Schwab: Everywhere one looks, bullying, denial, illegal acts

By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist

Away for most of the week, I managed only a column with disconnected slices of MAGA. Pardon my pejorism:

Donald Trump is great at bullying the weak. For example, making Social Security applicants apply in person now, instead by phone or by mail, as before (no paywall, Washington Post: tinyurl.com/walk2SS). Other than Trump’s needy ego, who benefits? Other than cruelty for its own sake, what explains it?

But when it’s Vladimir Putin, it’s clear who’s the top. After that “great” phone call, for which Putin made him wait an hour, laughing it off when reminded of the time (tinyurl.com/VPlaughs), Trump announced various promises Putin had made. Putin denied making and proceeded to break them all. Trump hates to be humiliated; he strikes back at lawyers and journalists and politicians who fail to tow to his cows. But when Putin did that, Trump obsequiesced. MAGAs don’t care. They loves them some Putin.

Trump turned the Rose Garden into a Tesla showroom. His commerce secretary urged Americans to buy Tesla stock. Both are illegal under the Hatch Act. With Pam Bondi in charge of the Department of Justice-For-Some, they know their lawbreaking, past, present, and future, will go unpunished. Lauded, more like.

Preferring to spend his non-golfing hours threatening all who challenge him, Trump’s governance consists mostly of turning it over to Elon Musk. The morally weak, like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, news media, and some universities, caved fast. So has a previously respected law firm, agreeing to “donate” $40 million worth of fees to avoid facing his corrupt Justice Department in court (tinyurl.com/lawinfirm). He wants judges who aren’t like Aileen Cannon impeached. Americans who believe in our Constitution should be appalled and worried. This does not include MAGAs. He’s withholding federal funds from Maine until its governor offers a “full-throated apology” for her public challenge to him. Cutting off funds, threatening suits; previous presidents were more mature and less thin-skinned.

RFK Jr., the science-illiterate, conspiracy-promoting head-case in charge of the public health thanks to Trump, said the flu pandemic of 1918 was caused by the flu vaccine. Which wasn’t invented till 1948. He’s hardly the most unqualified person now in high places. But MAGAs don’t mind. Nor, we suppose, since they didn’t object to ending cancer research, do they care about his ending research into the health effects of climate change. You know; the hoax.

To justify deporting Venezuelans without the due process our laws demand (New Republic: tinyurl.com/dueproc4u), Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. Then, after law-abiding outcry, he said he doesn’t know who signed the order. This, after pretending that Biden’s pardons wouldn’t count if they were signed with an autopen. But Trump’s communication director said Trump personally signed it, and his signature is on the document in the National Archives. Is Trump lying as usual, or so demented that he doesn’t remember? Was it an autopen? In any case, it demonstrates how untrustworthy and not in charge he is. The prison to which he’s sending the Venezuelans is notoriously cruel and fatal. Or, as Secretary of Statements Marco Rubio called it, “excellent” (Daily KOS: tinyurl.com/excellent4u).

Then there’s the shocking security breach, when top Trump officials included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic in a top-secret, illegal (National Archives: tinyurl.com/lawless4u) meeting about war plans. Never heard of it, said Trump, still not in charge. Just doing their job, said Holy Mike Johnson. Lies, said Pete Hegseth, until The Atlantic published the thread, proving it. Truth? Accountability? Prosecution? Not in Trumpworld. “But her emails!!” (MSN: tinyurl.com/warplan4u)

Social Security: When is a cut not a cut? (tinyurl.com/4cut2cut)

DEI is anathema to dictators. Diversity? Not if it means including non-sycophants. Equity? Threatening to the wealthy. Inclusion? Trump considers liberalism and a free press his enemies, to be banished, not included. DEI has become, like CRT before it, an intentionally triggering term aimed at MAGullibles, cooked up with digestible disinformation. Anyone having a job who’s not straight, white, male, and Christian is a “DEI” hire. Trump’s drunks and conspiracists excepted. Ridding us of the DEI scourge demands expunging minority heroes from DOD records. Disappearing the atom-bomber Enola Gay. Removing a Native American from the story of Iwo Jima. Mentioning slavery only as job training (tinyurl.com/jobprep4u). It’s as cowardly as it is dictatorial.

The prescient words of Edmund Burke in 1770, apply: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.