The past is prologue! And if nepotism plays a part in Trump’s past, be ready for more of it. It is back, with a vengeance.
Trump is lobbying to include his family in top level, secret governmental meetings. Pardon me, but did we elect Ivanka? What appropriate place does she have at a meeting with Japanese officials, who are so culturally conservative, so insistent on proper diplomacy?
But this is only the latest in a series of Trump instigated undiplomatic actions or statements. He indicated on multiple occasions his admiration for the bravado of Vladimir Putin, even agreeing with his tough treatment of opponents. He invited Russia to continue hacking into United States computers and emails. He recently paid off litigants in the suit against the fraud he perpetrated through phony Trump University. Other, multiple suits, justiciable, even possibly criminal, await.
If any one person should be in jail, it should be Trump—you would be, I would be, pending trial, for actions rising from such insensitive (to protocol, to sound ethical code) behavior. And, for those in the media listening, he is NOT our “President.” He is a president-elect, lucking out with an antiquated Electoral College system, lacking a “mandate.” He lost by over one and one-half million national votes to former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.
Oh, so many other things to mention: Trump’s appointment of failed-to-be-Judge (rejected for his anti-civil rights’ statements) Jeff Sessions, from Alabama; he is now fated to become Attorney General, the man in charge of . . . hold on, yes, the actual protection of civil rights! If confirmed this time, it is probable few ethnic minorities, women or members of the LGBT community, can expect much support in the coming years from the Federal government.
You would be right in ignoring these “lesser” offenses and finding another action sufficient for disgust, if not for jail: that would be Trump’s appointment of “alt-right” (read, Fascist, racist) Steve Bannon, he of scurrilous Breitbart News, to darken the White House. “Darkness is good,” Bannon avows. “Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power.” He now has it and now intends to wield it; “we’ll govern for fifty years,” he brags.
This entrance into power comes from Trump’s “mini-me,” his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. His father calls him and Ivanka, Trump’s converted Jewish daughter, “the Jewish Kennedys.” Yes, the scene is redolent of “through the Looking Glass” with Alice. All we need now is a Red Queen shouting “off with their heads!” Would it be Putin? Ivanka? Not likely Melania, she of gun/boots/bikini. (You could google that infamous photo.) Probably only a manipulated Trump could give the order to behead.
It appears, more and more, Trump is becoming a puppet to this chauvinist puppeteer—Bannon as “Rasputin,” close by, whispering to him, as in Czarist Russia. If so, then it would be too late for the media, for adequate public response. The media is now heavy with “oh, give him a chance;” “oh, let’s forget the past;” “oh, let’s heal the nation.” Or, “oh, he is really a Democrat;” his spending programs, rebuilding infra-structure are what we need. (Yes, they were and are what we needed, when President Obama proposed them, but Republicans would not support his appeal for aid for jobs and progress.)
I am not of that frame of mind—to forget so easily. This is not a Republican vs Democrat dispute, not some discussion of issues (never was, during the campaign). The attempt of so many in the media (CNN, et. al) to “normalize” Trump for us, to persuade the skeptical “things will work out” is frivolous and, in the end, doomed to failure.
Quoting my own God-daughter, now with children of her own: “We have never had a President who had not been in public service (military, elected or appointed office); we have never had a President who has filed bankruptcy, spoken against entire ethnic or religious groups, or made filthy sexist remarks about women’s private body parts on tape.” Such a person, such a President is not normal at all.
Is it too late? In a way, it is. Is it possible to “lock him up?” In one way it isn’t possible. But he could be “locked out,” to an extent, by peoples’ forces, closing in on him from all fronts, utilizing the courts and the court of public opinion. A march of energized students and other citizens revealed their concern and opposition to Trump’s tone and tenure November 19th, 2016, at the Hidalgo County Courthouse, Edinburg, Texas.
Those brave and hopeful Americans joined others all across the nation who have been visibly attesting to the need for continued support of First Amendment and other Civil Rights in this nation. I doubt they will be deterred, whatever governmental power is thrown at them. As Martin Luther King, Jr. affirmed: “the arc of history bends toward Justice.” We must not lose that hope.
