Author: BC

Anybody who suffers the physical indignities of a bad back can share how a debilitating “episode” transpires. First, there is the sudden twinge, which immediately stirs the pathway of anxiety as the sufferer recognizes a telltale sign that a downward spiral may be in the offing. Separate and repeated spasms follow, each with their own serving of a fresh stab of pain. At some point the individual assaults merge into one long siege of discomfort, intermittently punctuated by agony when the beleaguered is forced to make various movements. Basically, hell on earth until the cycle completes itself.

Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign made clear his election would be one long and massive bout with chronic pain for the nation, as his relentless lies attacked the torso of our democracy. From the start Fox/AM’s Frankenstein shocked our system as he ignored long abided markers for veracity and personal attacks on opponents; MAGA was a spasm of repressed grievance and resentment. By the time Election Day arrived it was fair to ask what country the candidate was describing as he hissed about dystopian ruin our first black President and his progressive abetters were responsible for. Even back in 2016, his entire campaign’s leadership team certain of defeat, with each securing a personal lifeboat attuned to future ambitions they hoped would successfully erase the taint their embrace of MAGA slathered on their resumes, Trump promised he wouldn’t concede, repeatedly blaming a “rigged” system for his circumstances.

Now, 22,000 Presidential lies into our nihilist odyssey, Election Day nears and we can’t be confident our daily dose of disabling sciatica won’t do all he can to foment civil war if he loses. But even worse, we can’t be near certain he won’t win! That’s a disgrace we don’t deserve to live down and, should we manage to make it to the other side still intact as a going democratic concern, can never afford to forget.

Yet and still, with November 3 ever closer it’s essential to the DR’s mission statement that it dwell some on what we are voting to usher in, if for no other reason than as a response to critics who claim way too much of the last 2 1/2 years has been spent railing about what we should be forcing out! Joe Biden has developed a nice little tag line that decency and integrity are principle issues on the Decision/2020 ballot. The only people arguing against those broad strokes are spewing certified MAGA false equivalence about Biden’s regrettable tolerance of his son’s career moves being on a par with the ethics catastrophe this President embodies on the hour, a Clinton server redux. So, to go along with Biden’s obvious observation, three basic desires should strengthen our resolve as we wait in lines that can’t move fast enough.

Treating Allies as Friends Instead of Foes:

No matter how aggrieved one felt four years ago that America was footing too much of the burden for common defense against adversaries such as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran, it’s certain very few actually believed the proper gist of US diplomacy should be to, not simply insult allies, but actively undermine their governments. Germany is a perfect case in point. Not only has Trump spent the last four years constantly exhibiting his personal insecurities toward German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, berating her in both public and private, while lying about Germany’s position vis-a-vis Russia, but Ambassador Richard Grenell, a bunker poodle, has actually courted right-wing extremist political elements throughout the country he serves in.

Egregious doesn’t cut describing such actions. A vote for Biden accepts the previous notion that guided our foreign policy: American security is only as strong as the alliances it leads, and effective leadership requires respect for the led. Anything less is abdication. Statecraft is not an opportunity to score points with an incumbent’s base, or stock his quiver with rally punchlines; it is one of a President’s most important duties, one which history will be especially mindful of. Vote for the candidate who understands what before MAGA was taken for granted as obvious and indisputable.

Recognizing the Federal Government’s Importance to Our Quality of Life:

Nothing is more fundamental to Fox/AM’s nihilist narrative than the presumption federal careerists aren’t worth the cost of their cubicles. From Rush to Hannity, Varney to Carlson, and everyone in between, Fox/AM addicts, which for the first time includes our current POTUS, wake up and go to bed convinced no federal department – with the most notable exceptions of the Pentagon and Homeland Security – is anything but counterproductive and fully expendable. Two developments this week illustrate the lengths Trump and company will pursue to fulfill the prophecy Roger Ailes created thirty years ago, and how harmful such efforts are to most all Americans.

Vanity Fair reconstructed a March 20 meeting between a select group of American business heavyweights and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner; the subject was a rapidly expanding Covid-19 crisis and the best way to coordinate a federal government response. Attendees were stunned by what transpired. Instead of any outline of a federal plan to supply states with the essentials most were short on, like PPE, ventilators and testing supplies, Kushner declared “free markets will take care of this.” Several participants later recounted they figured he misspoke or their hearing was off, but no, Kushner meant every word. Any doubt was dispelled when he began to rail against New York Governor Mario Cuomo, knee deep in Covid sickness and mounting death: “Cuomo didn’t pound the phones hard enough to get PPE for his state…. His people are going to suffer and that’s their problem.” Most in the room were left speechless. What words are available for responding to such wretchedness?

Meanwhile, today Ronald Sanders, the Trump-appointed head of the Federal Salary Council, resigned in protest over a White House surge he called “nothing more than a smoke screen for what is clearly an attempt to require the political loyalty” of thousands of federal workers and their supervisors. Even the Soviets understood party members could not make the trains run on time by themselves. Apolitical government careerists, specialists in their fields, are essential. Trump and his son-in-law not only clarify their disdain for that proposition, but also the notion federal services beyond making war, purging immigrants or stomping protesters, are necessary at all.

A vote for Biden firmly rejects such rubbish in support of the reality that a country as large and geographically daunting as ours requires robust capabilities to coordinate and deliver on mandates the states often lack the resources to provide for themselves. Without that capability, we devolve into the “States of America,“ which dramatically weakens our nation.

Respecting the Office You Have Been Elected to Serve and Administer:

Whether it’s snide remarks about the White House being “a dump,” ceaseless efforts to sully his predecessors’ achievements, or disgracing the office by constantly abasing it to merely a prop in support of megalomaniacal hubris, Trump does nothing but injure the institution he was elected to protect and sustain. If we really don’t revere our Executive branch of government anymore, why even continue with the charade? From day one of his candidacy Trump bellowed he was doing us all a favor tolerating a term or two as POTUS. That so many actually embraced such guff as attractive delineation of his run for office provided all the red flag any thoughtful observer required to comprehend we had a big problem.

America and the liberty it is designed to reflect relies on three branches of government, each with its own specific role to play, and all expected to both compliment the actions of the others, while also providing vital checks when excesses arise. Do we want judges who scoff at justice and remind any and all they could be billing $500 an hour? How about anarchist lawmakers? Why would we countenance a President with disdain for his office? Say whatever you want about Joe Biden; nobody can claim his fondest dream isn’t becoming POTUS. There is zero doubt he will respect, even cherish, the office he serves, making every effort to leave it stronger and more vital than he found it. And the disarray he is certain to encounter makes that quality perhaps as important as any.

Fact is, EVERYTHING is on the ballot this time around! Four more years of what we currently endure will end the American experiment. Whatever faults or strengths Joe Biden now exhibits really do pale in comparison to the specter Trump’s re-election poses. However, obsessing on a negative is a very depressing way to pick a President. Fortunately, we can be confident Joe Biden checks plenty of the boxes one should require of who we honor with our country’s highest office. Accepting less, as we have learned these last near four years now, will make your back hurt… a lot! BC

To say my academic record in high school was undistinguished is like saying the Washington Football Team could be better. I epitomized the rebellious stoner, straight out of the movie Dazed and Confused, but far less interested (and interesting!) than the most stereotypical of the film’s characters. My central purpose while attending high school was not to attend, and when I was in class my teachers wished I wasn’t. How much? This much….

I had a geometry teacher my junior or senior year – four decades blurs personal chronologies – who was a wonderful guy. Funny, thoughtful, passionate about his subject, “Mr. Jones” was generally liked and respected by his students. In other words, he didn’t deserve having me in one of his classes. Truth is I liked him quite a bit myself; it was the subject I found impossible to embrace and impelled me to often seek distraction, which he quite understandably took issue with.

Finally, after so many unexcused absence reports, and trips to the vice principal’s office, as well as countless comedy routines between us the class enjoyed, even as the lesson plan suffered, Mr. Jones asked me to stop by his classroom one afternoon to talk about things. I don’t remember many of the conversation’s details other than the offer he made me: if I never came to class again, instead signing in at the school’s math lab every day, after which I was free to “do what it is you all do,” he would give me a C each grading period for the duration of the year. I remember first asking if he was joking; he wasn’t smiling. I recall a pang of shame as I realized a teacher was risking some degree of professional consequence for no other purpose than to exclude me from his life.

Even as I accepted the offer, I wasn’t sure if it was a test, or some sort of ploy to motivate me to take things more seriously, perhaps produce an epiphany about how deleterious my attitude was. Turns out it was only what Mr. Jones said it was. And so I ended up with a free hour after lunch and Cs for the remainder of the year. Looking back it’s yet another sad portion of my teenaged indifference to most things constructive, as well as a cautionary tale about otherwise good teachers giving up on kids who are giving up on themselves. Mr. Jones surely rationalized his bargain with the proposition I was costing my classmates their teacher’s focus, robbing them of his best efforts as he was forced to devote teaching time to the discipline of a selfish brat, unconcerned with anything or anyone but his own amusement. Tough to argue with that. Most reading this surely wouldn’t.

The story is appropriate here as America heads into winter registering close to 70K new cases of Covid-19 per day, with the virus now surging in 75% of the country. We are actually in a worse situation than back in March when we shut the country down, only now we appear to believe it’s a problem we can live with, although near a quarter million of us have done just the opposite. Half a million deaths by the one-year anniversary of the pandemic is now more likely than not. Incredibly, to say there is no White House policy is far too charitable; Trump wants his people to stop talking about it. Herd immunity, whatever that is other than pretending Coronavirus is the flu, will deliver us until a vaccine comes to the rescue, so hisses Trump at his daily superspreader events.

Like my teenaged ignorance in geometry class, our President grasps only Covidiocy with no interest or patience for any incarnation of thoughtful rigor. And now he’s fully acting out on his disdain for the subject. Whatever Trump experienced during his own bout with the virus, any epiphany that may have resulted was quickly consumed by steroidal and antibiotic side effects that seemed to only accentuate already prevalent psychotic mania. It’s fair to ask when the President will start exhorting Americans not to let Coronavirus symptoms keep them from being productive. Man up and down some DayQuil, we’ve got a miracle economic recovery to get after. Would anything really surprise? Of course the obscenity is how many are fully on board with the messaging, proudly displaying their own wretched selfishness. MAGA’s version of personal liberty.

When I discovered Facebook ten years ago it was a revelation. The ability to suddenly find friends and acquaintances I hadn’t even thought of in years was intoxicating and made the world seem significantly smaller and more manageable, less transient. I remember a friend, who having discovered the platform perhaps a year earlier, assure me the novelty would wear off with the realization that there was a reason I had forgotten about many of those I now exalted about reconnecting with. At the time the observation seemed preposterously cynical, these days less so.

Turns out, as Facebook and Instagram clarify every day, our leaderless nation has become divided into those with sensibilities similar to Mr. Jones and a bunch of selfish brats. The scolds and the scolded, who really couldn’t care less. Whether it was happy hours in Florida bars back in mid-April or weddings down in Texas just last week, FB has reliably documented the historic failure of America’s response to Covid-19. It strikes me that, 30 years from now, if the worst you were touched by this pandemic is your daughter couldn’t have the wedding you both dreamed of, or your son’s basketball season was canceled, well, you got pretty damn lucky. Of course, too many don’t see it that way.

Honestly, it would be nice if one could credibly argue I was simply creating a straw man to make a broader point. Were one to put aside the wretched core, who flock maskless to Trump rallies, or even the 460K bikers who couldn’t put off Sturgis for one year, to convincingly maintain I am off base about others would be refreshing. I’m not, and a typical weekend now bears that out.

On Friday morning I went to my credit union to deposit a check. My teller was a lovely middle-aged woman named Veronica. Things were slow so we had a pleasant conversation. Masked up I asked if she and hers were staying safe? From behind the plastic partition she sadly revealed her 91-year old mother from the Chicago area had recently passed from Covid. A bit taken aback I expressed my sympathies and, lamely, clumsily, asked if she had been ailing before the virus infected her. No, answered Veronica with resignation, apparently her mother was a marvel of health and mental acuity…. until Covid got her. That night Judy Woodruff of the PBS News Hour, which Trump and his nihilists have branded the very epitome of “fake news,” closed out the broadcast with a now customary glimpse of five wonderful lives cut short by Covid-19. It was easy to imagine Veronica’s mother included as one of them. I felt enraged.

On Sunday evening another very lovely middle-aged woman I have known and admired since I required a comb and hair conditioner posted some recently snapped pictures on Facebook. Beautiful as ever, she was lined up with half a dozen of her equally pretty besties, capturing for posterity their attendance at a wedding of one of their children. Behind them a maskless band was playing, to the left a long table of other participants enjoying each other’s company within obscenely cozy confines… again, not a mask to be seen, not a concern exhibited. It could have been a picture from 2019; in fact, I checked hard to make certain it wasn’t a “memory” instead of yesterday. It was definitely the latter. The comments section of her group shot was filled to the brim with compliments like “looking good ladies” or “beautiful group” etc. I stifled the urge to send something along the lines of… “Covid, shmovid, I suppose,” which probably would have earned a block/unfriend response. Yet and still, the temptation was stronger than I wished it was; disgusted was the only way to feel, particularly with Veronica’s look of resigned sadness still a fresh image.

Four years of MAGA has come to this. We now are anything but an exceptional nation, instead defined by an ugly dichotomy of people who care and people who don’t, with the POTUS actually basing his entire re-election message on the latter group’s disdain for decency and civic virtue at precisely the moment we need them most. Make no mistake, the idea a revived economy by definition requires accepting Covid’s worst is a notion only an enemy of America could conjure. That too many we each know now nestle behind such sedition to justify their refusal to sacrifice most anything at all, even as 220K perish, is much more than simple carelessness to be scolded; it is grotesque recklessness to be condemned. How that reconfigures our friends lists is just another metric of the descent responsible for the national shame our abject failure to confront Coronavirus deserves. BC

In 1998, her husband under siege for engaging in sexual trysts with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky, First Lady Hillary Clinton lashed out from behind the circled wagons. There was, she declared, a “vast right-wing conspiracy” laser- focused on destroying the Clinton Presidency. The notion, which was originally put forth by a White House staffer in 1995, was not something HRC could flesh out to Today Show host Matt Lauer. Instead, she cryptically opined it was a “great story here for anybody willing to find it and write about it and explain it.”

The backlash was as swift and feverish as it was predictable. Whatever shadowy conspiratorial elements of anti-Clinton fervor working diligently in the background, there were plenty of public faces available to unabashedly promote the same agenda. Everyone from OGs on the fledgling Fox News network to Rush Limbaugh, already a seasoned hand at tribal insurrection, to the Drudge Report, responsible for unearthing the Lewinsky scandal in the first place, fired back she was losing her marbles and flailing wildly as Rome burned around her.

And why not? After all, modern White House history recounted few images less appetizing than a President carrying on with a young intern entrusted to his care and guidance. Whatever political enemies such a ghoul had cultivated, pointing out their underhandedness in the midst of the chickens his already well-documented sexual peccadillos welcomed home to roost, seemed less enlightening about a growing menace than merely an effort to distract and change the subject.

Near two decades later, during her own presidential campaign, HRC connected the dots between what she recognized in 1998 and what it had created by 2016…. “a basket of deplorables.” That the tag received similar quick and relentless push back was hardly surprising. However, the coordinated power available to seize on the diss in 2016 was confirmation that the charge laid out in 1998 was indeed true. In both cases, because of her own shortcomings, speaking her truth ultimately hurt HRC more than it helped. Yet and still, that result didn’t subtract from the truth itself, which produced Fox/AM’s first President at HRC’s expense, following the ugliest campaign in US history, exceeded only by his current re-election efforts.

Almost 25 years has provided the time necessary for a once ragtag collection of fanatical reactionaries to evolve and coalesce into a force that this Administration now allows to vet virtually everyone they hire and every judge or official they appoint. Horrifying is not strident enough a modifier to aptly cover that reality. On everything from pushing “herd immunity” as guiding Covid policy to Handmaid’s Tale sensibilities about a woman’s domain over her own body, a relatively smooth functioning mass of regressive nasties enjoys unfettered access to translate Trump’s capricious whims into a governing structure bent on taking the US backwards as fast as possible. Any doubt about that won’t survive viewing a cache of videos recently secured by the Washington Post. They clarify the obvious, but accentuate both how influential Fox/AM favorite sons like Charlie Kirk now are, and how extreme they expect both personnel and policy to become in a second Trump term.

The network of groups now calling the shots for fait accomplis Trump signs his illegible scroll to all have one thing in common: they make a mockery of laws designed to regulate 501-C non-profit organizations. Granted tax-exempt status under the premise they pursue no partisan political aims, every one of this network of dark money and influence has only one shared aim: directing the GOP agenda and ramming it forward by any means necessary. The Council for National Policy (CNP) – with noteworthy members such as Rudy Guiliani and Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and an energizer bunny often at the center of pushing for the appointment of some of the looniest job candidates – is prominently featured in the trove of videos, and appears to be a lynchpin responsible for organizing many of the documented gatherings that brings together various right wing groups to ruminate on doing whatever it takes to confront its enemies – i.e. any non-MAGA interest.

Attendees constitute a who’s who of past and present Fox/AM darlings, from current It Boy Kirk to past hucksters like disgraced Jack Abramoff buddy, Ralph Reed, who never met a congregation he didn’t want to politically empower while fleecing them silly. Anyone who questions whether or how the wretched core has been radicalized should take in the videos. “This is good vs. evil,” declared CNP committee president, Bill Walton, “we have to do everything we can to win.” That literally none of the speakers caught on video would respond to WaPo inquiries for comment clarifies both utter disdain for mainstream journalism, as well as a tacit recognition the videos caught a degree of frankness they were loath to share with outsiders.

Mail-in voting is a shared obsession. The assumed, if unproven, fraudulent intent of “the left” behind the initiative justifies any and all responses, whatever it takes. These days Trump is tweet storming in capital letters to get rid of ballot harvesting because IT IS RAMPANT WITH FRAUD, but back in February Reed, whose latest gig is heading up the tax-exempt Faith and Freedom Coalition, promised loudly “our organization is going to be harvesting ballots in churches!”

At an August meeting in Northern Virginia, Kirk was giddy Covid’s unchecked summer spread had closed down campuses because it kept up to half a million students from voting. To his audience’s delight Kirk exhorted universities to “please keep campuses closed…. Like, it’s a great thing.” Indeed, voter suppression was presented in various CNP meetings as righteous work, not for the faint-hearted. J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department official and obsessive voter roll purger, who like many in W Bush’s Administration saw riches in the rightest non-profit universe and now leads the Public Interest Legal Foundation, urged activists to tough out “accusations that you’re a voter suppressor, you’re a racist and so forth.” Head high and all that. Just get the job done.

In fact, they are succeeding beyond their wildest dreams. One of Trump’s signature lines back in 2016 was “I’ll hire the best people.” Best or worst, it’s the CNP network that now fills the slots, which it recognizes as its most important work. The clueless chaos of this Administration has opened the doors of opportunity to those who are simply able to help make the trains run on time. That Trump uses The Five talking points to guide his job interview criteria suits CNP just fine. In August, Trump deputy Paul Teller explained to a CNP-gathered audience of activists that an organization called the Conservative Action Group meets every Wednesday morning in a “little secretive huddle” at the White House. According to CNP member Rachel Bovard, such get togethers reflect a cozy relationship with the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. Makes sense when you consider that, as CNP vice president, Kelly Shackleford boasted on one of the videos: “Some of us literally opened a whole operation on judicial nominations and vetting. We poured millions of dollars into this to make sure the President has good information, he picks the best judges.”

And what do unacceptable personnel choices look like? That’s easy, whistleblowers such as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch. “All of these people that led the impeachment against President Trump shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” scoffed Bovard at yet another presentation. Indeed, it’s doubtful any others cut from such a mold will remain in a second Trump term. Those that do will surely be purged with haste. Promises made, promises kept. By then, to paraphrase the late great Eddie Van Halen and co., we won’t be talking bout representative government cause it will be “rotten to the core.” The ruin of ignored vast right-wing conspiracy.

Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.

Lord of the Flies

There are few more enduring scenes of the wrenching heartbreak of Holocaust atrocities than children being casually ripped from their parent’s arms by Nazi processors. The images are indelible and form the basis for tortured narratives of both book and film, presented as the clearest and most defining proof of The Reich’s special place at the top of history’s list of cruel sadists, worst of the worst.

That America’s national brand has been steeped in its diversity and hospitality toward the world’s wanderers is simply synergy created by necessity. Such compatibility has only increased with time. The American economy has always depended on immigrants, both documented and undocumented. That’s as true in the 21st century as it was in the 20th. From bringing in harvests to applying fresh linens in hotel rooms to Silicon Valley startups, the quality of US life has been a function of an imperfect immigration system often required to wink at law breaking that serves everybody’s interests…. except right wing opportunists.

At some point, perhaps in the late 90s or so, racists gave up publicly fighting against black equality. Even the worst began to understand Jim Crow was history. White children of the 70s and 80s falling in love and having families with black peers, and a uniform media narrative that racial acceptance was, not only a done deal, but synonymous with essential patriotism, persuaded most but the worst that the gig was up, the deal done; America would move forward under the premise that black and white were one and equal parts. It didn’t mean they had to agree with it; however, it was no longer politically viable to openly agitate against the idea. This surrender roughly coincided with the advent of Fox/AM, and was reflected in an emerging narrative the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes constructed. Dog whistles would have to do, with the principle question shifting from whether black America is or isn’t entitled to an equal share of the pie to whether they were uppity and demanding more than the fair serving they had won.

Regardless, reactionary political guff is always a zero-sum exercise, and if one group’s humanity was being granted a raise, another’s had to be demoted, lest beleaguered white self-esteem suffer even more of a hit. Alas, that’s how bigoted wretchedness works. If the GOP – who had no intention of renouncing the white grievance voter bloc it gladly allowed the Democrats to bequeath it as they instead placed their futures wager on demographics rather than fear of change – was prepared to give lip service to black empowerment, it was also more than ready to retrain its guns on a fresh and easily identifiable menace, a new villain for a new millennia. Always the least imaginative of our species, the reactionary crowd lazily resurrected an old nemesis, the immigrant invader.

And so immigrants became MS-13, a scourge on the nation Democrats enabled for a few votes more. Of course, it wasn’t really all immigrants, just brown-skinned ones, mostly from south of the border, but also Africa. Whatever positive aspects they offered, however otherwise noble their pursuit of the American Dream might have been, moving forward they became a problem worthy of both fear and loathing. Republican hard liners and Fox/AM “personalities,” who increasingly wagged the dog, now had a talking point that delivered, more red meat to distinguish themselves from libs and RINOs. It was an issue that furnished no downside because the constituency they were attacking couldn’t fight back. A bully’s paradise.

When in 2015 the grossest manifestation of that petri dish shrilly announced a Presidential bid few took seriously, it was no surprise he would base his messaging on Fox/AM’s foulest bile. That it instantly gained traction spoke volumes about how far Tea Party sensibilities had descended. Apparently, the GOP leadership was the last to find out, and $110 million got Jeb Bush single digit support before he decided politics wasn’t so great after all. The rest is ruinous history with one of its worst chapters made public last week in the form of an 86-page report authored by the Department of Justice’s Inspector General. Disgrace doesn’t approach an accurate assessment of its shocking revelations.

The report’s findings, based on near 50 interviews of different officials. clarifies family separation at the southern border was a Trump/Sessions enterprise through and through, from start to finish. Although the Department of Homeland Security’s top leadership was in the loop, DOJ drove the program. It was cruelty the Attorney General initially wanted his signature all over, until the backlash it created became a liability. Turns out the misery of innocent kids was not collateral damage but rather the whole point of the fiendish exercise. As Democratic Senator Dick Durban summed things up: children were “targets of a cruel strategy to create a gruesome warning to others seeking refuge in our country that their children would pay a price.”

Moreover, apparently age and vulnerability didn’t matter. Rod Rosenstein, later canonized for taking on the Russia investigation after Sessions recused himself, adamantly declared infants should not protect their mothers from the most vigorous prosecution possible. Whatever it took to get the message across. This is no longer that shining city on a hill; a nasty nihilist is now sheriff and he doesn’t play. No Vacancy! Stay home if you know what’s good for you!

Nobody was caught more unprepared by the “must prosecute” policy than border patrol personnel, who suddenly found themselves under orders to violate the most basic human rights of vulnerable petitioners, many of whom had just completed harrowing journeys to get here. DHS officials and DOJ line prosecutors on the border peppered Sessions with questions – most troubling the absence of measures to reunite families after their cases were disposed – and sought to slow the roll out, but Sessions and Rosenstein weren’t having it. According to the report the department’s “single-minded focus on increasing prosecutions came at the expense of careful and effective implementation of the policy, especially with regard to prosecution of family-unit adults and the resulting child separations.”

Most damning of all is the clear evidence, uncovered by investigators like the Southern Poverty Law Center, that family separations were happening up to a year before Sessions sought to codify it as official policy. After nibbling at the edges of atrocity on the down low, Sessions was clearly emboldened to hit the accelerator and claim credit for what was quickly condemned world wide. From April to June, 2018 more than 3000 children were taken from their parents. The total number of kids ripped from their families under the Trump Administration is close to 4500, too many still unaccounted for.

Sessions’ attempt to solidify the President’s good graces failed spectacularly as Trump scapegoated him for the Mueller investigation after he had the good sense and self-survival instincts to recuse himself. Two years later, seeking to regain his Senate seat, Sessions cut a truly pathetic figure groveling before Alabama voters, who continually took him to task for his apostasy. Trump of course applied plenty of salt to the wound, regularly tweeting derision. Sessions lost decisively to former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville, himself incapable of finishing a paragraph that doesn’t praise the Bunker Duffer as heaven sent.

Last week’s report confirms Sessions’ culpability for implementing a program that should land him in a defendant’s dock at The Hague, with Rosenstein there by his side. As always, while lying that he was just following Obama’s lead, Trump has doubled and tripled down on the program’s “effectiveness,” and refuses to say it won’t be resorted to again. Few can be confident a second Trump term won’t resurrect what clearly demonstrated MAGA’s capacity for evil on a scale that, before 2016, it was presumed Americans would support confronting abroad wherever it occurred. Instead, we now all share some complicity for what did happen here: the evil Trump supporters lose not a wink of sleep over. BC

DC law now prohibits gatherings of more than 50 people, a relatively modest concession to Covid-19. It’s easy to imagine how fast the virus could be spread if just half that many people congregated closely together with even one fully contagious. Oh, current regulations also call for strict adherence to social distancing as a second layer of protection against transmission. Last Saturday’s Rose Garden rollout of the GOP’s stunningly casual Supreme Court appointment hypocrisy clearly violated the substance of the law (upwards to 150 attendees), it’s spirit (zero distance in the seating arrangements), and common sense (few masks to be found).

As bad as the actual formal ceremony for Amy Coney Barrett’s selection was, video of the informal socializing afterwards was even more gross, rife with the stereotypical images of high-powered politicos -or more appropriately here, Mafia capos – whispering sweet intrigue into each other’s ear. Like so much of this Administration’s destructive insanity from day one, nothing to the imagination, literally behaving as if the pandemic had – poof! – disappeared. Forget all the canceled proms and graduations, or why they couldn’t happen, both delusion and entitlement on thoughtless display.

Now all hell is breaking loose, the big kahuna of Trumpist chaotic recklessness coming home to roost. In addition to the first couple, Sen. Mike Lee, Sen. Ron Johnson, Sen. Tom Tillis, Kellyanne Conway, Hope Hicks, Chris Christie, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel all now suffer the virus. Indeed, the list grows by the news cycle of new Covid infections among the MAGA elite, who like Trump, appear more than ready to enjoy “an abundance of caution” and make sure world class medical attention is at the ready for symptoms most previously scoffed at as “nothing more than the flu.”

Fox/AM sees opportunity for improving our worst-person-in-the-world President’s dreadful profile and is in full lionization mode. Laura Ingraham seemed to be struggling to keep her emotions in check while describing our stoic leader’s grudging assent to a five minute helicopter ride with top medical pampering his destination. Old Tucker Carlson was already incensed regarding “the left’s” cruel indifference to, even celebration of Trump’s plight. However the President fares, it’s a certainty the wretched core will be filled with righteous indignation for, er… forever. We were polite and reverent toward RBG and look at this! Endless Fox and Breitbart comment threads to the contrary.

In fact, the White House is technically exempt from DC law, responsible for cleaning up its own mess. DC health officials have asked the Administration to spearhead contact tracing of what is now rightly seen as a super spreader situation. That’s like asking Britney Spears to please get her financial paperwork in order for an audit. Regardless, most agree contact tracing such a large event is close to impossible, which is a big reason any sane pandemic strategy bars such large gatherings in the first place. But I digress, or merely recognize MAGA circular insanity…. whatever!

The real point to make is, just as with his debate meltdown, his embrace of white supremacy, the shameless hypocrisy on display with the Barrett appointment, the ceaseless effort to discredit November’s election results, refusal to recognize or really do anything other than sabotage climate science, ongoing stochastic terrorism toward the press, BLM, and all others on his expansive enemies list, etc. etc., the only observant inquiries to make are who could possibly be surprised and what took so long?! Trump declared before April Fools day that as far as he was concerned the pandemic was over, old news he tolerated for roughly three weeks. Spring had barely begun when the issue was deemed a binary choice between needlessly destroying MAGA’s economic miracle and catering to mainstream media-generated hysteria. After all, the hotspots were “lib” jurisdictions, what with their radical left mayors, crowds and all those sketchy immigrants. The danger had not only passed, it never even really existed for flyover America. Much ado about near nothing.

From the beginning of the pandemic it’s been clear keeping the spread in check would most require best practices the public was willing to, not only abide, but participate in. At a critical juncture, the most important point of America’s response to the crisis, when responsible leadership was most critical, our President consciously decided to push a narrative audiotapes would later fully confirm he knew was false. Can the damage really be exaggerated? Enabled by a servile fleet of MAGA governors, as well as the House and Senate GOP leadership, Trump knowingly made it his word against the facts about the worst national health crisis in modern American history. To sell his talk he had to walk its walk; after all, why would people believe it was harmless if he was wearing a mask everywhere? And so dangerous fantasy became reality and the die was cast about whether the US would be able to fully flatten its curve. No chance.

Seems many pundits and politicians want this to be “a teachable moment” for those convinced by Trump’s lies to do their civic worst, the army of Karens his seditious duplicity unleashed. See, goes the plea, this thing is real and dangerous, at least wear a damn mask! The bare minimum for the lowest common denominator, our civic dregs who equate spreading disease with demonstrating solidarity. Good luck with that.

Hannah Arendt observed of totalitarianism’s component parts:

“Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.”

Seen through this prism, the self-destructive stupidity and recklessness displayed at the top of the MAGA food chain lays bare its own mindless adherence to whatever fiction it created for the masses. How pervasive is that sensibility and will recent events modify it? Johnson knew he had been exposed at close range to Covid but refused to alter his activities while awaiting what he had to suspect would be a positive test. He attended a fundraiser with no apologies for exposing its other attendees, his donors! Apparently Bill Barr had no intention of quarantining, even though pictures and videos have him literally inches from Conway at the Rose Garden. Latest reports contend he will now grudgingly isolate. How long will that last? In other words, yes, it is rabidly pervasive, and no, there will be little accommodation made to protect others; we’ll do as we please, the rules don’t apply to us.

And such is the crux of MAGA. It’s a mob, who above all else got sick of following rules they were told 24/7 by Rush and company placed a terribly unfair burden on them only because they are white and Christian, hard working and patriotic. In Trump they found their avatar, one who has never bowed to such constraints, who does what he wants and pays lawyers to sort out the consequences. A guy who never apologizes because he doesn’t have to. That he is hideously self-serving doesn’t matter. That he is corrupt and lies as he breathes doesn’t matter. That he may not actually give a fig for them doesn’t even make a difference. All that counts is he won’t bend to the boogie men Fox/AM has taught them to fear and loathe above all else. If Soros-led devils can bring down Trump, nobody is safe.

That he now suffers from the “hoax” he has constantly discounted will provide no constructive epiphany because Covid and the practices necessary to prevent it were just more rules for Trump to flout; and guess what, if he can do it, so can they! Moreover, if he can evade the consequences, so can they. And if the virus ends up getting the last word with Trump? What then? I doubt the lesson gleaned will be one the rest of us hope for, or feel content to live with. MAGA, like its now infected leader, doesn’t do constructive reflection on the errors of its ways. The rest of us are entitled to better than that. BC

Trump doesn’t do debates, never has. Debate requires structure and discipline, thought and preparation, and most of all civility. Trump only knows how to argue and berate, lie and insinuate, and most of all be a relentless bully. Last night never stood a chance and now it’s yet another case of believing your eyes and ears, or actually allowing Decision/2020 “gamers” to create more false equivalence.

CNN’s Dana Bash called it a shit show on national television, but that’s like saying the carnage of a mass shooting is a “crime scene with suspected foul play.” This was yet another new nadir of our existential national crisis, complete confirmation a sociopath has the nuclear codes. Biden was more ancillary to that hideous predicament than participant in US history’s ugliest Presidential debate.

Look, here’s the deal… when you emerge from what is supposed to be an exchange of ideas and positions on leadership of a country within the throes of a pandemic and accompanying economic collapse, with only sympathy for your President’s otherwise god-awful children, that’s more than a shit show, it’s The Twilight Zone. Joe Biden made clear last night he is no spring chicken; he’ll get much older if he is forced to suffer yesterday’s indignities twice more. Nobody should have to. I dare say none of the globe’s worst dictators, who moonlight as the leader of the free world’s role models, would have been as depraved within similar forums.

Could Biden have done much better? Of course. In a perfect world he would have been Obama, coolly and with humor slicing the blubbering beast to pieces without any perspiration. Or he would have been Reagan at his best, the actor shifting quickly into the role of B movie hero to Trump’s villainous disgust. One can imagine Elizabeth Warren watching and wishing if only she could have been on that stage. Biden was more like the Karate black belt who, after endless hours in the dojo, when suddenly attacked on the street abandons a bit of his training and reverts to a fight or flight mode, instincts taking over. Fact is, because he has rightly avoided crowded rallies, Biden was not as sharp as he could have been. Daily speeches to packed events provide a tempo for a campaign, a constant requirement to be at the top of your game. Biden isn’t getting that and it showed.

It was a real mistake to abandon addressing Trump as “Mr. President,” but honestly, what would you do? What would Harry Truman have done had Thomas Dewey called his beloved daughter, Margaret, a trollop? Whatever it was, up to and including walking over and punching his opponent in the nose would have been understandable, even desirable. But alas, as Nancy Pelosi has accurately observed, he’s not worth it. Think about that one for a moment.

Biden’s worst moment came when Trump challenged him to name one police organization that has endorsed him. That he drew a blank was bad enough; that he looked wounded and in pain was much worse. It punctuated his age more than anything else, the gears under stress refusing to engage for a response. Fox/AM will run with it way past any end zones. A rejoinder was not hard. Biden could have very easily pointed out that the reality so many law enforcement unions see Trump as preferable only highlights how far we need to go, and how necessary it is to bring the parties together instead of seizing on political advantage. Easy Peasey.

Yet and still, like war or paddling out to surf 25-foot Waimea Bay, it’s really impossible to throw popcorn from the cheap seats on Monday morning. Gathering your thoughts on national television as a psychotic freak constantly interrupts and taunts you can only be credibly surmised by those who have actually experienced it. That anyone, let alone 35-40 percent of America’s voters refuse to take the obvious culprit to task, says everything about why last night went off like it did in the first place.

Following the disaster, CNN and Fox exemplified where things stand. The former’s panels exhibited shock and dismay similar to their reaction after Trump’s notorious remarks at the CIA on his first day in office. Even ridiculous Trump toady Rick Santorum was flabbergasted and found spinning things a bridge too far, opting to merely modify Anderson Cooper’s disbelief or Gloria Borger’s disgust. As for Fox? More normalization, with Juan Williams reaching a new low in equivalence pandering. After all, this sad spectacle was really not too different from a typical Trump call-in to Fox and Friends. Just more of the same.

Three takeaways are undeniable. First, an incumbent President aims to actively sabotage an election he knows he is going to lose. Moreover, he has zero problem with whatever level of chaos he is capable of fomenting, up to and including calling on right-wing terrorists to create bloody havoc. Next and connected, the worst kept secret going is now official, Trump embraces white supremacy and fully believes they will respond to his whims. No longer merely a stochastic terrorist, our President last night made clear the likes of the Proud Boys are valued members of his wretched core, deplorable on demand. Finally, Joe Biden is every bit of 78 years old and not what he was even four years ago. That doesn’t mean he can’t be a good President and begin to repair the extensive damage MAGA has wrought, and it certainly doesn’t mean there is any other option but to risk Covid if that’s what voting for him requires. However, it does mean nationally televised brawls with unhinged nihilist psychos will not bring out his best. It also means Kamala Harris better be razor sharp and presidential ready when she debates Trump’s man-servant. Those stakes couldn’t be higher!

For my money the best post-fiasco insight was provided by former Obama senior advisor, David Axelrod. Why would anyone be at all surprised by Trump’s behavior, he wondered, seeming genuinely mystified his colleagues were so taken aback. Too true. Trump is a destroyer; he has been all his life. The list of people he hurt as a private citizen – including tearing asunder his own family – was only limited by time and opportunity. As a candidate he demolished what was left of the GOP’s decency; as its President he has extinguished the party’s soul, demeaning its membership to nothing more than servile accomplices to his overt criminality. He’s destroyed our leadership position abroad and our fundamental government institutions at home. He’s poisoned the interplay between our three basic branches of government, to the point where his Supreme Court nominee no longer is insulated from the slime of his corrupt intents. And on and on…. So why would last night’s awful spectacle be anything but expected? Can we really even envision anything else? This is Trump, for worse or even worse than that! The national ruin comes from the millions who now – and last night particularly – would have him no other way. The coming storm. BC

When W selected John Roberts to fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by Sandra Day O’Conner’s retirement he was well on his way to becoming as reviled a President as any since Watergate, subject to abject derision from large swaths of the electorate. Long past a temporary post-9/11 boost in popularity, or the “political capital” he swore he would use after reelection, increasingly bogged down in two conflicts advertised as quick shock and awe affairs but instead looking more Vietnamesque by the week, and his own worst enemy when it came to bumbling public messaging, 43 was taking hits from all sides. Fox/AM worked overtime to keep the GOP base attuned to the tribalism W now fully depended on to keep his approval numbers out of the dumpster, but that didn’t stop a growing flock of pundits from opining about another US President’s second term heading off the rails.

Yet and still, the Roberts appointment was a big deal, a grand spectacle. Whatever his judicial philosophy, Roberts represented a vibrant young face for the high court, and few begrudged the pride he beamed from the podium as he accepted a President’s confidence in him. More than one jurist and his patron, the ceremony reflected the majesty of two basic US institutions refreshing each other. Whatever baggage the President was lugging around, filling a Supreme Court vacancy received a pass and, so long as the selection was sound, tradition would insulate all parties.

Bush sorely tested this proposition not long after picking Roberts, when Chief Justice William Rehnquist passed, creating another vacancy. After reinserting golden boy Roberts into the top slot, he badly bungled his next move, selecting under-qualified crony Harriet Meiers for the other seat. But even when she was forced to drop out after demonstrating an embarrassing lack of constitutional grounding, subsequent pick Samuel Alito received no penalty or any less deference when he stepped forward to accept his appointment. After all, W’s shortcomings weren’t his fault. Again, the institutions carried the moment.

Fifteen years later, any wholesome synergy between the White House and the Supreme Court is just another memory that makes our current state of affairs ever more desperately tragic. Amy Coney Barrett’s selection ceremony merely reinforced the only thing Trump and his GOP eunuchs are reliable for: debasing everything they come in contact with. Whatever intrinsic luster used to exist when a youthful applicant to the high court is formerly introduced was MIA Saturday.

When most of America is unable to feel much more than disgust toward all manner of Presidential recognition or job appointment, perceiving it as a badge of servile complicity rather than an honor of any sort, that is a very bad place to be; nonetheless, here we are. What was palpable with Gorsuch and unmistakably tangible with Kavanaugh, is now impossible to ignore with Barrett. That enthusiastically embracing Trump’s patronage, gushing about how “overwhelmed and honored” she is to be MAGA’s Supreme Court designee, discredits her to so many eyes speaks to the rot of this Presidency and creates an awful gut feeling we may be too late, even if November goes better than one could hope.

After one nominee sullied by Mitch McConnell’s refusal to even meet with Merritt Garland, an ugly final act following seven years of seditious obstruction of our first black President’s entire agenda, and another pick who demonstrated a nationally televised temperament leagues below what most all expect from a Supreme Court Justice, everything about this round carries the undiluted stench of illegitimacy. Trump and his GOP bunion massagers will doubtless respond with incessant righteousness about their “brilliant” darling being the innocent victim of inside-the-beltway hardball tactics as Democrats turn up the heat during her questioning, which will only accentuate the invalidation.

No, how much of the taint metastasized from the limitless hypocrisy her facilitators required to make her opportunity happen Barrett can shed will depend on her answers. Whether she’s a serious jurist prepared to rise to the occasion despite the bottomless depths her sponsors occupy, or the high court equivalent to Alex Azar, will to a substantial degree be fleshed out by how she handles herself under the pressure her appointment deserves. Saturday’s roll out was less than encouraging.

Nobody expects this White House to ever do more than the least; it will always fail to meet the lowest expectations. Downs Syndrome children are, by all medical assessments, particularly vulnerable to Covid’s worst. One imagines a mother of such a child would be particularly aware of her public surroundings and take all reasonable measures to avoid exposure. That Trump made a point to pack the Rose Garden full of maskless partisans was par for his sorry course, grossly insensitive to his nominee’s situation.

For what it’s worth, Barrett seemed wholly untroubled by the super spreader surroundings, as a firing squad of air droplet shooters faced her square on. Perhaps she was put off, but masked her concern. I doubt it. Either way, it’s a reasonable question for any Senator to ask what her feelings were about such a reckless public health spectacle on display in her honor. Her answer should prove enlightening and provide at least a hint to whether her most basic maternal instincts are impacted by MAGA sensibilities. That would matter… a lot.

As to Barrett’s pro forma praise for RBG and her promise to strive to approach her caseload with similar rigor toward obtaining justice, her past is even less inspiring than her workmanlike Rose Garden recitations about the one who really made her career dream possible. Her benefactor mindlessly seeks to create health care chaos by striking down the ACA with nothing to replace it. Only vacuum-tight judicial recklessness would side with such a plaintiff. There seems little doubt Barrett is willing to do just that, transforming the Roberts court into the Judge Jeanine Pirro court. Guns for felons. Why not, as long as they’re not too violent. Roe v. Wade. History. Declaring absentee ballots void and stealing the 2020 election? I wouldn’t bet your “skyrocketing” 401K against it. In other words, a true MAGA “originalist,” prepared to deliver the goods.

The majority of us have fully awoken to understanding a real-life villain occupies the White House. Perhaps the best description of his hideous oversight was expressed in a Washington Post editorial: Trump doesn’t govern so much as harass the nation. At this point, he and his House and Senate accomplices neither deserve nor really care to receive categorized dispensation depending on the historical solemness of a particular duty being performed. Barrett, by all accounts a very decent person of advanced legal intellect, fully capable of deep dives into constitutional minutiae, embodies whether the entire MAGA menu is toxic, inedible regardless of accoutrement or garnish. After all, the Joker only has henchmen. the Penguin only flunkies. We’ll know more about how much of a disservice such generalization is to Barrett in the coming weeks, whether she deserves better, which will then promote a bit more optimism about how she will rule on the high court. So far, she deserves our doubts. BC

“The most beautiful thing about a tree is what you do with it after you cut it down.“

Rush Limbaugh

Barreling toward either the end of the Trump scourge or a dramatic intensification of America’s darkest age there is no let up in the tempo of daily outrages. Whether it’s the purposeful spread of disease he now insists on or unintelligible gibberish he spews from the stage of his super spreader rallies, going to war with US cities or with American allies, Trump is a man unhinged from anything other than his rabid perception of what continued relevance requires. There is no plan, per se, he is following to achieve his shifting goals of remaining the most disruptive human being on Earth, only a continuous series of outbursts that create their own individual set of consequences, always destructive, that the system he is assaulting must address until another bomb is thrown, another inferno started. To paraphrase a WaPo editorial, he doesn’t govern so much as he harasses.

Yet and still, Trump is a moron, a complete imbecile. Granting him the credit for bringing the world’s great superpower to its knees is like saying pneumonia killed my dad, who suffered from late stage pleural lung cancer; what’s on the death certificate hardly tells the full story. The passing of RBG and our collective helplessness in the face of some of the most odious hypocrisy ever displayed on Capitol Hill clarifies what the founders could not conjure: that no democratic institution, no matter how old and established, can withstand a sustained category 5 hurricane of bad faith and criminal intent by both a President and the party who backs him. Nixon never stood a chance, not because the GOP leadership was so honorable, but because they surmised their constituents would take them to task if they weren’t. Those days are obviously over.

Lord knows America never expected its politicians to be perfect; but the contract always stipulated they at least present good faith and a cursory nod toward honor and integrity. The supposition, up until last week, was always that the taint of hypocrisy had to at least be offensive enough to discourage behavior that couldn’t be publicly defended. That is what passed for the honor code of US politics. Like so many other accepted practices and traditions that existed before January, 2017 it is now a fatality. As usual McConnell and company surprised nobody, but the wanton despicability was shocking nonetheless. They’d do better to simply shrug and taunt “sue me.”

Either way, their base, which is to say the MAGA wretched core, now demands dishonor and would surely penalize anything else. Ask Mitt Romney or Chuck Grassley. The chicken or egg question of whether the destruction of our democracy is a GOP scheme, pushed forward behind a nihilist horde they manipulate, or the collateral damage of cowards unwilling to try and put back the nihilist genie they let out of the bottle is fairly meaningless at this point. Whether McConnell is diabolical or merely an invertebrate, or a combo of both hardly matters. The ruinous results surely do. Suffice it to say a sizable minority is getting the governance they have been indoctrinated to revere and couldn’t care less whether it works or not, whether it abides the Constitution or not, or whether it ends the American democratic experiment or not.

The mission statement of Fox/AM starts and ends with creating the circular reasoning necessary to digest any proposition its “personalities” insert. That begins with the tenets that undergird all narratives. Abortion is murder so anyone who supports it is utterly disqualified from making value judgements. Check. Social progress is simply the way liberals keep minorities and other supplicants, like LGBT folks, within their voting bloc. Far from necessary, it only takes from whites and creates entitled classes. Check. Tax cuts always pay for themselves and are at least revenue neutral. Tax hikes are the bread and butter of Democratic theft from the working man. Check. The list goes on and has expanded over the years but these fundamental false premises form the basis of all Fox/AM story telling and the corrosive impact it has on the national discussion. The most paramount axiom of them all? Bipartisanship equals betrayal and is grounds for immediate excommunication. See John McCain.

Over thirty years of constant repetition, relentless application as accepted truths and divine principles, has imbued this reactionary code with a gospel quality and a guiding identity for its political adherents. The Reich had its superior aryan man, Fox/AM has its “true Reagan conservative.” That is, a class of zealots and opportunists wedded to the guidelines Roger Ailes laid out for their political fortunes. This is what the Republican Party has morphed into and must pursue. The fact it is headed by a lawless thug is subordinate to Trump’s willingness to follow the code to the letter, regardless of how much the national interest suffers. “He may be a lawless thug, but he’s our lawless thug.” That’s where we are at right now. It’s nihilist destruction care of the Donald, but in the name of Ditto Heads!

Few doubt Trump’s prime motivation for rushing through RBG’s successor. He has always relied on the courts to do his bidding, or at least muddle things sufficiently for him to exploit the uncertainty. He plans to declare victory November 3, whatever the tally, and sic his legal teams on the American electoral process. Judging from the servile exclamations from Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, the GOP will back Trump’s accusations all the way. The chaos he is willing to foist will only be as effective as the resources he can depend on to legitimate his false claims; a 6-3 majority at the top can’t hurt.

We now exist as what German political scientist, Ernst Fraenkel, in his study of Nazi rule circa 1932-38 coined a “dual state.” That is, arbitrary power rendered palatable by established institutions and economic interaction. Trump, like Hitler, has nothing but contempt for the system he is supposed to safeguard. The GOP House and Senate caucuses deploy formality and procedure to dispense and legitimate his capricious dictats, both using the power they hold while steadily eroding the institution that grants it to them. Where does it all lead? What does a continuation of the Trump era promise for American governance? History is clear on that score. All roads head to nowhere good. BC

Hillsdale College has never left much to the imagination concerning its worldview and the lens angle students who matriculate there will be looking through. A quick browse of its web page makes clear the brand it sells to recruits for both campus and on-line offerings. Long Fox/AM’s most reliable advertising dollar, Hillsdale’s site lays it on thick. Not just the Bible, but the book of Genesis as a seminar option. Founding fathers? Plenty on offer. Economics? Think Milton Friedman and Arthur Laffer. Indeed, it is the world according to Ayn Rand for young conservatives looking to leave home for the Michigan frontier. Even faculty curriculum vitae will note NRA instructor certifications, just to make sure no doubt exists that, at Hillsdale, the walk is walked.

So there is nothing surprising about the college hosting public speakers attuned to its perspective. Indeed, a conservative who’s who has visited, everybody who’s anybody. Attorney General Bill Barr, despite coming into office with the reputation as a no-nonsense get-er-done type, a fully committed institutionalist with no love for useless drama, has morphed into a Fox/AM darling, in addition to Trump poodle. These days he never met a mic he didn’t like, so long as he can spout sedition and strike fear in the hearts of public servants who haven’t held office for near four years now. He is vendetta man and apparently loving every minute of it. If he could comfortably fit into tights with a cape he probably would, but like his master, more salads and some stairclimber are the last things he wants any part of.

No, Barr speaking at Hillsdale yesterday was hardly surprising; it was what he said that shocked. The fact it isn’t front page news only reaffirms ruinous normalization of this misfit nihilist band. Seems the pooch wants off the leash to go as unhinged as daddy. At Hillsdale, he was free to roam and couldn’t have been more seditious.

Barr, who now devotes equal time to running interference for Trump’s near continuous disregard for the law, and rattling sabres at those who had the temerity to take umbrage at Russian interference in a US Presidential election, was not coy about defining his role in the federal food chain. “What exactly am I interfering with,” he wondered, referring to those who have a problem with Barr personally intervening in the Roger Stone and Michael Flynn matters. “Under the law, all prosecutorial power is invested in the attorney general.” Turns out Mr. Institutionalist has decided he’s the institution!

Whatever morale issues existed in the ranks of front-line prosecutors yesterday morning, they surely are considerably worse today after Barr likened his team to publicity hounds out primarily to “amass glory” at the expense of high-profile defendants. Alas, Barr rued, his people are “headhunters” defenseless babes like Stone and Flynn must be protected from. To hear Barr tell it, his is a lonely fight to reform a department long in the hands of subordinates his predecessors “blindly” deferred to. “No way to run an agency,” growled Trump’s now preeminent yes man.

Of course projection and hypocrisy are guiding tenets of this administration, but yesterday Barr astounded with a straight face when he mused about the “criminalization of politics.” “If you’re not in power, you’re in jail – or you’re a member of the press.” Hilarious! This not hours after Trump goaded his wretched core in Nevada to replace the “lock her up” chant, religiously directed toward Hillary Clinton at every MAGA rally since 2015, with “lock him up” in honor of Barack Obama, who Trump would arrest faster than taking another mulligan if he could. In fact, Barr appears ever more feverish in his efforts to criminalize Robert Mueller’s entire investigation. Forget hypocrisy, Orwellian best describes yesterday’s remarks on the subject of persecuting political enemies.

But Barr saved the best for last. In a White House devoid of any talent, with sycophancy the standard currency, Trump can be forgiven for giving the one member who once possessed genuine gravitas, albeit now a memory, permission to stray out of his lane. Barr was glad to do so during the question-and-answer period, the subject Covid. Along with falsifying Black Lives Matter as a Democrat political front using murders by police as “props to achieve a much broader political agenda,” the BillyBeast went looney tunes on pandemic lockdowns. Apparently, flattening the curve in March and April was “the greatest intrusion on American civil rights” other than slavery. Who knew? Expanding on his idiocy, Barr did his best Trump imitation: “All this nonsense about how something is dictated by science is nonsense.” It’s been clear since his election that loyalty to Trump is most effectively conveyed by becoming ever more stupid, a metamorphosis the President gains comfort from. Think above your station and you’ll be gone. Barr is certainly leaving nothing to chance on that score.

At the end of the day Barr established three things at Hillsdale. First, he is fully intent on living down to the common standard for Trump Cabinet lackeys: destroy the agency you are entrusted to lead. At his love fest confirmation the common assumption, shamefully accepted on faith by both sides of the aisle, was that Barr could at the very least be counted on to have the back of DOJ’s lawyers as they pursued cases, regardless the targets. He has obliterated that assumption, giving the worst like Mike Pompeo a run for his money at back stabbing his own people. It’s now clear a second Trump term means a complete purge at DOJ.

Second, at Hillsdale Barr’s tone took on a more gratuitous pitch, as in he’s getting off on this power trip. Let’s face it, with an addled psycho in charge, isolated and paranoid of everyone, cognizant of the legal apocalypse that awaits once he is again just a failed huckster, Barr is the muscle of this criminal enterprise, whose position at the top is rock solid. He was flexing in Michigan.

Finally, it’s now clear there is another voice coming from MAGA la la land capable of distracting us in equal measure from the things that really count right now, like Russian election tampering and voter suppression, overt sabotage of Covid acceptable practices, and atrocities committed at the border in all of our names, not to mention war on peaceful protest. Barr appears ready to bellow in tandem and with Trump’s blessing. That’s a lot of very ugly white noise that’s hard to ignore.

About 45 years ago Elliot Richardson, a stellar public servant, put honor and country ahead of ambition and servility. By resigning instead of firing Special Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox, Richardson stood for exactly what this country can’t exist without. Now we suffer his opposite, a piggish nihilist ever more comfortable with the idea of enforcing the termination of the American democratic experiment in the name of “law and order.” Whatever reservations he may have started with seemed to now be history as he spouted Trumpist gibberish last night at Rush Limbaugh’s favorite college. Just like his master there is now nothing left to the imagination; it’s the worst case scenario. Believe what he tells you. BC

There’s the story of the junior high school bully, who spends his days terrorizing any and all he can strike fear in. Rare is the encounter he doesn’t make some poor kid’s life a misery. One day he picks on the wrong kid and gets his butt whipped but good in front of much of the student body, who after seeing him taken to task, lose their fear and simply shun him for his trouble. Distraught, he sinks into depression, which leads his parents to seek a consult with school administrators.

At the meeting, a vice principal, well familiar with the boy and the events that led to his alienation, fills the parents in. They become incensed and demand to know why their son wasn’t better protected. Taken aback, the administrator reminds them their son had made many kids’ lives very difficult, and in fact was trying to bully the boy who beat him up. “So what,” the father bellows, “two wrongs don’t make a right!”

Similarly, there is a certain genius to the circular rationalizations of MAGA malevolence. After all, near thirty years of hourly Fox/AM story telling hasn’t been for nothing, even as it has near every minute been in service to nihilism. Malcolm Gladwell, in his classic study, Outliers, contends to become a true expert at anything, one has to put in at least 10,000 hours of practice. Say what you will about Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin etc., they have put in the time, relentlessly mastering propaganda techniques they now employ as naturally as expelling so much hot air. We currently suffer their President, a Frankenstein they created and now guide, spinning his gibberish like so much other grievance and resentment they have molded through the decades. Civil war appears to be the end game now that re-election looks unlikely.

False equivalence has always been the Alamo for Fox/AM-fabricated narratives. When it finally reaches the point truth has them cornered, and the pyramid scheme of lies one of their suppositions rests on totally collapses, the final Rushbo fallback is pointing the finger at the other side and squealing they do it too. So what if he did it, they’ve always done the same thing… and worse. Why didn’t you care when they did it?! What a double standard! It’s not fair! Near 200,000 Americans are dead? What about Benghazi?!

MAGA picks and chooses when the rules apply and when they don’t. Trump is like the bad guy in WWE wrestling, looking to the ref to enforce a break when his opponent has him at a disadvantage, but then throwing a flurry of cheap shots when the hapless zebra gets distracted. Woodward has Trump on tape, word for word. Who cares, what about Pelosi and Fauci?! Or as the despicable Peter Navarro spewed to Jake Tapper, just as casually as one would tell you the sun sets in the West, knee-jerk travel bans, one that did little to stem the outbreak, the other that wrecked chaos, creating super spreader events at several US airports, “saved a couple hundred thousand lives,” and Biden condemned them as xenophobic. No, Biden, like everyone else with the ability to discern, said it was impulsive and ill-conceived. Tapper tried to make that point but Navarro took umbrage at his tale being interrupted, his sacred right to a filibuster on Tapper’s forum a given.

It’s now clear a sizable American minority wants only to hear reaffirmation their wretchedness is an attribute, their ignorance preferable to what they don’t understand. They are followers and they are following, and that is a crisis we may not be able to resolve. This is a group looking to hurt those they despise, a long list that keeps getting longer. It’s a mob doing the bidding of the upper brackets, a short list that keeps getting shorter. And it’s millions with no intention of cooperating in anything not sanctioned by a narrative their sociopathic leader gulps down every bit as much as they do.

Fully willing to kill themselves and their neighbors rather than endure the ghosts created by their otherwise stilted imaginations, this totalitarian mass is itching for atrocity they expect Trump to deliver. Whenever truth causes too much of a problem with everybody else, work the refs! If it was so bad, why did Woodward wait? Pelosi and Fauci were no big mask fans back in March! It’s all equal. No more, no less. He’s just the President, what do you want from him? We want to be safe from Antifa and BLM! We’re keeping our eyes on the ball!

Democracies decline as their citizens descend down the slippery slope of civic disinclination. In America it’s far worse than that. Here, too many have begun to detest the bare minimum asked of them. Forget whining about taxes, or excusing a President who declares military service is for suckers, millions of us now actually find virtue in harming public safety, unable to make the connection between libertarian mania and the danger it poses to others, including our own loved ones. Meanwhile, the President has packed, maskless houses scheduled right up to Election Day, and surely past then, when he will foment violence while refusing to accept defeat.

Turns out, after a Civil War, two World Wars and a Cold War, the sweet spot for American demise was always there to be squeezed, it just required the technology to juice it at all hours, to all places. MAGA is constantly refreshed by messaging its followers now consider, not just religion, but existential necessity, and they aren’t about to forsake it. Nothing Trump can say or do will change that because his worst, even when exposed as in the Woodward tapes, will never be as bad as what the “radical left” can be claimed to have done in the past or hellbent to attempt in the future.

Cults don’t do re-examination. Doubling and tripling down, refusing to believe the evidence, or, as a final defense mechanism, false equivalence is their rabid comfort zone. Armed to the teeth and afraid of their shadows, what they are willing to do or abide their President ordering gets more ominous by the hour, with every tweet and rally, every Limbaugh monologue or Carlson meltdown. When democracy’s processes are no longer recognized, it’s not how many you have, only what you are willing to do. Nobody who listens to our wretch-in-chief these days can doubt there is much left he is not prepared to try. When he sweats and slurs how seditious he is, please take his word for it. It’s the only thing he says one can still believe. BC