Author: BC

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, better known as Simpson-Mizzoli for its Senate and House authors, was a fully bipartisan piece of legislation. Authored by a Kentucky Democrat in the House and a Wyoming Republican in the Senate, The bill passed with solid majorities in both chambers and was dutifully signed by Ronald Reagan. It offered a path to citizenship for 2.7 million undocumented immigrants, while promising stiff penalties to employers who knowingly hired workers without credentials. Previously underground residents who had been in the US since before 1982 were given legal status, subject to payment of a fine, back taxes and a criminal background check. Moreover, agricultural workers and other seasonal employees depended on by various industries were granted legal status as well, in line with their employment routines. In other words the law reflected a wide variety of viewpoints and interests, and at the end of the day demonstrated the critical utility of compromise to address a complicated problem. By no means perfect – it kicked concerns about future immigrants overstaying their visas, which haunt us to this day, down the road – the law still represented the type of good faith efforts from both sides of the aisle now unimaginable by the most ardent optimist.

Indeed, Simpson-Mazzoli is an apt point of departure to consider just how deep we have sunk in our ability to govern ourselves. It also illustrates how dishonest the Fox/AM driven narrative that today’s GOP/conservative priorities are driven by fidelity to the Reagan Revolution, and how disingenuous it is to constantly brandish his sensibilities on the full range of challenges the country faces. Nothing lurches further from the truth, and to accept such nonsense merely exhibits either woeful ignorance or overt dishonesty. As the current government shutdown extends into its second week, Simpson-Mazzoli might as well have been a hundred years ago, so currently AWOL are the essential variables that made it possible.

It’s a safe bet Reagan, like the other former Presidents who survive him, would have loathed Trump. The simpering braggadocio, the parchment skin and juvenile attacks on opponents, the constant stream of lies; but most of all Reagan would have despised the Donald’s insincerity, his total refusal to proceed with any set of convictions past his own self-adulation. Of course, it was always absurd that Reagan, who limped away from his second term near completely addled by the dementia clinically diagnosed just a couple of years later, and a full blown scandal he never cleared up, would be canonized as the past glory and future light of the GOP. Yet and still, it is certain whatever qualities the Republican faithful embraced in him are not offered by Trump in even trace amounts. Like most all surrounding the GOP’s deification of Reagan in the first place, it’s all a figment of Rush and Mark Levin’s imagination, an expedient lie evolved by the necessity a scarcity of alternatives creates. After all, “the party of Reagan” sounds a lot better than the “party of Cheney” or “the party of Jesse Helms!”

Common sense dictates any organization’s best plan for strengthening itself focuses on increasing membership. Surely nothing Reagan ever said publicly about the GOP’s prospects took issue with a “big tent” approach to Republican vitality. Trump’s tweetstorms, spun and refined by Fox/AM’s endless parade of LifeLock hawkers, reflects a 180 degree different set of priorities. The lion’s share of air time revolves around who isn’t fit for membership in their exclusive club. When all is said and done, only Christian evangelicals in the Robert Jeffrees mode, NRA and Pro-Life fanatics, blue collar opponents of all things government, not to mention political correctness (read bigots), and unapologetic high income job creators need apply. Everyone else can exchange happy holiday greetings and go jump in a coal-slurried creek. It’s not a tent, it’s a lean to… and space is limited.

That nobody in this Ingrahamian orbit seems to understand and/or care that the President visits this well of wretched grievance on the hour only because his political survival, indeed even personal freedom, depends on it, and not due to a whiff of allegiance for the health of either the GOP or nation, only reinforces its self-destructive insularity. Parties in thrall of the likes of Steve King, Jim Jordon and Louie Gohmert don’t reflect much on motives or even false purposes, they simply want to know others are as whack as they are; as the song noted, feeling good is good enough.

Where this leads has more to do with how far the rest of us tolerate the daily malice emanating from a party in full descent. American politics is defined within a Blue said/Red said paradigm. This grants credibility to whatever is produced for no other reason than it requires a response, and once that response is given, the statement it parried is legitimized as worthy of an answer. Nothing can simply be ignored as beneath attention, or not up to snuff for discussion. Thus, more than 7000 Trump lies are addressed, which provides enough credibility for plenty of people to dispute they were lies in the first place… Catch-22 for the meme age!

It currently seems clear Republicans have no idea how to confront the affliction they suffer. Right now they appear content to deny it is an ill at all, instead pretending what emanates by the hour from the White House living quarters can simply be ignored as an endearing eccentricity from a POTUS “with his own way of doing things.” November clarified the folly of that view, but it seems that wasn’t painful enough. What will do the trick is a work in progress. Impeachment? Robust House Committee investigative work? Mueller? Full electoral repudiation in 2020, leaving only the most extreme elements of the party still employed? Who knows? Right now they are like compulsive gamblers still at the blackjack table come sunrise, house money exhausted hours ago, the nest egg now starting to be tapped. Problem? What problem? I’m having a blast!

Most every House Republican voice not fully wedded to Trumpism either retired or was asked to leave at the beginning of last month. They most recently fell in lock step with Trump’s nasty futility and passed an immigration package they knew was DOA in the Senate, abetting a government shutdown, as senseless as it was mean-spirited. Some did it out of abject cowardice, but most voted yea because they prefer the role of not actually having to govern, instead simply preening for Fox/AM and next cycle’s primary voters, and looking for loose change from the Adelson money float, like beads on Fat Tuesday.

Few feel inclined to take on Trump because few feel obliged to much other than reflecting the nihilist knee jerks of their constituents; that would require character they never possessed and surely has not been demanded by those who elected them. Wretched core qualifications are slight and do not change, ugly white grievance and resentment always butters the bread.

More and more there is a feeling of inevitability about impeachment. Anybody who doubts this vibe need only look for similarities of the current death spiral that characterizes this White House lately and Nixon’s final days. Trump feels terminal; certainly there is zero evidence of any 2019 governing agenda. Moreover, there is a tangible sensation of abandonment that leaves Trump totally isolated, alone in his desperation about Mueller and coming House oversight. Anything past day-to-day chaos in service to his immediate survival seems a bridge too far at this juncture. That doesn’t mean the GOP won’t keep carrying his water until some smoking gun revelation or attrition tipping point is finally reached, it’s what moorless entities do, but functional cooperation on policy priorities is over. This isn’t just lame duck… it’s dead man walking. As ever, the peril we all now face is how long that last mile takes to cover, and how much damage America and the world suffer in the meantime. BC

Nothing gets a tyrant’s blood pumping like a clean opportunity to wipe out large swaths of the opposition. At its heart autocratic rule is lazy. Instead of having to come up with ideas and sell populations on vision and it’s necessary details, the dictator merely has to excel at intrigue and deceit, weathering and eliminating the enemies he makes in the process. Purges and pogroms are much easier than election cycles and debates. Common sense dictates vulnerable democracies make the going easier for would be strong men because the opposition ties a hand behind their back by adhering to established rules and restrictions the usurper never gave a thought to obeying. Honor and decency are most always liabilities when confronting those with neither.

History is filled with examples of the right men doing the right thing at exactly the wrong time… and ending up a footnote in the storyline of a monster’s rise to absolute power. Today, while it is not hard to find tyrants no matter what part of the globe your eye wonders toward, Turkey is noteworthy because of its membership in NATO, presumably an alliance existing to protect democratic nations from encroachments ordered by unbound autocrats like Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s increasingly undemocratic President.

Surreality is now the watch word, as America First disdain targets “unfair” elected European leaders bent on taking advantage of our good graces, while simultaneously making common cause with an autocrat not at all interested in processes he views primarily as impediments to his top priority… consolidating and increasing his own fortunes. As Erdogan rises, Turkey’s Kurds, the country’s largest minority, stand to suffer most. Their very existence long labeled a threat to national security, Erdogan sees his fortunes tied to persecuting Kurdish interests as a unifying theme he can use to distract from his systematic attacks on what’s left of Turkish democracy. Of course, neither Donald Trump or the wretched core he owes his political survival to know a Kurd from Adam. More importantly, neither cares anything about the dangers they face at the hands of his “great friend” Erdogan, who it seems can call directly anytime and chat despite the fact that Turkey supports the very ISIL elements the US has 2000 men stationed in Syria to help destroy!

Trump’s outlook is always minute-to-minute, a rabid survey based more on visceral impulse than any coherent strategic paradigm. The more complicated the scenario, the less his determination to adequately understand it. Human rights concerns certainly don’t encroach on his vapid obtuseness because… what’s in it for him? Yet and still, remember, he has campaign pledges to keep. Forty years after Jimmy Carter learned how hard promising to make human rights a guiding principle of US policy could make geopolitical life, we have a Chief Executive who doesn’t give the subject even a first thought. Ignorance is more than bliss, it’s a constant of this Administration.

There is no killing field in the world flowing deeper red than Turkey’s neighbor, Syria. It is where the Arab Spring morphed into Hell’s winter and nobody has been spared. Russia and Iran have backed embattled dictator Bashar al Assad’s savage efforts to remain in power since the start, a relentless assault by any means necessary, including gas, to put down an uprising that would have succeeded long ago had his benefactors not backed him to the hilt regardless of atrocity. As the country was carved into military spheres of influence, the failing nation-state’s small Kurdish population were ceded their own turf and defended it with militias formidable enough to prove invaluable to American efforts to defeat ISIL, an ugly mutation of Iraq’s endless conflict. But this is the land of the enemy of my enemy, and an ISIL caliphate, while the preponderant bipartisan boogie man of US politics, represented to Erdogan an attractive thorn in the side of Kurdish ambitions. Thus, Turkey, in direct conflict with stated American national interests, has remained a steady ISIL patron.

Does Trump even understand this? Not likely, and Erdogan certainly isn’t going to be the one to explain it to him, not after the President gift wrapped him the best holiday gift he could ask for, hasty withdrawal of the US contingent from Syria. Doing so fully betrays the Syrian Kurds, who have been primarily responsible for “wiping out” -Trump’s term as he constantly crows about it as his unparalleled feat of leadership – a burgeoning Islamic caliphate. A recklessly paced US withdrawal will leave Kurdish territory in Syria sandwiched between remaining elements of ISIL, who Turkey will quickly move to revitalize, and Turkish forces with no problem crossing the border to destroy its enemy. No good deed goes unpunished more than one done for the most ungrateful being on Earth, who we saw fit to elect President.

Of course, those who DO understand its full implications, most notably now former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, recognize the move for the unfettered idiocy it conveys. Our credibility as an ally is a cumulative continuum that defines our status as leader of the free world. Trump cares not a fig about either; his is a soulless existence dedicated to minute-to-minute tallies of who are “fair” to him and, thus, his “great friends.” America First is allies last, treating them with the same degree of fickleness Trump is notorious for, and the calamity is difficult to overstate. US global leadership is now officially past tense.

The President stayed at the White House for Christmas because even he can appreciate how bad the optics of daily rounds with the PGA’s finest at Doral would be in the face of a government shutdown he alone made happen . He apparently became stir crazy enough to overcome his fright of visiting Middle East war zones and headed to Iraq, a decision no doubt as hasty as his determination to leave Syria. Speaking to troops at al-Assad Air Base, Trump incredibly criticized their chain of command, except of course himself, for dallying on his Syria order. He then unintentionally fingered his assertion that up to 30,000 remaining ISIL fighters were figments of US government and the UN’s imaginations as just another of his constant stream of lies by justifying our continued presence in Iraq as necessary to monitor the supposedly decimated group’s status. That metric will surely immediately begin to rise as his soulmate Erdogan moves swiftly to reinvigorate ISIL’s efforts to erase Syrian Kurds.

The attractiveness of Trumpism to its supporters has always rested on the same deadly sin that makes vibrant democracy so loathsome to authoritarians… common laziness. World leadership is hard complicated work that requires often thankless sacrifice; who needs it?! Who cares if Kurdish regulars died fighting a common enemy, in that part of the world its catch as catch can; America First offers nothing more than relationships of convenience, and we’ll decide when they are no longer practical. One ally is as expendable as the next. Moreover, it’s none of our affair how other people are mistreated; business is business. Besides, who’s really keeping track? Surely nobody when we were being played for chumps and paying all the freight.

The frightful legacy of the Trump Presidency promises many damaging elements, none worse than our tarnished reputation as a reliable ally. The day other nations fully reject us as anything other than the reflection of our petty and self-consumed current President, we will be grievously wounded and adrift in world then infinitely more dangerous than in October of 2016. In the meantime, most Americans won’t care at all as Kurds in Syria fight for their survival in the wake of breathtaking betrayal by one man, who surely won’t give it a passing thought. They will join countless others on an ever growing list of those who learned the hard way relying on Donald Trump is a very bad situation that he will always make worse. BC

Believe it or not I am always looking for good things to consider about the GOP. Trump’s a lost cause because his disdain for the job he holds, not to mention his compulsion to lie, more than offsets virtually anything positive he may inadvertently create. However, Congress is a large body, and if you can find nothing good about half of its membership then we really are at rock bottom.

One glimmer I felt hopeful about was what seemed a determined effort by GOP conservatives to rein in ridiculous farm subsidy payments that long ago gave up on any pretense of actually alleviating genuine hardship on our fruited plain. Instead they had become nothing other than graft goodies for agribusiness and wealthy donors with substantial rural land holdings deemed farms for the sole purpose of cashing in on government pork.

Of course, the nasty and mean-spirited obsession with foisting all manner of abasement on food stamp recipients remained a primary talking point when GOP Agriculture Committee members preened for Fox/AM. Yet and still, these days ANY indications of standing up to PAC monied lobbys by Republicans should not be discounted.

In fact, what was on the table in this regard was embarrassingly modest in the scheme of things. After all, the entire package approached $1 trillion, so trimming the fat off roughly $20 billion in annual subsidies shouldn’t have been that big a deal, right? Wrong!

At the start of negotiations things looked positive. Speaker Paul Ryan made clear the leadership backed subsidy reform by declaring Congress “shouldn’t be giving corporate farms, these large agribusiness companies, subsidies. I strongly believe that.” Indeed, out of the gate there were 18 separate proposals for reforming a system that had come to resemble nothing less than graft, quid pro quos paid for on the campaign trail.

Meanwhile, parallel to subsidy sanity was SNAP ugliness. Pursued under the mantle of “restoring integrity” to what for most recipients is a critical safety net, GOP negotiators led by Sen. Pat Roberts constantly fed the myth of welfare queen food stamp scammers which plays so well during appearances with the Fox prime time lineup.

Of course, as is the case with most Freedom Caucus crusades, the actual facts tell a completely different story. Fraud, while increasing in recent years, remains minuscule in the SNAP program, where families earning $16 K per year lose eligibility, and the average beneficiary receives a mere $125 per month. Moreover, data strongly supports the contention the program benefits exactly who it is supposed to…. those struggling to make ends meet while working or in between jobs. More than 80 percent of SNAP recipients had a job either the year before, during or the year after benefiting from the program. Alas, facts haven’t guided most GOP activity for years, and these negotiations were no exception. Forcing work requirements on the 49-59 age bracket of beneficiaries, those most likely to suffer serious health issues, as well as parents of 6-12 year old children, those most likely to need to stay home, was the disgust du jour this go round. Rep. K Michael Conaway of, where else, Texas called it tough love. “We believe breaking the poverty cycle is the only way forward,” intoned the paternal Odessa millionaire.

But ok, bullying nastiness aside, at least they were taking on the big money and pruning those multi-million dollar big business and donor giveaways. I mean at least some of those 18 proposals would make their way into the final package. Let’s be realists, how about half? A quarter? Two or three?! Frickin One?!!!

The final $867 billion package contained exactly zero of the proposals for trimming subsidies. Some were actually increased!! One amendment sought to trim the net income of couples receiving a subsidy from $1.8 million to $1.4 million, really nothing more than requiring creative CPA ideas at tax time… it went nowhere. In fact, the final bill actually allowed more distant kin, such as cousins and nephews to get in on the action.

Of course, emerging from the backrooms where the deal was hammered out, Republican negotiators were not anxious to discuss how their ambitious subsidy reform agenda was whittled down to nothing. Instead, they crowed how proud they were of manfully forcing “program integrity” on the grift-laden SNAP guidelines. After all, better to abase 40 million of your fellow citizens over $125.00 per month than break a sweat telling a millionaire or agribusiness CEO that their gravy boat is not quite as full this fiscal year. Lawmaking is all about choices.

So my search continues. But fear not, I am forever vigilant to spy pristine lily pads in the swamp. And none of this is to say Democrats weren’t complicit in this monstrosity of a farm bill, they were. Debby Stabenow of MI, like Roberts, has trouble with “no” when big money does the asking. However, the critical difference is this: Stabenow also speaks for those the GOP only views as chattel for enhancing their wretched Fox/AM bona fides, to be preyed upon whenever political advantage beckons. As for subsidy queens, they don’t appear to have much to fear from either side, least of all “principled conservatives” who talk tough and love to bully those with nothing, but bend over quicker than anybody when ordered back into line. BC

It’s doubtful any situation could be worse than having one’s direct well being wholly dependent on the whims of Donald Trump. The Apprentice, primarily responsible for our current national crisis, used the formula of contestants placed in just that situation and milked the ugliest human inclinations they displayed in the “boardroom,” begging our now President not to literally kick them to the 5th Avenue curb, for Nielson ratings relevance. Of course, what’s guilty pleasure humorous in prime time is now ruinous in real time. The crisis is here, nothing to debate. The least informed, most amoral and hypocritical, nastiest and self-centered political bloc since the Civil War pulls the strings of a POTUS with identical qualities, ultimately in service to a foreign adversary who likely forced his candidacy for the office he occupies in the first place. Whew! That’s a mouthful. Tough to contract a national nightmare.

It’s now just this simple: if you aren’t horrified by what the news offers us about this White House, your informers hail from the deepest bowels of Fox/AM. Congrats, reasonable Americans are at your mercy. Or, you are part of an equally deleterious group of citizens so intent on ignoring anything outside of their personal life narrative/struggle that militant insularity is the path you would rather die than abandon; currently, we are your subjects, too…. enjoy. The rest of us are left to suffer the chaos psychopathic personalities typically offer those unfortunate enough to dwell within their sphere of influence. Worse than a stick in the eye!

One of the most surreal and impactful scenes in movie history occurs in Apocalypse Now, after Martin Sheen’s lead character hooks up with a boat patrol crew and heads way up river to the intestines of the Vietnam War. Eventually, they come upon a situation straight out of hell, as a platoon without any leadership at all runs amok, with no rhyme or reason, aimless in a playground of death and destruction. It’s movie magic that creates nightmares, but we can awake and realize it’s fiction and it’s over. This is real, and we’re all in it up to our knickers!

General Mattis’ letter of resignation is a masterpiece of understatement. While its essentials are eloquent and constructive – the exact opposite of its recipient’s means of communication – the thesis is two big middle fingers directed toward a former employer he could no longer abase himself for. All adults have officially left the building, Fox is in the house! Government by Miller and Bolton, Pompeo and Conway. When Mick Mulvaney is guarding the codes, one best seek distance… plenty of it.

Anyone wanting to make sure they don’t overeat this Yuletide season merely needs to repeatedly ponder who Trump may land on to replace Mattis. Secretary of Defense Hegseth?! Levin?! The crazy cross-eyed Judge whats-her-name?! Even Roger Ailes is rolling in his grave. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

Richard Nixon was forced to resign under a cloud the growing list of charges against Trump surpassed long ago. And say whatever you want about Nixon, he was a highly educated man, a deep and fully informed geopolitical strategist, and, for all of his insecure dishonesty, in the end at least cognizant of the depth of his responsibilities. Of course, Trump possesses not an inkling of any of those qualities; we are way up river with Martin Sheen.

To those who want to make some argument that the policies he is pursuing aren’t all that bad. For example, there is a point to be made we shouldn’t have one toe in Syria, or it’s time Europe did more for its own security. You all haven’t been listening. Process and continuity are everything, and neither now exists. Try to turn a container ship on a dime and everything falls into the ocean, and believe me, Queeg’s got nothing on our imbecile. Without a Presidential decisionmaking process, with its numerous filters and safeguards, its diverse collection and analysis of information, its policy working group recommendations, rigorous executive debate, you get what we now have, policy by whim. At that point the world stands at the mercy of the qualifications and temperament of who is calling the shots…. nuff said.

There is not an indicator available that suggests the Trump Administration will do anything other than further implode. Trump has always isolated himself, it’s what wretched malcontents do. Albert Einstein could offer nothing he would record and learn from. By now there is no mystery. Shameless self-promotion, one lie after another, ceaseless attacks on anyone not wholly sycophantic, constant whining about being victimized or unappreciated, zero preparation for public remarks, zero interest in learning issues or policy, full indifference to the standards and traditions of his office, full determination to divide the country… the list is endless and certain.

It’s never been about the daily Trump inanities, or even the normalized disdain for the pluralism he is supposed to protect, the real danger is the catastrophe rendered exponentially more possible under his sorry watch. An economic meltdown, regional military conflagaration, 9/11 type terrorist venture, all will force acquiescence to whatever this White House brings to the table because such crises offer no other alternatives. At that point Mueller no longer matters, checks and balances don’t apply, no other condiments will be available to make our lot less distasteful… a shit sandwich will be all the menu offers.

In short, this buggy is heading toward a cliff and at least a third of its passengers are psyched about its direction. The rest of us better figure out fast how to regain the controls because parachutes aren’t available. Why more of this nation’s governing “establishment,” – those in attendance at George HW’s funeral etc. – aren’t making overt efforts to remove Trump befuddles and worries me. Perhaps the “deep state” and remote nooks and recesses on Capitol Hill have some things going on to speed his departure and prevent calamity. Who knows? One thing is certain… all of the fail safes and layers of protection we imagined kept us safe from Trump’s worst last January have fallen away one by one. We are all now in the boardroom. BC

A wonderful woman I know well lost her son to a drug overdose several years ago. I had watched him grow into a handsome and charismatic young man; his death was shocking and, as one could imagine, devastated his mother. Like many other parents of kids lost to opioids, she has assuaged her grief by jumping head-long into support activities, creating a group that meets on a regular basis to confront the opioid epidemic’s ruinous reach into families, and advocate for education and understanding of the disease that is addiction. Of course, she uses social media, primarily Facebook, to spread her message, detail her activities, and otherwise bestow the wisdom her personal experience has taught her. Like so many others in her situation, she clearly finds it personally therapeutic to both help prevent others from suffering her heartbreak, as well as aid those in the throes of similar tribulations endure the plight she now knows all too well. Oh, and like an overwhelming majority of West Virginia voters, she strongly supports the President. 

On March 23, 2017 the Admiral Processing Plant in Boone County, W.Va., leaked more than 5000 gallons of coal slurry into Crooked Run, a tributary of the Coal River. The spill happened upstream from several municipal water intake systems, potentially poisoning drinking water for Lincoln County residents. Yet another spill occurred a week later during cleanup operations, the result of a pump that failed moving contaminated water. Water samples taken at the site came back showing maximum toxicity. Black Castle Mining Company, responsible for the spill, was issued a “notice of violation” by the WVA Department of Environmental Protection, which no doubt had Black Castle executives shaking in their suspenders. And while area water treatment officials maintained tests on tap water returned “in line with normal values,” it’s a sure bet bottled water sales in affected areas will remain high for more than the foreseeable future. How many Lincoln County residents will now or eventually become fierce and committed defenders of the environment as a result of their Erin Brockovich moment is unclear, but it’s likely safe to say few still ignore the issue of relaxing coal slurry regulations, a Trump EPA priority. 

One word is ever found amidst the bromides and true substance alike of our chaotic national political discussion… freedom. It populates most every campaign speech, punctuates endless comment sections, and generally begins and ends the assessments  of where things stand, how far things have deteriorated, and what we should aspire to. The concept of freedom is ubiquitous to our national identity. But for my money what most Americans place at the top of the list concerning how freedom should define their existence reflects nothing more than the ambitions of citizens residing in autocracies, with no pretense regarding the concept at all – the freedom to remain blissfully oblivious! 

Nihilism won out in 2016 and we pay the price for its victory every hour. That we suffer a President more notable for unprecedented tirades and narcissistic preoccupation speaks to the utter indifference of the electorate he won over with a campaign focused on nothing more than reversing a laundry list of grievances tied to his predecessor, who earned the disdain of millions more for his skin tone than anything substantive he pursued while in office. 

Community relies on acceptance that actions and policies have consequences everybody shares in. The idea that certain groups have it coming to them, or somehow act in ways deserving of special disdain for what are supposed to be uniform rights and protections requires purposeful ignorance, a willful desire not to pay attention to events one has convinced themself can’t apply to their situation. 

Figuring it’s not possible that you or yours could ever live down river from a coal slurry spill, so hearing Trump soulessly attack responsible environmental safeguards as “job killing” regulations on the campaign trail doesn’t register or even resonates with you, requires a level of willful ignorance fully at odds with the minimum requisites of democracy. It’s an abdication of civic responsibility, capable of tolerating our worst, which we are. 

For decades heroin addiction and fatal overdoses were the stuff to justify “a war on drugs” and mass incarceration of inner city minorities,  not to provide resources for education and addiction recovery. Why? An easy question with obvious answers. But now “our” kids are dying and the issue’s suddenly far more complicated, more heartbreaking, something worthy of involvement. Gun violence. Climate Change. Even healthcare.  All seem increasingly relevant and harder to ignore. The price of pretending the world effects only those we don’t need to worry about carries a steeper price tag than once thought. The  world eventually knocks on all of our doors. 

Trump’s approval rating in West Virginia in October was 58 %, among the highest of any state in the nation. Of course West Virginia is a coal mining state, but that industry continues its decline as the world shifts away from fossil fuels, and easy to mine veins have been exhausted. In fact, since 1990 coal jobs provide a sliver of West Virginia occupations, exponentially outpaced by government and healthcare employment, two top targets of Trump grievance.

And while West Virginia is still ranked at the bottom of the nation as a state to do business in, it has consistently led the country in one category since 2015…. the rate of opioid overdoses. Most all agree the the Trump Administration’s response to the opioid crisis has been worse than sluggish. “Lack of leadership” is the phrase most often heard to describe Trump’s performance.

Such criticism is restrained compared to common views of the President’s role on the environment. Forget about Scott Pruitt, Trump’s scandal-ridden choice to lead the EPA, who he still defends even after he was run out of DC on a rail, there is not a meaningful clean water or air protection on the books that is not in this Administration’s crosshairs. Surprise! West Virginia, though relatively sparsely populated, ranks 6th in the nation for dirtiest air and water.

Trump enjoyed holding rallies throughout West Virginia in the run up to this year’s mid-terms. Defeating blue dog Democratic Senator Joe Manchin became a top priority for the President. Aside from gratuitous exclamations about “rescuing” the coal industry, no talking point received more raucous applause than Trump’s border wall. Indeed, he could barely even start in on the issue before being interrupted by prolonged “build that wall” chants from his country roads faithful. Meanwhile, West Virginia ranks 48th in the nation in Hispanic population. Less than 1 % of the state’s residents are immigrants from Mexico or Central America….. go figure.

The crisis of US politics is said to be in large part the result of too many citizens believing government does not reflect their priorities. But what exactly are those concerns? Looking at West Virginia, and the politicians its voters prefer, one would be forgiven for simply scratching their head and professing to not have a clue what the hell is going on. Or maybe assuming rationality by parsing objective facts and figures is a dead end. Maybe intangible emotions rule the day. Maybe narratives created out of thin air by failed djs and hucksters selling gold shares and lifelock subscriptions tell the true tale. Either way, the many benefits freedom is meant to bestow don’t seem to be enhancing the daily routines of West Virginians very much. Yet and still, they are free to continue to ignore that unfortunate fact, perhaps while heading to the Walmart for another case of Poland Spring. BC

“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

There is little doubt the greatest blessing bestowed on the United States is geography. Two oceans assure our national security. Of course, nuclear proliferation being what it is, coupled with ghoulish biological technology now available, we have become far more vulnerable to foreign danger than anyone should be comfortable with. Yet and still, no foreign tanks will be parading up Pennsylvania Avenue anytime soon… unless we invite them. At the end of the day we the people are what we have been since just past the turn of the 19th century, potentially our own worst enemy.

It’s now as clear as a bottle of Stoli that Russia engaged the Trump campaign and incoming Administration on numerous fronts with multiple people. Russian interests joined an army of social media trolls to both get Trump elected and discredit charges of collusion and overt corruption once he was sworn in. The evidence is mounting that it is reasonable to suspect this White House actively collaborated and may still be cooperating with the Kremlin. While the President rails daily about witch hunts and deep state cabals, more and more pieces of the collusion puzzle are coming together, and they present a chilling picture of foreign influence that becomes harder by the day to refute.

From probes aimed to feel out an enthusiastic Donald  Jr. to an actual spy working with NRA staff and the GOP donor network to meetings in Russia with Carter Paige and now a Moscow building project Trump himself was involved with deep into the campaign, revelations are emerging one after the other, and they now connect a narrative that points to an ambitious effort by Moscow to help Trump gain and stay in power.  However, the smoking gun that most clarifies Trump’s treachery won’t be found in any efforts to aid in his election, or spin his corruption, it’s going to be found in what motivated him to become a candidate in the first place. That is where the unprecedented sedition will be discovered; perhaps it already has been. To do so will require exploring the full extent of Trump’s business failures, and how financially compromised they left him. 

Allen Weisselberg’s relationship with Donald Trump goes back 30 years, to a time when Fred Trump, Donald’s father, underwrote most everything his reckless son pursued. In fact, Weisselberg began his career as an accountant for elder Trump, eventually working his way up to CFO of the entire Trump Organization. Nobody, including the careless and disinterested other trustee of the Trump Organization, Donald Jr.,  knows more about the forensics of the Donald’s smoke and mirrors “fortune” than Weisselberg. That he testified this summer before a grand jury after being granted full immunity and has been stashed away for safe keeping surely portends damaging revelations are on the way. 

You don’t have to be Columbo to recognize Trump was vulnerable to compromise. Only those without interest in the facts don’t appreciate how truly awful his business performance was through the decades. It’s now understood by all but his wretched core that the fable of young Donald building an empire from a quickly refunded $1 million loan from his father couldn’t have been further  from the truth. In fact, the New York Times exhaustively exhumed more than $400 million Fred provided to cover the costs of one failure after another by a son more interested in nightlife and fame than the toil necessary to succeed. His father joined every other investor in the sad fraternity of those who lost millions supporting a plethora of belly up Trump schemes. That Fred Trump found tax fraud as a way to profit from his son’s incompetence only enhances any theories about unsavory doings. 

Weisselberg seems the only one who knows where all the bodies lie, and if he accepted full immunity, Mueller’s team received a complete map. It’s a good bet that map points east, where Trump was forced to go for liquidity after fully wearing out his welcome here. After all, you can only stiff so many vendors, renege on so many agreements, default on so much debt before you become a pariah. Trump became persona non grata in American financial circles, dismissed as far more trouble than he was worth….the Roy Cohn of business. 

Germany’s Duetche Bank inexplicably extended him a line of credit in the late 90s, when no US institution would let him in the lobby. Subsequent revelations of sketchy connections between Duetche Bank and Russian oligarchs provides the landscape to place Trump as a vehicle for laundering kleptocratic gains. That Trump eventually showed up with hundreds of millions in mystery cash to purchase in full at top dollar – a previously unimaginable prospect – golf properties with no profitability in sight seems more than suspicious; it’s a red flag atop a blaring siren.  All of which meant nothing more than the craven criminality of a grifter bent on maintaining both his ultra-opulent lifestyle and the lie it bolstered… until somebody in Russian Intelligence sold Putin on having their very own US Presidential candidate. 

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has tolerated the obfuscation of his GOP counterpart Devin Nunes for just about two years now. Nunes, perhaps Trump’s most overt facilitator in Congress, has done everything in his office’s power to derail and misguide the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into possible Russian ties to the Trump campaign. Things will change dramatically in the next session. 

Schiff made clear yesterday his desire to examine Duetche Bank’s relationship with Trump as well as the head scratching all cash purchase of Turnberry Golf Club in Scotland. The increasingly unhinged tone of Trump toward the enhanced scrutiny heading his way betrays growing desperation. He appears content to pursue yet another diversion by shutting down the government and hightailing it down to Palm Beach for the holidays. It’s a safe bet the Mar-A-Lago crowd, which always seems to reinforce his worst inclinations, will have him ready for battle when he returns to the White House. That, coupled with increasing signs Mueller may be prepared to lay out all his cards on the table, means things may finally come to a head, and America may have to face the specter that it elected a Manchurian President.

More than 80 percent of Iowa Republicans approve of Trump’s job performance, and two-thirds make clear they will vote for him again. Whatever facts come forward, no matter how devastating, it’s not likely to impress millions of Americans who view anything deleterious to Trump as, not only lies manufactured to harm their champion, but sedition meant to destroy their country. They are informed by only one narrative and are unapologetic about the select number of news and information sources they trust. In other words, we are about to experience  just how prescient old Abe Lincoln was, and confront what has always been our nation’s most ominous threat, a danger even our geographical blessings are powerless to stop…. Us! BC

The search for perfection is a natural human inclination. To label with confidence that with no flaws provides a metric we can fully trust for all manner of endeavor. To know the highest standard also provides hope and optimism about the potential which hovers all around us, helping to balance out and cope with the low points our world constantly proves are possible. Finally, seeking perfection is a constructive intellectual pursuit because assessing possible examples, all at least great things worth noting, keeps us humble and decent, providing a counterweight to gratuitous celebration of what has been achieved before and making clear the folly of resting on our laurels. 

If perfection is possible, Alex Honnold’s  mountaineering qualifies, specifically his rope-free solo ascent of Yosemite’s El Capitan in June of last year. It is a feat of such mastery and expertise, prepared for with such exacting detail, for the highest stakes possible, that it seems more of a challenge to argue why it isn’t a perfect accomplishment. 

Free Solo, a National Geographic documentary chronicling Honnold’s meticulous quest to attempt what nobody has ever even seriously contemplated, is both beautiful and excruciatingly suspenseful. For almost two hours we get to know a real-life Jedi Knight, a fellow human of such innate wisdom, discipline, bravery and expertise that it’s not easy to relate to him. Honnold, of course, doesn’t process fear and personal danger like the rest of us, but he carries around the same doubts and personal struggles we are all familiar with. Humanizing this extraordinary Skywalker-like individual is at the top of the production’s list of successes.

El Capitan is a sheer 3000 foot vertical rock face located in Yosemite National Park. It was first summited in 1958  by a 3-person team led by Warren Harding; it took them 47 days of “siege” efforts – meticulously placing pitons and ropes, toil measured in hard won feet. Basically, they constructed a rope system to the top. The first “free” ascent, using ropes only to prevent falling, not as aids in climbing, occurred in 1988. It took Todd Skinner and Paul Piana nine days to summit, but the gates were opened and free climbing El Capitan is now on every world-class mountaineer’s bucket list. Yet and still, the idea of soloing El Capitan without any safety system, total free climb, one mistake and you’re dead, has never been anything but some aimless, probably drunken, fireside chatter…. until Alex Honnold. 

It is a testament to Honnold’s well earned reputation as the world’s best free solo climber that his ambition to attempt El Capitan au natural was taken seriously by the mountaineering world’s elite. Tommy Caldwell, a legendary free soloist, spends hours climbing El Capitan with Honnold as he painstakingly plots his route. Yet and still, Caldwell betrays full ambivalence at the prospect of his protege, who he loves like a younger brother, attempting something so dangerous.

When Honnold stops his initial attempt early on after simply not feeling it, there is a palpable air that all concerned hope he will come to his senses. Losing him weighs heavily on everybody, of course none more than his wonderful and dedicated girlfriend Sanni, who understands she will never outweigh the lure of impossible challenge in his life.

One day Honnold wakes up and decides enough is enough… let’s do this. To witness his attempt, documented by a crew who can hardly watch what they are filming, is to grasp how some of our species, a sliver, are capable of focusing every fiber of being on execution at the expense of fear. While we all look away, dreading the worst, he is enjoying every minute of an experience he appreciates as unrivaled, and has accepted the full consequences it will bestow, one way or the other. It is more than special, more than extraordinary, it’s…. perfect! 

We are now struggling through days on end of debating whether or not the most important individual in our Republic can get any worse than he was yesterday. Watching a fleet of gaslighters spin the unacceptable as not that bad forces one to fret the standards of excellence we at least hoped our system would pursue may no longer be possible.

Free Solo provides a welcome two hour respite from the descent so many seem bent on normalizing, and through the incredible narrative of one special outlier, punches us in the nose as to what our kind is capable of doing. Honnold’s greatness imbibes all avenues – vision, determination, relentless preparation, fearlessness, and most vitally, execution. Moreover, he is a man living a life of no excuses with an honesty, while often painful in its forthrightness, that accepts full responsibility for the choices it engenders. Today, right now, such qualities are more than refreshing, and recognizing and celebrating them is more than exhilarating, it is vital. That they exist and are fully documented for us to see provides a tangible alternative to the depths we’ve been mining since before last January. Just like Honnold’s previously incomprehensible accomplishment, it’s all about merely moving a step at a time upward toward our best, rather than sliding headlong downward toward the worst we continue to allow. BC

In Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, perhaps the greatest American novel ever published, legendary Texas Rangers Gus Mccrae and Woodrow Call are forced to hang their former colleague Jake Spoon after catching him riding with an outfit of horse rustlers and man burners. Young Newt Dobbs, who aides in bringing Jake to justice, but can’t believe his hero would do such a thing, declares to Gus afterward “Jake weren’t no killer!” Gus, as close to a father as Newt has known, explains wisely that Jake had no bearings and “any breeze could blow him.” Today our nation is addled by a Republican Party consisting in the main of Jake Spoons, moorless waifs of limited character and even less concern for the nation’s welfare. 

Just how morally aimless and without honor this group truly is seems about to be put to the test, as the wretched bully who has browbeat them the last couple of years heads toward his own reckoning. That he will make support of his corruption and general malfeasance a litmus test for what constitutes a GOP member in good standing is a sure bet; Trump’s itchy Twitter finger stands ready to isolate and denounce any who stray from his cause. Tuesday’s “meeting” with Pelosi and Schumer signaled a new challenge Trump demonstrated clearly he is not interested in meeting… negotiating with the opposition.

To be fair the President may do a better job meeting halfway on anything if he actually believed it was in his political and personal interest to do so. And that appears far from the case. To Trump’s eyes owning a government shutdown carries no risk at all because it is wildly popular with his wretched core and Fox/AM. Hannity, Dobbs, Ingraham et al have been beating the drums with glee over the prospect for months now, likening it to a Churchillian moment of leadership. Does the GOP rank and file in the House and Senate feel the same way?  Are they ready to bet their political future on Trump’s wretched core, take the 32 % for a test drive and see what she can do?  Do they even have a choice anymore? Besides, last month’s elections washed most who walked the wire between reason and visceral grievance out to sea. The House GOP is now near completely a back bencher caucus, uninterested in much more than getting booked for rants on the Fox/AM circuit, strutting its pro- gun and anti-abortion bona fides,  and getting a sip or two from the seemingly endless shit river donor trough. This is not a party exhibiting much concern for its future prospects which, in between the mortality of its most devoted and established trends in US heterogeneity, seem bleak. Nothing grand about this old party, more a terminally ill patient on life support.

The last major American political party to dissolve was the Whigs, who failed to withstand the chasm created by the issue of slavery in emerging western US territories. With the election of Abraham Lincoln the Republicans replaced the Whigs, providing the political platform to oppose secession and teaming locally with remaining Whig elements after the Civil War to pursue Reconstruction. Were today’s GOP to fail under the weight of its missteps trying to tip toe for advantage around the bigotry and nihilism of the Tea Party bloc that morphed effortlessly into Trump’s wretched core, turning the “big tent” into “white Christian only,” it’s difficult to imagine what will replace it.

The constant refrain that the Democrats are hostage to extreme elements of their own just doesn’t hold water; neither Pelosi or Schumer smack at all of unbridled progressivism. The ease with which the seasoned Pelosi brought to heel dozens of new insurgents, who had made replacing her topic A of their primary campaigns, underscores that, at least in one of our major political parties, there is still recognition of the necessary differences between getting elected and governing. Call it selling out if you wish, but Trump reminds us hourly where  “promises made, promises kept” gets us. New blood has been infused, and their agenda will surely be heard in 2020. For now national survival is paramount. 

No, it appears any new iteration arising from the ashes of the post-Trumpian GOP will be mostly the refugees displaced by the disaster he both represented and accelerated. But do the RINOs have either the resources or vitality to create an alternative to the white nationalist monstrosity they either abandoned or were unable to maintain viability within?  More importantly, are any of them really that far removed from the GOP mainstays now in charge?  What do they have to offer that is so fundamentally different from current party platforms?

Climate change acceptance? Not really, the party had lurched toward skepticism of scientific consensus well before Trump came on the scene, as fossil fuel interests railed about carbon neutral and their bottom line. Immigration? GOP hardliners have been fouling up the works on comprehensive reform since Reagan.  “Amnesty” has been a dirty word on the right side of the aisle  for 40 years now, non-European refugees the scapegoats for longer. Only the overt bigotry of Trump’s rhetoric and obsession with an idiotic wall as panacea distinguish him from a long line of predecessors. Civil Rights and diversity? While it’s hard to go anywhere but up from this Administration’s ugliness on the matter, note the GOP was home to Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms before Jeff Sessions and Tom Cotton. John McCain himself had trouble supporting an MLK holiday. Supply Side follies? Emerging doctrine since Reagan. Supporting Repressive Arab regimes? Please. Abortion? Pro-Choice Republicans were a critically endangered species in the 90s.

The more one examines the GOP past and present, the more one appreciates what we see now is simply what it appears to be… the grotesque inadequacy of the President they fielded, and his apologists, taints the agenda most all never had a problem supporting. In other words, there no longer exists the possibility of creating a “moderate conservative” brand. It’s all about style rather than substance. What they left, they helped create. Louie Gohmert simply leaves less to the imagination and rants more. The song remains the same. 

Rand Paul and Lindsey Graham are currently in contortions explaining how Michael Cohen is a whole nother body from Donald Trump; anything he did was his own doing. Oh, and even if the President did order everything, it’s merely a civil matter, “weaponizing” the otherwise innocuous “personal’ transaction as a felony only reinforces what a destructive enterprise Mueller’s fishing expedition has become. Black is white, night is day. The flailing spasms of a narrative cornered with nowhere to go. Expect more of the same on the collusion pieces, and obstruction, and money laundering. Inane explanation followed by illogical rationalization… the death throes of a party in decline. With nothing to replace it… just more hot air to blow its fleet of Jake Spoons  in the preferred direction.

Yet and still, anybody listening to Freedom Caucus members act nasty to stem cell researchers in committee hearings understands, had John Kasich trumped Trump back in the spring of 16’ and eaten HRC’s lunch in November, his GOP would have been doing most of the same things this one is doing, less the defending an unhinged narcissist thing. The winds blowing them would surely have been less severe, but they would have headed in that general direction just the same, with similar intentions.

In other words, this really still is your father’s GOP. And to those just now exclaiming enough is enough, it’s useful to recall what Gus told Jake as his old associate pleaded he had nothing to do with rustling and killing, but merely “fell in with those boys to make it through the territory without getting scalped.” “Sorry Jake,” Gus replies, “but any man go along with six killings is making his escape a little slow.” BC

Growing up there  wasn’t much my father and I didn’t argue about. Everything from the shape my bedroom was in to my prolific appetite was up for discussion. Many a family dinner fell victim to my desire to get in the last word about some controversy that didn’t exist an hour before. “Just shut up and let it go…,” my unfortunate younger brother, John frequently intervened, hoping for the basic human right of eating my mom’s fantastic meatloaf in peace.

A classic was when my dad, in a rare moment of frugality decided my brothers and I were drinking too much milk, and rationed us to two glasses per dinner. Well, my acute sense of injustice alerted, I was not about to suffer limits on God’s bounty, even if they were imposed by the guy who paid the bills! I finished my second glass before even starting on the mashed potatoes, and all eyes were upon me, including those of my oppressor,  daring me to step over the line in the sand. As I stood to head toward the kitchen, prepared  to instigate a domestic dispute that would surely rock Farnsworth Drive, an epiphany took hold and forced clarity on my narcissism… I was acting like a jerk! I don’t pay a cent for anything! Who am I to feel so privileged I can demand as much as I please?! I sat back down, my mom exhaled in relief. I looked at my dad and in my most supplicanted tone offered “can I have more milk if I do some extra chores?” To which the man who created me, who bore my constant need to push the envelope of his reasonable disciplinary edicts,   who sheparded me through life, despite my near constant efforts to make things tougher…. that saint of a man looked down over his worn glasses and answered simply: “What are you talking about?! You don’t do anything around here  to begin with!” 

So much for memory lane and the wonderful diplomacy seeped within the Carey lineage. The point is finding things to argue about is as easy as picking losers at the racetrack; it is innate and never far from view. That it took so long for television and radio executives to discover the road to profits “debate” represented is a great mystery that surely spared us much societal trauma, and perhaps enabled our Post-War society to evolve free of the moronic populism we now suffer. 

Yet and still, there is nobility in disagreement. I doubt anybody ever described democracy as the protector of freedom because it allows everybody to agree with each other. Rather, it provides for peaceful and constructive disagreement. We can discuss things instead of fighting about them. We can finish dinner together after a political discussion and take things into the den over dessert… rather than the front lawn over bloody knuckles. Er, well… you get my drift. 

That we are going to disagree is a given; the substance, or more importantly lack of it, of what we are currently at odds about seems most relevant as our polarization continues apace. That Trump’s wretched core, of course heartened by Fox/AM, now equates any and all disgust with his daily hit parade of gratuitous outrages as “liberal hatred” clarifies both points. We are now actually arguing about behavior that until two and a half years ago it was assumed wouldn’t be tolerated for a minute in a POTUS, and it does not appear possible to carry on such “conversations” in a civil manner.

Trump true believers, most of whom were generous with their anger toward all manner of Obama provocation, from the tan suit to the awkward salute to having the unmitigated gall  of empathizing with black fathers of unarmed sons slain by vigilantes, now enjoy being the ones calm and in control, wondering aloud why there is so much vitriol over things that don’t matter. Afterall, it’s just a tweet! Sure, he could act more presidential, but it’s policy that counts. 

Do they have a point?  Nothing Trump does surprises anymore, and he’s sure not going to change… why keep obsessing about it? I have a neighbor with a Facebook page from hell, all in on everything Trump and GOP. It operates on two levels: one, gaslight Trump’s peccadillos as trivial in the scheme of things; two, highlight all form of left wing excesses as the reasonable mirror to Trump’s conduct. Trump may have tweeted his uncle was a scientist so, naturally, Climate Change is a hoax, but look at this Yale freshman screaming how ashamed she is to be white! Apples to Apples.

Meanwhile, almost $2 trillion was gift wrapped to upper income brackets at full employment, and the EPA doesn’t think scrubbers are necessary anymore for coal-fired power plants. The military budget is now well over $700 billion and lame duck legislatures in Wisconsin and Michigan seek to hobble the mandate voters clearly put forth. Maybe we are allowing Trump’s hourly inanity to dim the forest for the trees. Trump fatigue is real and it’s diluting the essential points to be made on the substantive debates that matter. Playing right into nihilist hands. Right? … Wrong! 

With apologies to my wife – who begs me to, get ready,  “shut up and let it go!” – acclimating to constant lies and disgraceful behavior is not an option if we want to remain a going democratic concern. The whys of how we got here are not as important as the whats we now endure. And while policy is of course important,  even critical, process is the ball game; and our machinery simply won’t survive if hourly lies and personal attacks in defense of corruption become par for the course.

Trump, after months of outright lies, which his defenders accepted and amplified, now accepts as true he oversaw hush money payoffs to women he slept with. The strategy now is to shrug and say big deal, none of it rises to anything more than a civil issue, fully comparable to Obama campaign shenanigans which were simply assigned a fine by the FEC. The magnitude of such deceit is clear when one dwells for even a moment on any comparable scenario involving Obama and payments to women, and imagines the GOP response.

With Mueller still keeping most of his cards to his vest, this is only the beginning, just one salvo of breathtaking dishonesty and hypocrisy Trump and the GOP are comfortable presenting those who elected them. There is a reason we can’t get past the nonsense…. it’s damn dangerous nonsense. How do you chat casually about such an overt liar as Trump? I’m all ears. 

Mark Twain once pointed out the person who tells the truth doesn’t have to remember anything. Our President is seldom honest and has a terrible memory; that’s a very bad combination. More than 75 percent of Republicans still support Donald Trump, many with the caveat that the policy ends he pursues justify looking past the ugly means by which he pursues them. Such illogic may end up destroying the GOP in the wake of their champion’s implosion, which seems more likely by the week. Regardless, what they are willing to abide is their problem, and of their own making. The rest of us need to keep the faith and appreciate what counts, working toward restoring at least the expectation of government by responsible people, where lies and abasement are career enders. That means never getting anything more than unbearably uncomfortable with the current occupant’s unprecedented demeanor, and making clear it is indeed intolerable. It’s a fight worth ruining dinner over. BC

American politics long ago became one continuous campaign. The lines separating election cycles began to dim in earnest with the advent of PACs and now it has become one long slog, with newly elected members attending fund raising dinners the very day they are sworn into office. That staying elected has surpassed governance as a priority for so many lawmakers clarifies a system more concerned with personal ambition and special interests than the national well being. Tribal allegiances now hold sway over even the most benign efforts at bipartisan cooperation. When it all becomes one long day at the track, merely picking and choosing winners and losers, the quality of what is produced at every level, from State Houses to the White House, suffers greatly. And now the system’s worst creation threatens its very existence.

It seems a certainty the new year will usher in a resumption of Trump rallies. The President will want to keep his wretched core close, lest he not feel fully validated when doing battle with Robert Mueller and his deep state collaborators. Every indication portends the Special Counsel is about to go all in with a hand that will rock Trump’s world, taking him to task on a number of fronts, backed by sworn testimony from a long list of minions who learned the hard way loyalty to the Donald is a one-way concept. Trump is vulnerable to charges ranging from collusion to obstruction of justice to graft and good old fashioned racketeering. The bumbling incompetence of his legal team, headed by Rudy Giuliani, who appears close to senility, surely isn’t lost on the President; so he’ll be playing the cards that brung him… his true believers and Fox/AM.

That Trump will bring America to a full blown systemic crisis as the noose tightens is a foregone conclusion. The rallies will serve that purpose. It’s a sure bet, as the details of his ruination become filled in, Trump will hit the road with a message seeped in seditious division. No doubt any and all of his persecutors will be villanized to the hilt, his reckless gibberish no longer limited by any pretense of responsibility. And Fox/AM will spin whatever spews forth, embellishing a narrative that begins and ends with Trump’s paranoid narcissism. Freedom caucus lackeys and other Trump supplicants will join the crusade, providing any legitimacy they can. What emerges will be a call to arms that equates Trump’s political and legal survival with that of the nation, a 24/7 road to insurrection if their champion is messed with. All paid for by American tax dollars. 

Whatever Mueller reveals, however comprehensive and damning to Trump, his family, and his Presidency, we can be sure most of the Republican Party will either ignore or attack it. Trump’s Attorney General nominee, William Barr, appears ready to provide the institutional luster of the DOJ in service to the White House, his pro-Trump inclinations being strategically leaked throughout his pre-selection process. How that plays out is anybody’s guess. For now everybody seems satisfied the ghastly Whitaker is being replaced;  oh, the ruinous impact of bottom-level expectations… the only tier this Administration functions on. 

As I’ve noted before, the gist of our pluralist governance is the honor of our officials. We simply haven’t had a Chief Executive who never wanted the job, but once ensconced in the White House felt liberated to be as lazy, uninspired and corrupt as he pleased. We’ve never had a President with zero concern for the fate of a nation he swore to protect, and in fact has no reservations about rocking its foundations to the stilts if his noxious self-preservation requires it. We never experienced a cabal of Congressmen and Senators explicitly dedicated to self and party over country and the world. Our institutions that serve our constitution seem, at the time we will surely need them most, subservient to, if not the best qualities of their executors, at least some absence of their worst inclinations. It is all uncharted. Nothing is certain. And so we steer warily into a season of discontent, addled by a corrupt nihilist determined to secure support against the chickens his own indecency is bringing home to roost.

Two, three times a week? We know he has nothing else to do… except tweet. Decades from now historians will assess the coming days and marvel how such an ignorant and unprepared man could have so preoccupied the world’s most powerful nation…. or ruined it. We shall see. BC