Our #Shutdownstory

January 12, 2019

    We awaken each day to our government playing out the same depressingly familiar scene, as if we are trapped in a horror movie version of “Groundhog Day.”  The shutdown is now the longest in history, as the bloated reprobate, who conned his way into the presidency, holds our government hostage over its refusal to erect a monument to his racism.  Trump is aided and abetted by the amoral fossil in charge of the Republican Senate majority, who cunningly manipulates the arcane rules of the chamber to throttle democracy.

    It isn’t clear how this shutdown will end, given the combination of Trump’s truculence and McConnell’s willingness to hold his own chamber hostage.  The damage is mounting, as 800,000 federal workers and countless federal contractors enter their fourth week without pay. Twitter is awash in #ShutdownStories of the hardships they are facing.   Vandals are trashing Joshua Tree National Park and the FDA is curtailing food inspections, endangering our food supply.

    There is no way for Democrats to compromise with Trump, because he doesn’t negotiate and has repeatedly made clear that he will be satisfied with nothing less than total capitulation to his irrational demand for an exorbitantly expensive, ineffective wall.  They cannot act like the cowed townspeople in “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and ignore the fact that Trump is rambling incoherently about “walls” and “wheels” like the syphilitic monarch who ruled us when we were a colony. Congressional Democrats must stand firm and refuse to conduct any legislative business until the government is re-opened.

    Given the bombshell news we learned yesterday—that the FBI had opened a counter-Intelligence operation to determine whether Trump was an agent of the Russian government, it may be that Trump is modeling his behavior on that of    Vincent “The Chin” Gigante, hoping to evade prison by faking mental illness, (Source:  “FBI Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia,” by Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt and Nicholas Fandos, The New York Times, 1/11/19).  The truth is, we can’t know, and both possibilities are equally frightening.  Trump is either a Russian agent actively working to dismantle American democracy and destroy our alliances around the world; or he is a corrupt, doddering racist, cracking under the pressure of the toughest job in the world.

     Thus, while there is no question now that Trump’s continued tenure in office constitutes a clear and present danger to every American, his impeachment will be necessary, but not sufficient.  Any senator enabling him, whether it is bombastic cheerleader, Lindsey Graham, or taciturn enabler, Mitch McConnell, is not merely complicit, but is likely in league with the same hostile power that made Trump possible. Countless other Republicans in Congress received millions in contributions from Putin linked oligarchs. We cannot afford half measures.  We will have to rid ourselves of the rot that has infected our body politic, root and branch.  Our very freedom may depend on it.