Today’s news reports many screaming about the crisis of
Trump and of our government and of our country. Actually, this screaming, this drum beat, has
been going on since 2016 when Mr. Trump was declared the winner of the
presidential election. It has simply now
reached a fever pitch.
But, let’s consider what exactly that crisis is and
why. We are really, perhaps, reaching
the culmination of the non-bloody coup that began when Mr. Trump became
President Trump. While we now know
that at least in part that coup was well orchestrated by some – most notably a
variety of FBI officials – I think that others just got carried along by the
rhetoric that, combined with their disappointment in their candidate’s loss,
took up the banner that proclaimed anything and everything associated with
President Trump is a crisis for our country.
As the drum beat increases it begins to sound like a real
crisis. But, is it? Or are those disgruntled Trump-haters simply
finding crisis everywhere they look, even when similar events in any other
context would be overlooked if not accepted.
(See the treatment of Hillary’s campaign violations vs. Trump’s alleged
violations; see Obama’s separation of immigrant families and deportation of
illegals vs. the same actions by Trump; see Obama’s scrubbing of security
clearances vs. the same actions by Trump; see Obama’s meetings with Russia and
promises of “more flexibility” if reelected vs. the “horror” of Trump meeting
with Putin; see the overlooking or minor
penalties for past tax evasions vs. the treatment of Paul Manafort for similar
evasions long before he was associated with Trump; see the overlooking of gaffes by Obama (there
are 57 states, 10,000 died in Kansas tornado when actually only 12 died,
proclaiming he was in St. Louis when actually in Kansas, referring to WW2 Nazi
concentration camps as Polish, just to name a few) while pointing out every
similar gaffe or typo of Donald Trump and treating it as proof of his incapacity; see the tolerance if not encouragement of
violent words and sometimes actions against Trump and his supporters while
abhorring even the slightest negative appellation against anyone not affiliated
with Trump.)
Of course, a big part of this manufactured crisis is the “investigation”
into Russian collusion. At the behest of
those who were still reeling and recovering from the fact that their candidate
lost, in May of 2017 Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to
investigate. That’s the same Mueller who
it has since been revealed had ties to the very same FBI agents whom have been
shown to have biases against and perhaps have been actively working to remove
President Trump.
Mueller appointed a team made up almost entirely of
individuals opposed to Donald Trump.
That is not surprising considering Mueller’s role. He is an attorney – in this case acting as a prosecutor. One must understand that attorneys are, in
the end, simply hired guns. That is,
they represent a client regarding a particular case and their purpose is to end
that case positively for their client.
Now, of course, attorneys can have good and noble aspirations. They may believe in the cause. They do a lot of good in the world. But in the end, they are working for a client
with the purpose of winning that client’s case.
And so, as a good attorney, Mr. Mueller will want to prove collusion or
at least that Trump is somehow in the wrong – that is the case he is being paid
to handle. And, there is past, reported history
of his behavior in other cases indicating that he will do almost anything – certainly
push the ethical envelope – in order to win.
So, we have an investigation that has cost us, the
taxpayers, millions of dollars, but which has found no evidence of
collusion. But, in its underlying real
interest of delegitimizing President Trump and removing him from office by any
means necessary, the investigation goes on.
It uses gestapo techniques to harass people in any way associated with Trump,
find some sort of possible crime committed long before Trump was even a
candidate and in most instances unrelated to Trump, and then use that as
threatening leverage to get the target to plead to a crime and then let the
media run with how this somehow implicates Trump and is another reason to
impeach him. The drum beat gets louder
and louder as the team tries to get more and more people to turn or appear to
turn on Trump.
People may wonder why Mueller ignores some possible crimes
that his investigation reveals while only going after anything that might
result in delegitimizing President Trump.
The answer is: that is his
job. And sadly, it results in unequal
justice (see for example, Kimberly Strassel, When Justice is Partial, https://outline.com/cSBkN8). Mr. Mueller is a cog, albeit an important
one, in the attempted coup that has been taking place against President Trump since
his inauguration. He is important
because, like any prosecutor, he can not only “turn” witnesses, but he can get
them to “compose” – that is, when a witness is threatened and “squeezed” he may
reveal factual information that may help the prosecution, but he may also
create or “compose” information that will both help the prosecutor and help the
witness to avoid threatened punishment.
Let’s face it. The worst that Mueller has yet come up with
is that Trump may have been involved in a payment to a stripper that he
allegedly had an affair with long before he was ever a candidate. There was an agreement that in exchange for
money the stripper would not go to the press with her story. She breached that legal contract. And, apparently such “hush money” payments
are quite common (and not illegal) among the rich and famous as well as in the
world of tabloid news. Certainly, this
is not pretty, but it is not Russian collusion, it is not evidence of a “crisis”
of government. If true, it is evidence
that Mr. Trump has some possibly disgusting incidents in his past. But, then, don’t we all? And, if the payment were even in part made to
not hurt Trump’s chances in the election, it is doubtful if it was a campaign finance
violation and certainly does not rise to the level of the payments by the
Hillary campaign to Fusion GPS to directly affect the election with unproven
allegations against Trump (You will recall that is the same Fusion GPS whose
dossier was used by the anti-Trump actors within the FBI to get FISA warrents that
allowed them to surveil Trump and his campaign officials.)
Yet, the drum beat just gets louder and louder. It silences any objective and thoughtful
questioning. Crisis, what crisis? Oh, if they keep screaming it so loudly it
simply must be true. The sky is falling,
the sky is falling. The crisis is here,
the crisis is here.
No, the crisis is not here.
Or if it is, it is that there is a silent coup going on right before our
eyes. And its method is to use any and
everything to make us believe that we are in a crisis that will only be
remedied by the removal of President Trump.
And yet, if we let that coup succeed, then consider what sort of
precedent that sets. Whenever enough
people do not like a president they can simply manufacture a crisis to remove
him.
Our democratic form of government is by election, not coup,
and not by the constant drum beat of manufactured crisis. Don’t be caught up in the drug of the drum; instead,
see the crisis for what it is – a scream of pain from those who have lost their
power and influence in a legitimate and democratic election. Close your ears to the drum and listen
instead to the objective reason of your mind.
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