Donald Trump is the egg on America’s face.
I take no pleasure from so vociferously criticizing an American president. Comparatively, the President and his Cabinet have always been admirable men and women of character and integrity, owing to their jobs, commanding respect. In any other circumstance I would tell someone like myself to take a knee and shut up ...to have some respect for the office, and if I really wanted to do something constructive, to vote for my preferred candidate in the next election, to get out and support my candidate, and even, if I feel so strongly about America, to run for a public service office myself.
But this is not ‘any other circumstance‘. Donald Trump aka President Goldfinger has created an untenable circumstance for America and Americans and I feel it is more of a patriotic sense of duty to speak up.
Sophomoric name-calling is never a good reaction, or action, but sometimes that gut feeling is the truest most honest form of opinion. Even the sacrosanct literary prose of the Washington Post has wandered into to the weeds calling Trump a “bombastic buffoon”.
I don’t write for the Washington Post or the New York Times. I’m not an eloquent speaker like the brilliant Adam Schiff. But I feel the same way and have the same sense of America that he does, and I have something to say. This op-ed will be a little longer than my others so please bear with me ...or you can just bail out now.
President Goldfinger’s State of the Union address will determine America’s fate. The fact that he is still in office and not yet removed by impeachment cancels any clear skies through to the 2020 election.
But here’s the thing ...the “American People” are on trial here, not Donald Trump. There would be no Donald Trump if there were no “American People”. The people are directly responsible for Trump, just as Trump is directly responsible for the deaths of the 176 people on UIA Flight 752. I’ll get to that in just a minute. It’s revealing and important.
Here’s why Trump must be removed from office now, and not wait to see what the 2020 election brings. The impeachment and removal process is a check and balance on the American people as well as on Trump or on any future president because it is the American people who elected Trump and who will elect all future presidents. Unfortunately, and obviously, the American people can’t be trusted to elect a capable president. Case in point. This is our new, revised democracy. Let this be a guide, and a warning. Trump’s impeachment and removal lets the American people know that if they don’t get their heads screwed on straight and back away from the table, their TV’s, video games and their Facebook, and they put another jerk, another ‘Goldfinger’, another crook, in the White House, our democratic system won’t tolerate it. It will assure that America remains ...America.
Are we in good hands right now? Nuh-uh, I don’t think so. We should all be very scared and holding our breath for the next four years if Goldfinger is reelected by the American people. Stormy weather ahead.
The impeachment proceedings could not be called a “trial”. The Democrats presented a solid case, well articulated and documented, even though the Republican controlled Senate did not want to allow any documents or witnesses. The Republicans just passed the time with absurd rhetoric protecting Trump from himself, from the truth, and deflecting questions whose answers are obvious and best not asked. “What is the president hiding?” has become a perennial question often asked, rhetorically anymore, by the Democrats, by the media, and by the many Americans who have been paying attention. The question has been asked from day one. What’s he hiding? Everything! He’s been hiding everything from day one ...his taxes, facts ...the truth.
The President’s bank of private lawyers unconscionably twist and turn so many words trying to bend our thoughts toward the fake and immoral justice they are selling. They are thinking in overdrive but in reverse, digging deep into the abyss of credulity we Americans espouse. Our gullibility. They think we’re stupid, and many of us are. They shamelessly confuse, distract, blow smoke and position their mirrors in every effort to convince you that wrong is right.
Their Republican dog and pony show is as “outrageous” a disrespect of truth and justice, and the intelligence of many Americans, and of our Constitution, as is “outrageous” the idea of Donald Trump winning another term in the White House.
They all proudly wear their American flag lapel pins, but that seems to be where the patriotism ends. Show biz. The Republicans don’t care about corruption, or they have a very different definition of the term. They don’t care that Trump “solicited foreign interference in U.S. elections” with a quid pro quo. What’s the big deal? ...”We do it all the time” says Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s Chief of Staff and Director of the Office of Management and Budget. They don’t see anything wrong with their president exploiting every man, woman and child for his own personal and political benefit.
They follow their leader like a bunch of emasculated drones. Then there’s Kellyanne Conway. I'm just waiting for that stiletto to drop.
The two articles of impeachment the Democrats are pursuing against Trump are the ‘legalities’ they think will bring him down. They are naive to think the Republicans and Trump care about the law. To me, these two articles of “obstruction” and “foreign intervention in U.S. elections” are just symbolic of the kind of man Trump is. It’s all the other stuff in addition that adds up to impeachment and removal ...the lying, cheating, philandering, tax evasion, using the presidency to profit himself and his family, using the presidency to rewrite the Constitution to suit his own ambitions, the coverups, the phony corporations (Trump University), nepotism (Ivanka and Kushner), stacking the Supreme court deck (Kavanaugh and Gorsuch), associating with criminals (Flynn, Manafort, Stone) ...etc., etc., etc.
Conversely, the Democrats had no bank of high priced, private attorneys and criminal lawyers to present and defend their case and the truth. They used seven working House Democratic Representatives to manage and present, Adam Schiff at the helm, and they did a spectacular job. They didn’t need shifty, sneaky, manipulating lawyers, the kind that give lawyers a bad name, to make their case. Their democratic case, America’s case, was already made going in. Clear and obvious.
(Lawyer joke: How do you prevent a lawyer from drowning? Take your foot off his neck.)
The Democrats are a naive bunch, however, just like the founding fathers were ...imagine ...believing, trusting, in freedom, democracy, and “We the People”. ‘Let’s try this freedom thing, see what happens’. Their fight to break away from the autocracy of a king and the suppression of monarchy showed forward looking gut courage and a keen awareness of right and wrong. They didn’t “hate” their king or their beloved England, but they saw a future and a freedom that they just couldn’t resist or ignore. It was in their blood as it is in every human being. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Even back then, they were fighting against ‘Republicans’!
As for the Republican Senators and Congressmen. Shame on them. Hiding behind their own cowardice, their own collective conscience. They don’t even have a case. Did their mothers not teach them proper manners and right from wrong? Did they not pay attention in history class? The consistent 53 to 47 vote to suppress Democracy, literally tear up the Constitution, and defend the monster that they, and the weak of mind, values and conscience among us, put in the White House is a testament and a living tribute to blatant and overt mendacity. We all see it, we all know it, we’re all incensed by it. Our vision and our conscience is clear.
What is wrong with them ...!? Whatever it is, they need to go too. What warped vision of American democracy do they espouse? What divine right do they think they have to brand America as Donald Trump? America is tough, but it's not mean-spirited. Whatever ecclesiastic, fraternal, sacred covenant cult this Republican Guard is protecting or trying to preserve is a fallen angel, a perverse cause. They are no longer the party of Abraham Lincoln. They are more like a satanic cult acting like followers of Charles Manson or Jim Jones. Or, comically, more like Fred Flintstone’s Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes with Mitch McConnell as he ‘Grand Poobah‘ ...see you down at the Lodge! https://tstoaddicts.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/loyal-order-of-the-water-buffalo.jpg ...except they’d be wearing red hats. Too bad it’s not all that funny.
Legal or illegal, right or wrong, good or bad ...documents, evidence, emails, witnesses, whatever ...who’s to decide, and does it even matter anymore? America has been shamed (egg on face) and wounded by Trump, hopefully, not mortally. The guy just seems to be a jerk ...a crook. Nobody can deny that he is not a good representative for America or a roll model for anyone or anything. I wish he’d just go away, back to that cliche of a lifestyle he was living as a self-absorbed, unimportant rich guy, playboy, failed businessman ...
Elvis, please leave the building, I’m ready for the next show.
UIA Flight 752 Atonement
What sticks in my craw the most, however, whatever a craw is, I heard it on ‘Gunsmoke’ ...is the grim tragedy of Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752. Unconscionably, It’s related to the current political events and to the Fate of the Union.
176 men women and children died the most horrific deaths imaginable, everyone’s worst nightmare, in the early morning hours of Wednesday, 8 January 2020 when their Boeing 737-800 jet crashed at the airport in Tehran. The plane was accidentally shot down by the Iranian military mistaking it for a U.S. military attack. Tragic yet understandable, explainable. Iran has apologized and was visibly shaken by the incident. Shaken and stirred ...stirred even more now than they have been at the U.S.
It is my opinion that President Trump is directly responsible for this tragedy. Yet he, the U.S. Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, and the media, have all turned a blind eye to the truth and gravity of this horrendous consequence of these overt political shenanigans. They focused on it for a minute with the unsympathetic bob of ‘a man slips on a banana peel’ paying more attention to the impeachment proceedings, the 2020 presidential election, and even to the U.S. servicemen who were reportedly injured in the Iranian missile attack which was a response to the U.S. missile attack that killed an important Iranian General the preceding Friday, January 3rd.
If it all sounds confusing, it’s really not. If you are conflicted as to cause and result, don’t be. Trump started this domino effect under questionable intelligence (the same U.S. intelligence he has always criticized when it didn’t suit him) and for his political gain resulting in the deaths of these 176 people. It’s just that simple. He should be held accountable. He has avoided this issue as you’d expect distancing himself and the U.S. from any blame or responsibility.
As an American and citizen of the U.S. I profoundly apologize to the families of these 176 who died on Flight 752. I know that’s not much in the way of atonement, and I hope President Trump recognizes his responsibility to these people for this dreadful crime. More so, I hope the international legal community responds accordingly.
In our world of the 24 hr. news cycle we often lose sight of things that are important. Out of sight out of mind. Yesterday’s news. The media presents newsworthy (and ratings worthy) events as they see them and at blitzkrieg pace. Good Lord, we even have Wolf Blitzer presenting the news! Keep up or fall behind and become uninformed. They generally do a good job, but UIA flight 752 fell between the news media cracks and I think this tragic incident and those 176 innocent souls should be remembered and accounted for.
Epilogue
As I look at the past presidents’ portraits and photos lining the walls of schools, libraries, city and county office buildings across America, I see a history that I am a part of, to which I belong. From George Washington to Barack Obama I see men, for better or worse, who have served America. At the end of the line of those photos I see Donald Trump’s picture with that ridiculous golden fleece atop his head. I see President Goldfinger. What I don’t see is a man who has served, like the others, I see a man who likes to be served ...on a golden platter. I see America with egg on it’s face.
It’s the Fate of the Union. I’m cautiously awaiting the next photo in line ...with hesitant expectation ...
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah
https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-george-kushma-379a5762
Some past articles and op-eds
https://muckrack.com/john-kushma/articles
