October 10, 2017
Sunday morning, two term Tennessee Senator Bob Corker gave a scathingly candid interview to The New York Times, excoriating Trump as unfit for office. Corker said that Trump was treating the office of the Presidency like a “reality show” and setting us on a path towards “World War III,” (Source: “Bob Corker says Trump’s Recklessness Threatens ‘World War III,’” by Jonathan Martin and Mark Landler, The New York Times, 10/8/17). Corker was merely verbalizing what any Trump observer already knows – Trump is a dangerously unserious, thin-skinned, bellicose man-child with an utter disregard of the consequences of his impulsive actions. Corker was lauded by the pundit class for finally stating on the record what every Republican Senator apparently says off the record with regularity. Commentators pondered whether Corker would thwart Trump’s plan to pull out of the Iran Nuclear deal, rather than ask the key question: If Trump is so dangerously unfit for office, why aren’t Republican Senators considering his removal through the 25th Amendment, or at minimum, fulfilling their Constitutional duty to serve as a check on Trump’s exercise of power? Corker and his cronies need to be asked whether tax cuts for their wealthy donors are worth playing chicken with American lives. Are they so fearful of Mercer backed primary challenges from the right orchestrated by sentient carbuncle, Steve Bannon, that they have been stunned into silence? We cannot permit these questions to go unanswered. At least nominally, these people represent us, so we need to flood their phone lines demanding answers.
While “serious people” discussed the impact of Corker’s revelation, dead-eyed Puritan, Mike Pence pulled off a poorly executed stunt of ostentatiously walking out of the Colts-49er’s game in “protest,” when players kneeled during the National Anthem. Pence deliberately misstated the reason for the players’ protest in order to stoke antipathy to Black players and Black people. Pence’s ridiculous gimmick only proves that too many people in power privilege white comfort over Black lives.
Yet while we are distracted by the abdication of responsibility or intentional effort to sow racial division by those entrusted with political power, the Trump administration policies animated by white supremacy continue unchecked. Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Maria, 90% of Puerto Rico remains without power and 40% without access to clean water (Source: MSNBC video, 10/6/17). FEMA has failed to address either, leaving 3.4 million Americans dependent on the largesse of Lin Manuel Miranda and Pit Bull.
Trump is stepping up his sabotage of Obamacare. His administration has already failed to provide funds for Obamacare outreach, shortened the enrollment period and planned to take the website offline for most Sundays during the enrollment period, (Source: Obamacare signup site to be shut down for 12 hours nearly every Sunday of open enrollment,” by Laura Santhanam, The Rundown, PBS Newshour, 9/22/17). Trump is poised to sign an Executive Order this week that will undermine insurance markets by exempting association health plans from key Obamacare requirements like coverage of pre-existing conditions, (Source: “How Trump Is Planning to Gut Obamacare by Executive Order,” by Dylan Scott, Vox, 10/8/17).
Most chilling is the news that Trump’s FBI has quietly labeled something that they call, “Black identity extremists,” a terrorist threat, deeming those who peacefully protest the unjustified murder of Black people by law enforcement as a greater threat than white supremacists who gleefully seek to kill Black, Jewish, LGBT people and our allies with impunity. This is nothing less than COINTELPRO 2.0 (Look it up). We have no choice but to demand, in every way possible, a government that adheres to the Constitutional principles of a democracy that represents ALL of us. We cannot afford to be distracted by the action under the Big Top. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always hated the circus.