America’s Bicentennial celebration in 1976 was a big deal. A really big deal.
In 1974, America threw off the impending yoke of a future as an Authoritarian state when Richard M. Nixon was forced from office for egregious acts including violation of his oath of office, abuse of power, obstruction of justice. We had just ended a long and divisive war, endured a wave of political assassinations in 1968, had enacted civil rights legislation and in general, the nation needed a celebration of a milestone anniversary to begin to feel good about itself again.
Now it’s 2018, and in 8 years, America will celebrate 250 years of existence as a nation. Will we have anything to celebrate, really celebrate? If Mr. Donald Trump is not removed from office, it is my opinion that America will be a corrupt fascist nation, run by a kleptocratic ruling class, that thinks nothing of trampling the rights of the vast majority of American for the benefit of a privileged few. We will have no working democracy, and the republic that Ben Franklin told someone who asked what our form of government was told “It’s a Republic, if we can keep it”.
We will not keep this tottering republic until 2026 if the rapacious and corrupt animal, supported by the Russian Bear is not removed from power by the few remaining American legislators capable of standing up to the illegitimate president and government in power now are not removed by Impeachment or forced out by resignation.
Corruption of the United States government by the administration is on a scale only seen a few times in world history. It hasn’t matched that of Russia, yet. And yet . . . we have clear examples of US foreign policy being for sale to the highest bidder, all intended to further enrich and finance the private activities of the president and his family. Half a billion for a hotel, end tariffs. Don’t lend money to the son-in-law, get an ally blockaded, and then lend the son-in-law, the blockade gets lifted. Never in American history has policy been so transparently for sale, and never has the dollar amounts bribed been so very high.
I wrote this draft a few months ago. In the last two days, we have gotten a look at what an American Government by Decree might look like, with our insane president (I truly believe he is insane) declaring an end, without consulting the State Department, the Pentagon and Secretary of Defense, the Intelligence Community of a unilateral, and completely by surprise withdrawal of our troops from Syria in the battle against ISIL/ISIS. No warning to our allies, including the one most severely impacted by the withdrawal, our Kurdish allies that may now face a bloodbath, both on the battlefield, and in their homeland by Turkey, whose dictator seems to have our president as a Client. It strengthens the murderous Assad, the Russians and Putin, Iran, and weakens many others. All because of an unthinking, and likely ordered President of the United States. Who gave the order?
A second example of Government by Decree that came about today was the president’s decision to welsh on a deal he made with congress to keep the government open over the holidays, by reneging and suddenly deciding that $5 B in “wall” funding HAD to be in the Continuing Resolution. The president’s insane statement, with wildly inflated, illogical, illiterate and insane numbers is another example of what an insane dictator looks like.
As the investigations close in on the president, his campaign, his administration, his business, his family, his “foundation” and other illegal and unethical activities, done over a lifetime of grifting, this president becomes even more unstable and insane. One could imagine (at least this one can imagine) that with the “Trump Shutdown”, a declaration of a State of Emergency or other calamitous action by this president, such as a declaration of Martial Law (I was in the Philippines when Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law, and the Philippines lost their freedom for 16 years, and the de-stabilization of that nation persists to this day), which entails suspension of rights, confiscation of guns, no habeous corpus, muzzling of the free press, curfews, soldiers with machine guns patrolling the streets and other activities. All of these things happened in the Philippines when I was there in 1972. I don’t think we can say “It Can’t Happen Here”. It can and it might.
For all of these, and many more reasons, it is time for Congress to assert its Article 1 powers and impeach this president. I am aware of the numbers in the House and Senate, so there is no need to make that point in the comments and call me naive on this point. If you can propose how to get about 20 Republicans (does the word even exist any more since the party is now called “Trump Victory”) to vote to convict, please make that comment.
NOTE: Since I finished this, Secretary Mattis has resigned. It is likely something else will happen shortly. We just don’t know what it is yet.