Packing for a long trip I had the news on. I use it mostly as background noise and tend to go to Science, Discovery or if I must that weird alien programming, if the news gets too annoying. I’d rather listen to the supposed nutso claims of “alien theorists.” Yes, even the guy whose hair looks like he was on Babylon 5. I’d rather watch him than another second of the orange man squirrel up his face into contortions worthy of a cranky, spoiled toddler. I rather hear one more stupid theory about how aliens “invented” the moon using paper mache’ than listen to Trump. His repetitive simplistic words that he spews out his mental rhetoric dumpster bother me that much. I don’t care how wonderful he thinks he is, if he thinks something “sad,” or someone is a “loser.”
I quickly turned the channel on him long ago. Now I have to keep turning because; like that bad nursery school I went to 60 years ago, the College decided that Hillary and the nation had to be punished for supposedly doing all that the little bully had been doing. Classic blame others for what you do.
The report was brief and it was about Republican and Democratic pols starting to meet to plan what to do about Donald Trump; both recognizing there’s a danger here to our republic that’s unique. And then another about them joining to short circuit firing Mueller.
Suddenly my heart went almost vampire-like, or as the cliché’s says, “Still my heart.” Dare I hope we’re coming to a historical moment that we have desperately needed for so long? It’s not the first time where Republicans have stood up to him, but to actually form a group with Dems, make plans, dare I say “conspire” as I’m sure Trump will say… or “Et tu Repubs-ay?”
If Trump is good at anything it’s a hostage taking, all or nothing, politics. He follows a well trod Republican path forged by Newt in the 90s. We need to get the nation off this constant warpath because it creates failed governance, failed leadership, and jerks the country back and forth every time a party seizes control. Without compromise here is what you get: when Republicans are in power, as Trump recently said, with the “60 vote rule” a few pols can block a lot. Same is true the other way around.
From the Nixon resignation, to parties purging those who no longer fit in their shrinking tents, to Ken Starr’s Elmer Fudd-like permanent open for hunting anything season license, to the plot inauguration time to block anything Obama, multiple Benghazi hearings, this kind of unrelenting animosity is like blood in the water to a certain NYC shark who loves pitting people against each other so he can fleece them, screw them over.
The only possible “end game” here is one party rule. You know, the kind countries who supposedly “hate our freedom” have had, that we have spent so much blood defeating?
This is why I am glad to hear of Republicans and Dems starting to get together and discuss this shark and what to do about him. Could it be Trump’s presidency that will break this long term cycle? As impossible as it may be; that would be a “blessing.”
Hope.
Hope.
Hope.
No, there’s no holding of breath here, just a tad Pollyannaish dream we might eventually swim upward from the depths we have sunk to, get a break, a little fresh air. As impossible as it may be, dare we hope for some come together moment?
Three knowns…
If Trump Humpty Dumpty falls down he would at least threaten to sue… his record of winning lawsuits not so good. Of course he would toss plenty of gratuitous insults. That’s a change? And he certainly would take credit for whatever good comes out of it. But the question asked then should be the same question we should already be asking now: why in hell should we care what Trump thinks?
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Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 40 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks, and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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