Watching Attorney General William Barr explain why it is that a report is going to come down
during election season investigating wrongdoing on the part of the Obama/Biden administration, and
why it is that Trump’s friends seem to get assistance from the Justice Department, even if they plead
guilty, but Trumps enemies certainly don’t get the same help etc. at some level reminds me just how
fragile democracy really is.
If the republican senate refuses to reign in the Trump Administration’s conduct, be it the Justice
Department, or the firing of US Attorneys investigating the Administration, or the firing of Inspector
General’s investigating the Administration or the most recent hamstringing of the post office (didn’t see
that one coming) or take your pick, then it gets really dangerous for the future of our democracy.
If the President can violate norms, the constitution and basically the law consistently and
continuously, without any consequences, then what? At some level I begin to understand the slippery
slope that eventually led to dictatorship in Germany. No, Donald Trump is not Hitler, but its not difficult
for me to image Bill Barr as Goebels, the lying propaganda minister.
We are not there yet and perhaps things would never get as extreme as Nazi Germany, but the
things that occur every single day in this administration simply did not occur in other administrations.
What is to be said when one of Trump’s cronies claims the Obama administration was the most corrupt
administration in history? Pres. Obama stood there while Trump was inaugurated but do any of us
believe that Trump would do the same for Joe Biden to demonstrate to the world the orderly transition
of power? Do any of us believe that if the election goes down against Trump that he will not
exaggerate, agitate and claim fraud, just like Al Gore did in the close election with George Bush (not).
But its really not Trump’s conduct, nor even the conduct of his republican enablers that terrifies
me (as both were predictable), but instead that many of our citizens believe it is in the country’s best
interest that Trump be provided with another four years. How can that be? How can anyone conclude
all good with Trump!
Yes he cut taxes. The fact that he ran a 1 trillion deficit during years of prosperity, no problem.
Yes he placed an early travel ban on China. But the United States has suffered at levels that
basically no modern country has experienced with the pandemic. Again no problem?
Yes the economy was a strong continuation of the long recovery from the great recession, but
no doubt the trillion deficit didn’t hurt, but the pandemic did.
