Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Is This A Big Deal?

Every week, Donald Trump does or says something that should end his ability to function as President of the United States.  He engages in naked corruption, he uses inflammatory rhetoric, he divides the country, instead of uniting it, he is an objectively awful human being.

So, everytime a new revelation crests our horizon, we should take it with a grain of salt, if we are waiting for the thing that finally "gets him."

However, this seems like a Big Deal. Trump made a promise to a foreign leader, the Inspector General deemed this worthy of Congressional oversight, the Trump Administration is obstructing that legal requirement.  If it's something routinely horrifying, like Trump telling the Saudis he won't do anything about the assassination of Khashoggi, then it's probably just another log on the bonfire. But what if it's Putin?  Or Kim Jong Un? About something touching on state security?  The fact that they are violating the requirements of the whistle-blower law suggests that this is not some intemperate promise to Teresa May, but rather something truly troubling.  The IG agrees with the whistleblower.

But in 2019, it's so damned hard to believe anything will cause the Republicans to rebel against Trump.

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