administration. The entire operation seems a fully disjointed amalgam of independent operators pursuing anything but the coordination of policy. There is an air of distrust among the principles with nobody seeming sure of what they are doing. Nowhere in any page Trump is featured on is there much other than reproach and recrimination. Toxic is the ideal adjective. From the very beginning these were not happy campers. The last thing one senses from the report is any interest at all in serving the public.

It is a testament to both Trump’s ugly insecurities, as well as his cognizance that Barr’s acclamations do little to absolve him of the many misdeeds other prosecution teams are addressing, that his tweets attacking the Mueller enterprise continue unabated. However, it’s certain Barr’s deceit will be more than enough for the wretched core to embrace with the servile fervor they accord their champion. That stridency, coupled with 24/7 Fox/AM sedition, will create fierce headwinds for Congressional investigators as they bring Mueller to the Hill to add meat to bone. Barr no doubt has reinvigorated jackals like Jordan and Meadows to run interference for Trump. What we are about to see is the next act in our American tragedy, our steady march toward, as Lincoln put it, death by our own hand. One thing we know, and the Mueller Report has crystallized, Trump and the wretched core have no problem with that. BC