Day: January 27, 2019

Blithering

Posted in Daniel Serwer - January 27, 2019 - 4 Comments

This is a president of the United States in near total self-delusion. Ninety percent of what he says and implies in this rambling peroration is untrue. The simple facts are these: most undocumented immigrants and drugs in the US come through regular border crossings, few come through areas where this is no fencing, crime rates by undocumented immigrants are lower than by native-born Americans, and the overall numbers of undocumented immigrants have fallen dramatically for decades. There is no immigration crisis and no need for more than modest extensions and modernization of existing border barriers.

Trump belatedly realized that closing down of a large part of the US government in order to get border wall funding was a big political mistake. Republican Senators had started to defect on keeping the government closed, and Senate Majority Leader McConnell was warning Trump that he could no longer hold the line. Trump’s approval rating, already unusually low, had fallen further. The strong economy he inherited from Barack Obama is starting to tremble. Special Counsel Mueller has indicted one of Trump’s closest pals for crimes incident to long-denied cooperation with Wikileaks on release of Russian-hacked documents purloined from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Things are going to get a lot worse.

The re-opening of the government is only for a few weeks. But Trump won’t be able to shut it down again. Instead he is threatening to declare a national emergency that would give him authority to spend money on his border wall. That move would trigger lawsuits that will prevent any border wall construction for years to come.

The Special Counsel has now unveiled a web of cooperation between Trump’s campaign, his friends, Wikileaks, and Russia that suggests the worst: a candidate for President not only willing to accept illegal foreign assistance, but to do so in the form of stolen emails. For details, see law professor Jennifer Taub’s Tweetsummary:

 13 hours ago

More

🧵Thread We Have Seen the Mueller Report –– And It’s Spectacular 1/

Crooked would be a kind word to describe the behavior Mueller has already gotten guilty pleas for as well as convictions. Others should be presumed innocent, but it would take a lot more courage than Trump has not to be frightened. The Special Counsel is only one degree of separation from the President and likely to indict family members soon: Don Jr., Ivanka, and Jared Kushner are in his sights.

Meanwhile, House Speak Pelosi, fresh from her unalloyed victory over Trump in ending the government shutdown without wall funding, will be presiding over a united Democratic caucus ready and willing to investigate every corner of malfeasance and corruption in a grossly misbehaving and corrupt campaign and administration. The next few months will be replete with devastating revelations, quite apart from the Mueller investigation.

Trump will turn to foreign policy to try to stem the tide of disapproval. He’ll meet again with Kim Jung-un, who so far has provided nothing serious to indicate he intends to give up long range missiles and nuclear weapons. He may tout a peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians with no possibility of acceptance by the latter. He’ll double down on trying to oust Venezuelan President Maduro. He’ll reach an accommodation with China on trade, boasting that only he could do it. He is hoping to throw enough jello at the wall that something will stick.

It won’t. The world understands power. Both the domestic political situation and Trump’s many missteps internationally have convinced everyone that he is unreliable at best, perfidious at worst, and incurably weak. Blithering is not what strong, confident reliable, upstanding presidents do.

 

Tags : , , , ,
Tweet