“A Confused Presidency”

May 19, 2018

In reflecting upon the political confusion which seems to infect the Trump presidency, I thought to pause for a few moments and reflect on President Trump’s actions, reactions and re-reactions. In my opinion, this president and his presidency are one of the most maladaptive and weird administrations ever witnessed in my observation of the past 60 years of governing in our great nation.  I pause to offer this reflection simply in an attempt to clarify in my own mind the rampant confusion in this current White House.  Failing to engender loyalty in many of his aides and “underlings”, this White House has sprung so many leaks it is in danger of sinking!  Never before, in my recollection, has one president engendered so much disloyalty among so many White House workers.

President Trump accuses the leakers of “sensitive White House information” of treason and vows to criminalize their behavior. The remarks made regarding Senator John McCain of Arizona serve as one prime example.  Rather than apologizing to the senator and firing the aide who mocked his dying, after years of public service to our nation, President Trump vilifies the person who leaked these explosive comments.  Not one word of apology for the actual comment is uttered!

The paranoia of this already paranoid President seems to increase daily. Not only is the Mueller investigation which is legitimately seeking to establish how and when the Russians influenced our last election cycle being demonized, the President does not see the importance of  preventing a future attempt to guarantee the validity of future election cycles.  Instead this President has made it “all about himself” and his cronies in government.  “The Department of Justice is out to get the President,” so says tonight’s headlines on MSN news.  Yet this President has already placed his own man in the oversight of the Department of Justice and the associate director is his man, too.  We already know, President Trump fires anyone he feels is a threat to him in any way, if he is able to do so.

He has now hired Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City and savvy media lawyer to disseminate whatever information false or true may poison or facilitate the news cycles of the day. One time mistress and porn star, Stormy Daniel’s lawyer, Michael Avenatti,  is accused of causing a “media circus” and releasing information embarrassing to the president, but the President has no qualms in having his lawyer Rudolph Giuliani do exactly the same thing!  Is this not the pot calling the kettle black?

I have stopped, for the most part, watching any of the day’s news cycles. Since it all has very little relevance to anything except what happens in the beltway of Washington, DC, the easiest way to determine what this President and his administration is doing is simply to observe their actual behavior.  It is certain and without a doubt, the President is trying to dismantle any oversight of clean air and water and to do away with most if not all regulations of our manufacturing concerns.  In President Trump’s small ideological mind, he believes this will actually help the economy by allowing our air and water to be polluted even more than it already is.  This is the height of insanity, but whoever said greed will not also make a man insane?  We also know President Trump believes he can win a tariff battle with China.  He knows so little history, he does not know this same strategy failed quite miserably in the 1920s.

We know the President has rewarded his conservative evangelical constituency by placing the US embassy in Jerusalem. Armageddon can now come on time, as well as Jesus’s promised return.  He does not seem to care he has demolished fifty years of diplomacy to seek a two state solution to give a homeland to both Jews and Palestinians.  He will not be the person to obtain “the ultimate deal” since the Palestinians will never allow him as President now to have this credit.

President Trump has managed to move the Middle East closer to war, by jettisoning the Iran Nuclear agreement, which Europe is desperately trying to salvage. Don’t quote me on this, ask President Barak Obama, who said these very words in the last two weeks.

President Trump has touted his ability to bring the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un to the negotiating table, citing the power of the sanctions placed on his regime. However, Kim Jong-un now threatens to pull out of these negotiations, citing the words of National Security Advisor John Bolton, who cited the Libyan example of Gadhafi.  The North Koreans know that this same Gadhafi was killed by rebels in his own country right after he surrendered his nuclear power.  Bolton should have been fired by the President for undercutting this initiative.  To the best of my knowledge this was not done.  President Jimmy Carter said, upon Bolton’s nomination, “This is a terrible mistake for this administration.”  If President Trump only listened to past Presidents for advice and no one else, he might have gained some wisdom handling the office for which he has no experience!

While President Trump touted the victory of ISIS in Syria, he failed to notice that Iran and Russia have established a new armored presence less than 100 miles from the capital of Israel, certainly within distance to bomb the whole country to oblivion if they wish to do so. Israel is taking proactive strikes to prevent this beach head from being established so close to their sacred land.  It is not surprising that our neophyte president has no clue of the power vacuum he has allowed to be filled in the Middle East geopolitics.  After much blood and treasure was spent on the two conflicts in Iraq, the newly elected leader of Iraq is the very person who has killed US soldiers there.

By giving away the moral high ground to the Chinese, President Trump for all his rhetoric has failed to engender himself to any allies who might counterbalance China’s rise to dominance in that region of the world.  After pulling out of the Trans Asia Trade Partnership, so carefully cultivated by President Obama to ensure our presence in South Asia, now the counterbalance to China is lost and this President has managed to embroil us in a tariff war with China.  USA wine, soybeans, pork, steel, aluminum and sundry other products will not be bought in China.  Other nations will fill this gap.  The Chinese trade ambassador says China will not help narrow the $300+ billion trade gap with the United States.  President Trump engages in a lot of wishful thinking, but produces little to no results.

Having managed to alienate our Mexican allies to our south and our Canadian friends to the north, President Trump has achieved what he set out to do, to isolate this nation from every other economy in the world. Truly, Driving the Car Backwards, Trump is taking us back into the historical past of the 1950s in to a time which no longer exists.  He has managed to kill, maim and destroy almost everything dear and precious to our nation.  Despite his selling his soul to the Alt Right to obtain his election, he has yet to recognize the decline of the white majority, nor his energizing of Hispanics, blacks and others who will ultimately defeat him.  Mr. President, this nation is no longer just white angry males anymore!  The political ground has shifted beneath you and your carefully built artifice is about to fall to the ground!  If you knew your constituency well, you would know more than half of us aim to defeat your kind in November.

We, as a nation, no longer offer a sanctuary to the poor, those seeking freedom from tyranny or the dream seekers from other nations. We will, however, lock these persons in jail, prosecute them and send them back to from whatever place they came!  Whether these refugees live or die is no longer our immediate concern.  The USA, under President Trump, has become no different from any other banana republic and strong man government across the world, full of graft, greed, a lust for power, extortion, money laundering, and crony politicians.  The Ethical commission of the United States says the amount of use and misuse of the publicly owned President Seal by this President in his intent to enhance his own brand in exchange for money is unheard of in any other modern Presidency.

Shall I go on? Am I the only person who sees clearly the lunacy of this President’s policies?  Am I the only voice crying in this wilderness, to make straight the highway for our God?  Where are the others who love this nation enough to fight and to die if necessary for our democratic ideals and our American way of life?

As for me, I can only write this dirge, “Bum, Bum, Bum, the worst is yet to come!” The bum we call President brings with him the worst which is yet to come.  I hear the funeral march getting louder for this nation.  Yet all we need to do is to eject this President and his administration and elect someone to replace him and his paranoid, narcissistic ways!  Would to God that I had the power and the means to make this happen!  Yet in a democracy like ours this power is only given to the people.  “Of the people, by the people, for the people…”  Does anyone remember when we the people recited the words of our constitution with pride?

I will go back and read that wonderful document of freedom and hope again! Lest I forget, “Oh Lord Jesus, let us not forget!  Help us to remember the sacred words of our own constitution!  Even more than that, let us remember today the better word of your Gospel, when you said, “When the Son of Man shall set you free, you shall be free indeed!”

At least that word has not failed us. “Let goods and kindred go; this mortal life also.  The body they may kill.  God’s truth abideth still.  God’s kingdom is forever!”  (Fortress is our A Mighty Fortress is our God – Martin Luther).

“Amen!”

Bill W, servant of God by God’s grace and mercies.

Let all of God’s people say, “Amen!”

“Amen! We praise you, Lord Jesus Christ!”