By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist
By now we can all agree we had a leader who, in the latter part of his presidency, was failing mentally. Until it wasn’t, his team was successful in hiding the decline; on more than one occasion, even his wife stepped in to lead him out of a sentence in which he’d become lost. It was as sad as it was shameful.
Nevertheless, history remembers him more for “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” than for the Iran-Contra scandal, the “tax cuts pay for themselves” lie, or “trees cause air pollution.” Or ending all the energy-saving measures his predecessor had put in place, which, had they remained, might have prevented subsequent energy crises. Not to mention addressing climate change when we still had a chance.
So let it be with Joe Biden. May he be remembered more for guiding the country out of the throes of the grossly mishandled pandemic and a crashing economy left to him by his predecessor, than for his end-of-term failings. Not for the NOT-wide-open border but for rebuilding infrastructure, bringing down post-pandemic inflation, never as high in the U.S. as elsewhere. Enacting the CHIPS Act, adding millions of jobs. Strengthening NATO. Et several more ceteras (American Presidency Project: tinyurl.com/etcs4u).
If Donald Trump and his coterie of confabulators have any say in it, he won’t be. Last weekend, for example, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, doing the Full Ginsburg, claimed that, under Trump, inflation has come down for the first time in four years. That’s like insisting that Trump made the sun rise in the East for the first time. Not a single show host called him on it. Trump has successfully threatened honest news agencies into avoiding the truth which once, as they say, had the ability to set us free. History may judge his snuffing of the free press to have been even more damaging than stuffing his sidekickery with amoral acolytes willing to carry out his every act of lawless government weaponization.
Hair-triggered, Trump and his outrage-ready cadre pounced on former FBI Director James Comey for shelling out a picture containing the numbers 86 and 47. Had he showed up at the White House, armed, in combat gear, they concluded, his intentions wouldn’t have been more clear. That Trumpists sold 86-46 paraphernalia (Etsy: tinyurl.com/86464u) slipped their “minds.” Same with Matt Gaetz bragging he’d “86ed McCarthy, McDaniel and McConnell.” The term, legend has it, came not from murderer’s row, but from restaurant lingo (History: tinyurl.com/ate64u).
Which should be considered more threatening? Comey’s beach photography or Trump saying, of Liz Cheney, “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
But weaponized outrage points only leftward. Recall the Foxian apoplexy when President Barack Obama, thankfully not wearing that shockingly disrespectful tan suit, bent slightly at the waist when meeting Saudi Arabia’s murderous Mohammed bin Salman? What, other than groveling, shall we call Trump’s words to him? “He’s your greatest representative, greatest representative. And if I didn’t like him, I’d get out of here so fast. You know that, don’t you? He knows me well. I do, I like him a lot. I like him too much. That’s why we give so much, you know? Too much. I like you too much.” While MBS sat grinning like the cat who trapped the canary, fattened it up, toyed with it for a while, then ate it. Was there silence from the right? Is the Pope American?
Nor was there a peep about the worshipful, Kim Jong Il-mimicking, larger-than-life poster of tough-scowling Trump hanging from a government building, meant for public adoration and submission (Crooks & Liars: tinyurl.com/hanging4u).
The cult of Trump approves his every normative transgression. Like the lib-sticking, white-supremacist-coddling importation of white South African non-victims of non-existent “white genocide of farmers” (Washington Post: tinyurl.com/nogeno2u). Not only might they not be farmers (Mail & Guardian: tinyurl.com/nofarm4u), at least one appears to be an antisemite worse than the college students (anti-Israel ≠ antisemite) Trump has been deporting for formerly protected speech (Bulwark: tinyurl.com/anti4u).
We’re living in the Upside-Down, where intelligence analysts are fired for truths that disprove Trumpic lies (Mediaite: tinyurl.com/nojob4u). Where, if not fired, they’re pressured to change their conclusions (MSNBC: tinyurl.com/2change4u). Where, when corporations like Walmart announce price hikes due to tariffs, Trump demands they “eat” the costs, confirming his lie that China pays. Like so many other institutions that are money strong but democracy weak, they’ll probably cave, too.
Trump’s unrelenting attacks on every constitutional creation intended to secure and protect democracy are working. Their success depends on dictatorial threats, willingness of his crew of unconscionables to enact them, and, most of all, the cowardice and greed of those given the power to stop it. Without evident irony, Holy Mike Johnson says that since Trump’s corruption is unhidden, it’s OK. Trump wants us to become so inured to it that it becomes ignorable. For much of the country, it already is. Even arresting legislators, former government officials, students and legal immigrants. And petty, thin-skinned threats toward pop stars who speak out against him.
Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.
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