Day 867.
Throughout our history, we have seen a host of presidents. We have had some great presidents. We have has some bad presidents. We have had some average presidents. But, I cannot think of one president who was totally irrelevant, until now.
Our current president has become so irrelevant that even his own intelligence community ignores him as much as possible. He talks about a whole lot of things, but they go ahead and tell the truth to Congress. Like North Korea IS a threat to us and that Russia is an adversary not a friend.
Those comments make trump fume and rant and rave. Always using the same language to make his point. He often resorts to lies, innuendos, and praise for the dictators in the world. He refuses to even listen to his Daily Presidential Briefing. He only has one about every other day. And, they are short and filled with pictures and graphs because he can’t bother to read anything.
Yesterday, I wrote that the competing rallies in El Paso was a contrast that needed to be looked at not for crowd size, but content. The O’Rourke rally was uplifting, the trump rally was the usual fear-mongering.
At the O’Rourke rally, he said:
“We, together, we are making a stand for the truth against lies and hate and ignorance and intolerance. We are going to show the country who we are. With the eyes of the country upon us, all of you together are going to make our stand in one of the safest cities in the United States of America. Safe not because of walls but in spite of walls.”
At the trump rally we heard the usual rantings and that was all. Trump, had to let the people know that he didn’t care about the Constitution and that only Congress can authorize money for projects when he screamed that he’d build the wall no matter what. He also went after Hillary Clinton and egged on the audience as it chanted “Lock her up,” more than two years after beating her in the presidential race and while under scrutiny himself in a slew of investigations. It was more of the same — insults directed at O’Rourke (whom Trump said had only his first name going for him), lies that money from tariffs flowed into the U.S. Treasury, defensive meanderings to explain why he didn’t have a dog (I am still trying to figure out the importance of that), exaggerated crime figures and so on.
He continues to rant about the “invasion” by these immigrants. He continues to cry that they are taking American jobs. He relentlessly argues that these immigrants should all be locked up and deported. All the while his resorts keep hiring undocumented immigrants, sometimes with the help of managers to get them illegal documents so they can be hired.
The problem is that all of this is old routine. There is nothing new in any of what he tries to claim is “policy”. He has no policy. He has no ideas. He has no plans, except to enrich himself by violating the emoluments clause. It’s the same nonsensical, incoherent rambling that only his hard-line base appreciates. To the rest of the country, he sounds unhinged and desperate.
When the government was on the verge of shutting down, he had no sway in the negotiations. He waited until the bill was finished, gave an indication he would sign it, then went on his “executive time” to watch Fox News and caved to them instead of upholding his oath to office. As a result, we had the longest shutdown in our history.
Now, we have another compromise bill being readied for votes in Congress. The Democrats said they supported the bill. Most Republicans also said they support the bill. Trump is wavering, as usual. The odd part is we don’t know for sure which way he will waiver because even his favorite tv station, Fox News, is divided on whether or not he should sign the bill.
The odds are he will sign the bill and then a short time later declare his “national emergency” to build his Berlin Wall. Only, he won’t get very far very quickly. Not only would Democrats sue over his executive power overreach and those badly affected by transfer of money to DOD to build the wall. There are reports that he wants to take money from the Disaster Relief Fund. And, he will have to deal with thousands of land owners.
The border is not open country that doesn’t belong to anyone. Thousands of people own the land where he wants to build his wall. Most of them say they will sue, if necessary, to stop their land being taken away from them. Many of these people will actually lose their homes if the wall is built.
But trump doesn’t care about them. He even tries to say they all support him and they are willing to lose their homes to get his wall built. Another lie.
But this is all just another chapter in his irrelevance. When Republicans were trying to write their tax cut for the rich bill, trump had no say so. As a matter of fact, he has not been involved in any bill that anyone in Congress has tried to get passed. He has no interest in governing.
And, that is exactly why he still hasn’t gotten his wall. He had control of the government for the first two years of his administration. Yet, there was no talk about any money for his wall, and now he is whining because he can’t get it. If he really wanted his wall, he should have gotten the money when his party controlled the entire government.
But, when you are irrelevant, no one listens to you. When you are irrelevant, no one even asks you what you think. That has been the legacy of this presidency. No one talks to him, no one asks him what he wants and no one listens to him. All because they know he is irrelevant.
He keeps trying to talk a good game. He keeps talking about infrastructure, but has put forth nothing to make it happen. He keeps talking about a lot of things, then goes under his bed covers to hide and send out stupid tweets attacking his “enemies”.
No network is interested in covering his rallies anymore, except Fox News. That is because he never says anything new. He never gives any hint of any ideas he may have to make the country better. He only dusts off his old rally speeches and reuses them over and over. He is not only irrelevant, he is utterly boring.
What has really happened in his years in office is that trump is left with his cult-like followers, vague threats to “finish” the wall, which has never been started, regardless of Congress, his mindless chants and his sycophantic right-wing media. As for the rest of the county, most Americans have little reason to pay attention, and they rarely don’t, to his rants. He is not setting policy or saying anything new.
On the bright side, trump has another first to brag about. He is the first totally irrelevant president in our history. What a great thing to brag about.
And, the shirts keep marching along.
Lean Left World 