Ignorance is not bliss.
I am really tired of hearing Republicans say, "The people elected him to (smash up Washington, bring back coal jobs, etc. - insert delusion here), so he should get to do whatever he wants, and it doesn't matter if he has no idea what he's doing - he's not a Washington guy and doesn't know (insert protocol here)."
For Paul Ryan to say, "The president is new at this. He’s new to government. And so he probably wasn’t steeped into the long going protocols that established the relationships between DOJ, FBI, and White Houses” is simply ridiculous, but it echoes the current
excuses talking points that the Republicans are using to obfuscate the fact that the Resident is completely and utterly - even dangerously - unfit for the office he grifted his way into.
If you remember, when Obama became President, the Repubs continually called him an 'amateur' because he had only been in the Senate for a short time. He had, however, been in the Senate, and before that had taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago for 12 years, had been a civil rights attorney and had been an Illinois state senator for 3 terms, so even though he had many years of experience and education in law and government at both state and national level, he was mocked by the right as an unqualified amateur.
And you never heard anyone on the right say, "The people elected Obama so whatever his agenda is, is what the people want him to do."
The office of President of the United States is arguably the most important and influential job on the planet.
Why on earth would it be acceptable to have a President who doesn't know what he's doing - and, moreover, refuses to learn?
And when people say they want someone in government who's 'not a politician' - I understand it if you're thinking of the word 'politician' in the derogatory sense. But government has to be run by people who have some idea about what they're doing! Why would you want someone in office who is incompetent?
I've used the example of a person who's never been to medical school being handed a scalpel and sent in to operate on a patient. Sure, every surgeon has a first time operating, but he or she would have many years of education and practice on cadavers, assisting other surgeons, etc., before they would be allowed to cut into a patient. And there are tens of thousands of surgeons in the United States.
But - forget about surgeons; if you were hired at McDonald's you wouldn't be allowed to take a single order or flip a single burger without the proper training. If even the lowest-paid service jobs require a certain expertise before being allowed to interact with the public, why in the world would it be acceptable to have someone in the most powerful position in the world be unqualified?
This is a person who at any given time is four minutes away from wiping all life from the face of the earth.
And to all those people who say, "Give the guy a chance - he's new to this" - he's not interested in learning about the requirements of the job. He's not interested in following any of the rules or protocols - or even laws - that are the parameters of this highly complicated and sensitive job. He insults our allies, but he kisses up shamelessy to our adversaries. He doesn't care about democracy; he prefers - let's be kind and say autocracy. He doesn't care about diplomacy; he prefers military aggression. If he really cared about the job, he'd be busting his ass 24/7 to learn about it. He'd be humble about his lack of knowledge and do whatever it took to become qualified.
But he's not interested.
All he's interested in is what he's been interested in his whole life: Donald Trump and his own glory, power and money.
Laws, rules and protocols are just obstacles to his autonomy.
And the sad thing - the awful, frightening thing - is that the Republicans could not care less.
As long as they have a lock on every branch of the government, they will not do anything that will endanger their control of the White House, the House, the Senate and the Judiciary. They are so close to getting everything they have ever wanted with no interference from Democrats that there is nothing they won't put up with from this malevolent clown and his family of grifters and shills. They will not impeach him. No matter what. They will turn themselves inside out until their heads spin right off their necks to justify keeping Trump in office.
Republicans know that even though they would have a President Pence to take his place that they would lose Trump's 'base' - those people are not Pence fans and would not be unquestioningly loyal to hiim. Trump's power is in the relationship beween a social dominator and his authoritarian followers, and you cannot just substitute another person into that relationship. They also know that the scandal of an impeachment would hamper their ability to pursue any legislation, and at the next election they would be wiped out the way they were after Nixon.
So, as much as I am interested in Comey's testimony and the investigation into the Russian attacks on our elections and the question of Trump campaign collusion or complicity, I don't see it leading anywhere right now. I wish I could. But no matter what the outcome of these hearings and investigations, the fact remains that you cannot prosecute a sitting president. It's not that the president is above the law; it's that the job of the president is important enough that any criminal prosecution can wait until he is out of office. Impeachment is possible, but only by having articles of impeachment brought by the House, and subsequent prosecution by the Senate. And with Republican majorities in both bodies of Congress, that will not happen.
I'm not ruling out the possibility of something so egregious happening, or being brought to light, that there is simply no way around it, because Trump is such a walking dumpster fire that there is no telling what he's capable of. In the four short months (although they seem interminable) that he has occupied the White House, he has done so many unimaginable things that nothing - absolutely nothing - he does would surprise me. But as things stand today, I don't see anyone being able to stop him for a good while.
That does not mean that we should not fight him at every turn - fight against 'normalizing' his egregious, offensive, dangerous words and actions as 'a different way' of being President - not just about him, but about the precedent that his behavior sets for future Presidents, who may be a whole lot smarter, more cunning and more dangerous than he. We have to challenge him and fight him and expose him relentlessly, because every time he gets away with someone saying "Oh, he's different; he comes from the business world" or "That's just his personality" or whatever other excuses they make for his aggression, his vengefulness, his dictatorial tendencies, his disregard for any constraints - legal or moral - on his behavior, his lack of decency, his unwillingness to do what Presidents are supposed to do and act the way any democratic world leader is supposed to act, our democracy crumbles a little bit more.
There may already be irreparable damage to our world standing and relationships with our allies; even when he goes, even if we get a new President who tries to repair the damage, because of how he has treated our best friends and most dependable allies, they are not sure that they can trust that another Trump won't come along and do the same thing again. This has caused a distance between us and our closest friends that may not be able to be undone. This he has done singlehandedly. In a matter of months.
His aggression from the 'bully pulpit' has also encouraged physical violence in his followers, and his example has made it socially acceptable for white supremacists, anti-immigrants, anti-Semites, misogynists, and anti-LGBT people to take their hateful rhetoric to the level of physical attacks on people and property, as well as attacking the free press, both verbally and physically - so much that a man who physically attacked a reporter because he didin't like what the reporter said was elected to the House of Representatives and nobody said boo.
So, without power to actually stop him at this point, our only choice is to continue to speak out, to make our voices heard, to witness and record, and most of all to refuse to accept him and his behavior as normal or acceptable.
It is not.
And to go along with it because "there's nothing we can do" is doing something - it is endangering our precious democracy in a way that it may not be able to recover from.
