The Art of Convenience
by Tom Sullivan
There is no bottom. We keep looking for one, though. This scandal, this one. Surely, this one will prompt action to remove a president who violated his oath of office (emoluments) before even removing his hand from the Bible. He is Kurt Russell’s “Ego” from Marvel’s “Guardians” series. His purpose in life is to fill the universe with “Me.”
Black as his soul and topped with spikes, the border wall he promised to build is a monument to Himself. And, Greg Sargent writes this morning, to “his megalomania; his demagoguery about desperate migrants; his contempt for empirical, reality-based governing; his prioritizing of the base’s prejudices and fantasies above all else.” He’s instructed subordinates to break the law to build it by November 2020. He’ll use his pardon power to protect them, if needed.
Ah, a White House official explained, but he was only “joking.” (If he were Ann Coulter, he’d roll his eyes at being called out and toss his hair. Then again, maybe not.)
And he never lies. He just has a “blunt way of speaking.” Over 12,000 times now.
Sargent summarizes the Washington Post findings on where his wall project stands:
- Trump has privately instructed aides to skirt laws and regulations to get the wall built faster — and told them he will pardon them if necessary. A White House official claims Trump is joking when he offers pardons, but this obviously doesn’t make it acceptable. In fact, it stands as confirmation that Trump actually has said this — leaving his underlings in the position of interpreting it as a real directive and offer. This demands further scrutiny.
- Trump has privately admitted a wall isn’t the best way to stop illegal immigration — but he has told top aides that if he fails to deliver, it would be a letdown to supporters heading into reelection. Indeed, in private meetings, Trump has justified this position by musing about the loud cheers his wall receives at rallies.
- Trump has not delivered on the wall. Sixty miles of replacement barriers have been built during the Trump presidency — all in areas where infrastructure previously existed. This explains Trump’s anguish about getting more done faster.
And he is pressuring the Army Corps of Engineers to award the contract “to a company whose chief executive is a donor to one of his top GOP allies in Congress.”
Rep. David N. Cicilline (R.I.) tells the Post, “Sadly, this is just one more instance of a president who undermines the rule of law and behaves as if he’s a king and not governed by the laws of this country.” Cicilline added, “He is not a king, he is accountable.” As soon as we hear the rock hit the bottom of the pit.
But there is no bottom. Once you’ve separated children from their parents, separated nursing infants from mothers, locked them in cages, fed them expired food and forced refugees to go weeks without a shower or clean clothes, Bess Levin writes at Vanity Fair, “it’s a bit of a challenge to come up with your next act. Evil takes creativity.”
No problem (“problemo” ist verboten). The administration has cancelled the “medical deferred action” program that grants foreign-born children special immigration status. Letters are arriving around the country ordering them to leave the country within 33 days. For some, it is virtually a death warrant.
The Boston Globe Editorial Board writes, “Step by malicious step, the Trump administration is turning the American immigration system into an apparatus of appalling, intentional cruelty.”
Everything else is a grift. For himself. For his family. For his supporters. The law? The law is for punishing opponents when it is convenient and for ignoring when it is not. The king Himself is immune.
The Constitution? That too is a matter of convenience, both for this president and his party. Charlie Pierce’s answer to how Never Trumpers might rehabilitate themselves is simple: Lay off the franchise. Quit using the law to exclude inconvenient people from full participation. “The franchise is everything. If we all can’t agree on that, then none of the rest of it is worth a damn.” They should tell their attack dogs in state legislatures to get born again about that.
Pierce explains:
Make no mistake. The Republican Party at every level has abandoned any serious attempt at attracting any voters who are not voting for it right now. This is an odd phenomenon in American history, because every other party that fell into this kind of entropy disappeared within a year. The Federalists vanished because nobody wanted to be a Federalist anymore, and the people who ran the party decided against trying to break off any of the people buying what Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were selling across the street. This was stupid and suicidal. Our modern Republican Party realizes this, so it has found a way around the problem. It is easier to keep inconvenient people from voting than it is to find a way to appeal to any of them, and you can use the institutions of democratic government to do this.
Someone with access needs to tell the acting president he is not a king. To his face. Loudly. Not simply issue a statement to the papers. If it isn’t inconvenient.