After Referendumb, a Coup Attempt; Is Capitulation Next?

By Mort Rosenblum, Reader Supported News

11 August 17

 

hether Donald Trump is a bumbling selfish fool or an evil genius no longer matters. Only months into his presidency, with swaggering relish on a pause from golf, he has brought the world to nuclear High Noon.

Saddam Hussein hunkered in a spider hole or Muammar Qaddafi impaled on a broomstick ought to teach us something. Tyrants cannot let themselves back away from showdown, least of all Kim Jung-un. God help us all if he delivers a suicide note.

Most likely, China will defuse the crisis quietly. With sticks and carrots, it can induce Kim to deescalate in some face-saving manner. That requires Trump to shut the hell up and not let his CIA director threaten "regime change."

The last war North Korea started, with 1950s weaponry, killed 1.2 million people. Status quo boiled over because Trump taunted Kim in January, saying his missiles would not reach America. U.S. Pacific bases were then already in range.

Now, with Seoul just down the road from heavy artillery, Trump threatens "fire and fury such as the world has never seen." Even generous interpretation suggests he is ready for nuclear war to deflect prosecutors circling the White House.

Then there are his ham-handed moves on the Middle East backgammon board, his two-faced bluster about the destructive, needless Wall that Mexico won't actually pay for, and so much else in an overheated world that badly needs cooling down.

Meantime, schism in America is shaping an authoritarian state that cripples education, plunders natural resources, widens income gaps and reduces America to an isolated also-ran world power. We have few checks and no balance.

Should Trump exit the scene, we are left with Mike Pence, a narrowly focused fundamentalist who slavishly enables the disgraceful Washington tragicomedy. Mitch McConnell has no soul, and Paul Ryan has no spine.

Growing resistance and Trump's dropping popularity offer hope. But most Americans are so disheartened and confused that they simply tune out, focusing on their own workaday struggles. That is dangerous beyond description.

Now we hear federal agents stormed Paul Manafort's home at dawn, an extreme not reached during the tensest moments of Watergate. Investigators are probing Trump's all-in-the-family machinations. He still won't release his tax returns.

History shows a demagogue can destroy a democracy with a 30 percent hardcore base willfully blind to fact. Today, an autocrat can speak directly to followers, bypassing reporters while enabling police and the courts to muzzle dissent.

One dramatic event can tip the balance toward fearful capitulation. A month after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Germany's elected chancellor in 1933, someone set fire to the Reichstag. We all know what happened next.

Trump's diehards won't change. We need persistent pressure on legislators and government agencies along with massive turnout for any election. This is not about party but rather candidates who care more about us than themselves.

The long-term goal is a Congress and state legislatures that can reform our dysfunctional systems: direct suffrage, shorter campaigns with strict controls on money spent; closer scrutiny of what candidates have done, not what they say.

But the immediate challenge is what Trump promised before doing the polar opposite: Drain the swamp.

Venezuelans are dying in the streets to preserve their democracy. All we Americans have to do is vote. If we're not up to that, history will see us as the people who capitulated, dumbly handing over our keys to a self-obsessed clown.

To do better at home, we need to understand the wider world. Here are some thoughts on how things fall apart from a reporter who first went abroad in 1964 to cover free democratic elections in a peaceful, prosperous Venezuela.

--Consider the term, enemy, and assess actual threat. Russia is a regional power that needs us more than we need it. As candidate Trump said, we should improve relations. But Putin saw him as malleable, what Lenin called a useful idiot.

Now we're enemies. Robert Mueller will shed light on why, if he survives.

--Nations have common interests, not friends. With skillful diplomacy, China and United States could work together on global crises and curb each other's appetites. Trump's flip-flop policy pushes Xi Jinping even harder to build up his arsenal, claim new territory and muscle us aside for strategic materials across the world. As China ascends, human rights diminish and despots dig in deeper.

--Americans who see their brokerage accounts rise need to watch a Roadrunner cartoon. When world realities catch up to Wall Street, Wile E. Coyote is likely to look down and drop like a rock. Economic blocs are moving away from a man whose idea of a "deal" is to threaten, walk away, and crawl back if necessary. That rug-dealer approach works in real estate but not in global trade.

--Bolting our doors and slashing foreign aid does not make us safer. Refugee totals, near 70 million, will soar with droughts and rising seas. We need limits. Yet Trump tried to renege on Barack Obama's promise to admit 1,250 refugees now in Australia, saying we weren't a "dumping ground." In the leaked transcript, he insulted Malcolm Turnbull and showed no human empathy, only concern for his image. "This shows me to be dope...I think it is ridiculous and Obama should never have signed it...It was a rotten deal."

America is hardly to blame for all the world's refugees, but it is the main culprit. Germany, with a fourth the population, which opposed the Iraq War that opened Pandora's box, shelters over a million. We've taken in only a token so far, and many Americans resent even those.

Trump's own words define him, and therefore us: heartless to others' suffering and ignorant of the inevitable result. Many more people now hate us. His priority is a diffuse "war on terror," yet he increases potential terrorists by geometric proportions.

Freedoms we have seen vanish across the world are now eroding at home. Black lives matter. Racism and police discrimination are critical issues. But, beyond the political connotations of the phase, all lives matter. Wrongful death is the extreme, yet there is so much else short of that.

Vignettes reveal a larger picture. I've written about Christopher Morris, the photographer who a federal agent slammed to the ground at a Trump rally. He has covered Washington for so long, with intimate White House access, that the Secret Service chief is a friend. Trump's people invited him to that rally as part of a Time magazine profile.

Recently, Chris gave me the details. A Secret Service agent pushed him when he tried to take a picture. That was breach of protocol by a rookie infused with rally fervor; agents don't touch. Chris said so, including a "fuck" in there somewhere. The man dropped him with a choke hold.

"I made a serious mistake when I got up," Chris said. "I touched his throat to show him what he had done." That amounted to assaulting a federal officer, a possible 16 years in prison. In the time of Trump, Chris decided not to file charges.

That is how it starts. Imagine when it is you against Them, with no cameras catching every detail or friends in high places. Trump was not yet president. Now he urges police to brutality, to treat suspects as guilty until proven innocent.

There is far more to say, and plenty of others have said it. It is time now to fit together the isolated outrages and idiocies into a clear picture of what we face, as individuals and as a nation.

Trump is not likely to win in 2020, but we said that in 2016. Before America went to the polls, I wrote that the election amounted to a referendumb that would define us. Later, I described a creeping coup d'etat, a bald assault on the Constitution.

Today, the more evidence reporters and analysts show us, the deeper those deplorables dig in. "Alternative-fact" outlets present lies as truth. Rich backers buy once-trusted news outlets and launch new ones. For starters, Google the new radio scourge, Sinclair Broadcasting, and find John Oliver's expose of its menace.

Now, urgently, we need to resist at every level, challenge every action not worthy of us, and correct our lapse of good sense. The alternative is cowardly, ignominious capitulation.