A soon-to-be-published book about hijinks in the White House and on the campaign trail may well set in motion proceedings involving impeachment in the House and trial in the Senate. It might also trigger mechanisms in the Executive Branch to invoke Article 4 of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. Either way the alarum bells are tolling for trimp.
What would Jackie Gleason say?
But relegating trimp to the swamps far far beyond the political sidelines cannot only be a cause for celebration.
There is a clear and present danger by no means new either to our Republic or to democracy itself. The idea that the toppermost levels of the trimp campaign never expected to win a presidential election is also not new. Neither is it news that many in trimp’s immediate inner circle have nothing but contempt for the feeble minded bully who thinks he bosses them.
But enabling callow, out of touch, irresponsible, and unengaged presidents is older than the trimp administration. It was clear cut in the second bush administration and may even be older than the reagan White House. The danger is not "the president". It is not even just "the president's men." It goes much deeper. Deeper even than the vaunted 'deep state" of the national security apparatus.
The institutional problem superficially centers on the Grand Old Republican Party who seem to require telegenic patsies for working their will on (and against) a shell-shocked public. But the GOP is not the product of any popular base despite how easy it is to whip up poplar (fascist) authoritarian and racist sentiments among the discontented, economically insecure, and atomized 99% of people forced to earn wages from corporate vampires. The GOP is the zombified shambling slave of the 0.1%. Drive a stake through its heart. Slice it to pieces and burn each to a cinder. No matter how it is destroyed, it will be reconstituted in some new alluring form.
Apologists for the GOP have been known to go so far as to blame Hillary Clinton for the scourge of a trimp presidency. Unfortunately, this is not totally absurd if one considers how the Democratic Party is nearly as beholding to corporate ownership as the GOP. In fact, the Democratic Party is arguably corporate wealth’s more faithful servant in that it has the wherewithal to often protect the 0.1% from the worst manifestations of its own idiocy.
The only decent argument against democracy is the intellectually honest argument against socialism - because Socialism is, in fact, “Economic Democracy”. This is the sincere, truthful conservative argument which ruefully points out the vast majority of any population is ill prepared and indifferent to the heavy responsibilities of self rule. Anyone who fails to make this argument may well be ignorant, irresponsible, foolish, or demagogic. But anyone who does point out this truth is bound by honor to help rectify the situation with all the struggle, disappointment, and danger it entails.
