TRUMP’S IMPEACHMENT

President Donald J. Trump has done a lot of things during his years in office that may have justified impeachment.  But the final straw, the thing that actually caused his impeachment, was his alleged blackmailing of Ukraine in 2019.  Fighting for its life against a much more powerful Russia, Ukraine desperately needed US arms, $400 million of weaponry that Congress had already approved sending to the country.  But Trump held up shipping the arms, waiting for Ukraine’s leader to publicly announce it was investigating Trump’s likely election rival, Joe Biden, and his son Hunter Biden. 

Or so the House of Representatives claimed.  They charged the President with abuse of power, and also with obstructing Congress for refusing to cooperate with the investigation.  Since the charges are heard and decided by the Senate, and since the Senate was controlled by the Republicans, nobody realistically thought Trump would be found guilty.  Yet Democrats felt they needed to charge Trump anyway, since failing to do so would send the message that it was OK for the president to violate the Constitution and abuse power any way he wanted.

The end result was indeed that Trump was found not guilty by the Senate, by a vote of 52 to 48.  All of the 52 who voted for acquittal were Republicans.  All Democrats voted guilty, along with two Independents and one Republican (Mitt Romney).  Naturally, Trump and his allies portrayed the verdict as proving his innocence.  Yet the evidence presented in the Senate trial, along with those things that were not allowed to be presented, tell a much different story. 

Before we look at those things, let’s rewind to what top Republicans said about the charges against Trump.  Initially, they said there was no evidence of a quid pro quo where Trump would release the military aid in exchange for Ukraine announcing an investigation into the Bidens.  That blackmailing abuse of presidential power was the key allegation behind the whole impeachment effort.  But if the blackmailing quid pro quo were the case, Republicans made clear at first, then Trump’s impeachment was justified.  As more and more information came out in the months before the Senate trial, it became clear that Trump had indeed demanded that Ukraine’s president investigate the Bidens in order to get those American weapons.  In other words, the charges of quid pro quo were true. 

Then in the Senate trial itself, we heard from the following top State Department experts:

Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman started things off.  National Security Council’s Director for Russia and Ukraine, he listened in on the call Trump made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25.  On top of his earlier concerns about the false smear campaign against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, Vindman “did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a U.S. citizen” so as to gain domestic political advantage.  He therefore reported his concerns to the appropriate administration counsel, following the required written procedure. 

Dr. Fiona Hill, the National Security Council’s top Russia expert at the time, denounced what she called a “fictional claim that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 US election”, a fiction she said was pushed by Russia to divert attention off their own interference.  Trump and his team used this phony claim to justify pressuring Ukraine, and to get Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. 

David Holmes, a top aide in the US’s Ukraine embassy, testified that withholding the $400 military aid was a way to increase pressure on Ukraine to make such an investigation.  Both Homes and Dr. Hill agreed that investigations into Burisma, an allegedly corrupt company that Hunter Biden was connected with, was merely a way to shift attention to Biden’s potential wrong-doing.  Further, Holmes and Hill said that any reference by Trump and his top people to Burisma was a “widely understood code” for investigating the Bidens. 

Gordon Sondland was Trump’s U.S. Ambassador to the European Union and a big donor to Trump’s campaign.  He unexpectedly shocked everyone when he testified that there was a quid pro quo and that “everyone (in Trump’s administrations) was in the loop.”  

Marie Yovanovitch, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, detailed how Trump’s man on the scene, Rudy Giuliani, was working with corrupt Ukrainians and spearheaded efforts to get Ukraine to announce an investigation.  She was fired for her efforts to stop that.  Her replacement was….

William Taylor, who testified how Giuliani represented an “irregular” channel of diplomatic efforts to pressure Ukraine to provide Trump with political ammunition against the campaign of Joe Biden. 

All of them, and other key witnesses, rebutted Republican efforts to show they were “never-Trumpers” who were biased against the president and thus falsely testifying against him.  In each case, they were credible, deeply experienced, politically-neutral, patriotic public servants with spotless records who had faithfully served both Democratic and Republican administrations.  As an interesting aside, if so many laudable public servants were “never-Trumpers,” wouldn’t that suggest they must have a damn good reason for opposing the president?  Say, to protect the nation against his many inappropriate and often unconstitutional actions?

But in any case, none of it mattered, as Republicans simply did not want to acknowledge the facts, or even to know the full story.  John Bolton was Trump’s National Security Advisor, with more access to Trump than almost anyone and “in the room” for virtually every foreign policy move for 17 months.  Bolton claimed he had definitive, first-hand information about what actually happened, and offered to testify.  The White House took steps to keep him from doing so, and in any case, Senate Republicans showed no interest in hearing what he had to say. Just recently, Bolton’s book The Room Where It Happened confirmed the charges against Trump, and in fact presented evidence that Trump had tried the same thing with China, imploring Xi Jinping to “make sure I win” the November election in exchange for key concessions.  Actually, his book claims that the Democrats blew it, as they failed to investigate other grounds (besides just the Ukraine incident) for Trump’s impeachment.  As for Trump’s alleged obstructing Congress, Bolton wrote that for Trump, “obstruction of justice (was) a way of life.”

Senator Marco Rubio’s views were typical of those who realized that Trump had done what they previously said justified his impeachment.  They didn’t need to hear more evidence.  As Rubio said “Just because actions meet a standard of impeachment does not mean it is in the best interest of the country to remove a president from office.”

For an unbiased, logical observer (the standard expectation of my readers), the bottom line is that Donald Trump was impeached with good reason.  Powerful evidence was presented of his abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, with even stronger evidence not being allowed to be heard.  As in so many other cases during Trump’s administration, Republican Senators judged that Trump’s “base” would severely punish them for a guilty verdict, and that outweighed any genuine consideration of guilt.  Donald J. Trump goes down in history as only the third US president ever impeached, and joined the other two in being acquitted.  That is far from the same thing as saying he was innocent of the charges, however.

The Holistic View

Holistic: characterized by comprehension of the parts of something as intimately interconnected and explicable only by reference to the whole - Oxford Dictionary

As social science instructors, we were encouraged to evaluate students’ work in a holistic manner.  In other words, rather than looking at how a response matched up to the ideal answer, we looked at the merits of a student’s overall writing on a topic in the case of essays, or his/her overall demonstration of understanding in terms of a class grade.  We can use this same holistic approach in evaluating the kind of person Donald J. Trump is, his actions as president, and in other situations as well. 

To explain, suppose we aren’t 100% positive about a particular incident or statement.  However, we estimate the chances at about 85% that several key parts of the issue are correct, are about 95% certain about several other factors, and are 99% sure about a couple of key components involved.  On the other hand, we are aware of no contrary evidence with a high probability of being accurate.  A holistic thinker would reasonably conclude that the matter is therefore almost certainly true, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Here’s a specific example to clarify further.  Suppose someone says that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians and is president of the US because of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.  A reasonable reply might be that there is no conclusive proof of those things, and therefore they are just guesses or opinions.  Fair enough.  However, a holistic view of the matter would consider that:

·         The thorough and heavily documented Mueller report made it clear there was no doubt that Russia interfered in the election in Trump’s favor, and in opposing Clinton. Since it’s nearly impossible to be 100% certain of most things, let’s give this conclusion a 99% probability of being correct.

·         Each one of the US’s 17 intelligence agencies reported that they were “confident” Russia interfered in the election on Trump’s behalf.  Let’s give that view a 95% probability. 

·         Even Mike Pompeo, Trump’s current Secretary of State agrees, and is on record as saying “I am confident that the Russians meddled in this election, as is the entire intelligence community,” Pompeo said. “This threat is real.”  Let’s give him a 95% as well. 

·         Republicans have continually criticized all of the Russia investigations.  Yet, a three-year review by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously found that the intelligence community assessment, pinning blame on Russia and outlining its goals to undercut American democracy, was fundamentally sound and untainted by politics.  It would therefore seem to confirm the Mueller report’s findings, and confirm the 17 intelligence agencies findings, so how about a 97% probability here.

·         The Director of National Intelligence (DNI), who was in charge of all US intelligence agencies at the time, stated in 2018 that “To me, it just exceeds logic and credulity that (Russia) didn’t affect the election, and it is my belief that they actually turned it.”  In other words, the man who had access to information not revealed to the public thinks Russia gave Trump the win.  Well, that’s just his opinion.  But considering that he knows as much or more than anyone else on the subject, let’s give that an 85% chance of being correct.

·         As for the issue of how effective Russia’s efforts were, we know that surprising wins in a few key states, i.e. Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, resulted from Trump victories in certain important districts.  Data shows that fewer than 80,000 votes in a nation of 146 million voters determined the winner in those districts.  Importantly – those were districts heavily targeted by Russian pro-Trump interference.  Considering the huge scale of Russia’s interference in the election, turning 80,000 votes seems easily doable.  Wouldn’t a 90% probability that their efforts in those key districts had the intended effect seem reasonable? 

·         Trump lied about not knowing any Russians, as later evidence clearly showed multiple contacts with various Russians.  Additionally, his son Eric bragged that Trump businesses got all the money they needed from Russians, his son Donald Jr. is recorded welcoming Russian help in the election, and Trump himself invited Russian interference by releasing Clinton emails, which they did the following day.  That leaves no doubt about collusion between the two parties, and puts us at the 98% probability level of that being true.

Taken together, the evidence leaves no reasonable doubt whatsoever that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf, and that there was indeed collusion (defined by the Oxford Dictionary as: secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others) between the two parties.  Additionally, it seems highly likely that Russian interference was enough to swing a victory to Trump, making him president because of their efforts.  To credibly argue otherwise, one would have to come up with evidence to the contrary, with such evidence having high probabilities of being provably true.  I am unaware of any such arguments or evidence. 

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We can use this concept and technique to draw many other conclusions as well.  For example, we often hear the Democrats say one thing about Trump, his administration, and their actions, while the Republicans say something else altogether.  Usually, it’s not too difficult to figure out whose version is closer to the truth by studying the evidence and the facts.  But not always, and in any case, many people don’t want to bother.  So they just go along with whatever side they prefer politically, and leave it at that.  But there’s a better way. 

When a rational, unbiased person looks at the information presented by both sides, there is a clear pattern.  In almost every case in the past few years, data and other evidence presented by the Democrats and their media allies, e.g. CNN and the NY Times, are verifiably factual and are used in ways that have few if any logical flaws.  On the other hand, many of the Republican claims, and those of Fox News et al, are demonstrably false and/or logically faulty.  (You could say that I make this judgement because I myself am biased or illogical, yet a review of my background and history show that this is not the case, and I invite you to show otherwise.)

But at any rate, this conclusion about the two sides allows us to make further determinations.  Since we know that the Democrats and their allies tend to be sources of accurate information and logical analyses nowadays, while their opponents often do not, we can use that understanding to judge otherwise unclear situations.  For example, suppose the Democrats say the evidence shows that Russia investigations were justifiably begun, that a certain E.P.A. decision will harm the environment, and that we should continue to fully fund the W.H.O., while Republicans argue otherwise.  Our knowledge of the two sides’ ways of doing things lately should lead us to conclude that the Republicans are likely to be presenting misleading information and that the Democrats’ position is probably more credible.  It hasn’t always been this way; it is a huge shame, but it is what it is.

From there it is only a small step to this sad conclusion: Whereas only a short 5 or 10 years ago, it made sense to listen to both sides before making a political decision, that is no longer the case.  Nowadays, Republicans have mostly abrogated their position as legitimate sources of information for making political decisions.  Republican pronouncements on the economy, on Covid-19, on race relations, on trade agreements, on military matters – those often are no longer credible.  And of course, most Fox network non-news material is invariably flawed in a number of ways. 

This places CNN and MSNBC – previously representing the left – mostly in agreement with ABC, CBS, NBC, BBC, and PBS and virtually every other legitimate news source in the world in reporting what is actually going on.  While we can detect some liberal bias from their top anchors such as Anderson Cooper, Brian Williams, and Rachel Maddow, they present news with high levels of professionalism and credibility.  In other words: They don’t lie or intentionally misrepresent facts, and the times where their bias gets in the way of presenting verifiable truth are extremely rare.  They are reliable sources of what’s going on. 

That is in sharp contrast to Fox’s top draws such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, who consistently offer thoroughly biased, bombastic reporting that is regularly misleading and often outright false.  As for the top (and liberal) print sources, the NY Times and Washington Post, these days they very rarely disagree with the most neutral and credible sources like Reuters, AP, and Christian Science Monitor, and even with the more conservative Wall Street Journal. 

Nevertheless, some people are going to insist that ALL of those sources are “fake”, but that is not a credible claim, as my related essay Mainstream Media makes clear: https://jstrebler.blogspot.com/2018/11/mainstream-media.html. 

Our final takeaway then is the bizarre and sad conclusion that a logical, unbiased person is justified in being biased against the Republicans and their allies.  That is because of what the former leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, John Boehner, admitted after leaving office: “There is no Republican party anymore.  There is only the Trump party.”  When Republican politicians regain their spines and minds, and when conservative media sources revert to presenting credible facts and logical argument, then and only then should we once again listen to what they have to say.  Meanwhile, lying, colluding Trump, put in power by Russia, deserves only our scorn and opposition, as do his Republican and media lackeys.

MINORITY RULE? A disturbing and most un-American power grab

What does it mean to be an American, a loyal US citizen?  How about: Somebody that understands, respects and protects the values of the country’s Founding Fathers, as laid down in the US Constitution?  Few Americans would seem likely to have a problem with that definition.

Keeping that thought in mind, let’s ponder how a clear minority faction (conservative Republicans) now dominates the three branches of our federal government.  Majorities numbering in the tens of millions of adult Americans oppose the actions being taken by that minority faction on numerous key issues, but so far have little power to do anything about it. 

We can start to understand this situation by considering that approximately 9 million more American voters preferred a Democrat to Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election.  How is that?  Well, the official tally shows that Hillary Clinton got 2,864,974 more votes than Trump.  In addition though, we know that about 20% of Bernie Sanders’ Democratic supporters, who hated Trump, didn’t vote for Clinton in protest of how the Democratic Party treated him.  They protested by not voting for Clinton, certain that even without their votes, Trump wasn’t going to win.  Or so we all thought.

Given that Sanders won 46% of the Democratic votes in the primaries, and that there were nearly 66 million Democratic votes in the November election, that means Hillary would have had something like an additional 6 million more votes if the Sanders people realized their votes were needed to counter Russian interference.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders 2016_presidential_campaign.  Adding those lost protest votes to Hillary’s margin of winning gives us the 9 million or so preference for a Democrat in 2016. 

Now, it is well understood how the number of Electoral votes, not popular votes, chooses the President, so we can’t say that Clinton or the Democrats won the 2016 election.  But this idea of Trump being the people’s choice, that he represents the majority of Americans, is a fantasy – “fake news,” if you like.  

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Actually, the real story is stronger than the 9 million number suggests, however.  We know that a clear majority of Americans do not support the issues that Trump is pushing and his followers support.  For example, the majority of Americans want legal abortions, want gay marriages, want tougher gun control, want a pathway to citizenship for the Mexican “Dreamers”, want strong environmental protections, want the government to stay out of religion, and all the other “liberal” things Trump opposes.  They also don’t want his wall along our border with Mexico.

We know this from more people voting against Trump than for him in 2016, and from the landslide victories of the Democrats in 2018.  We also know it from numerous respected opinion polls.  The latest Pew Research Center poll shows Americans favor abortion by 61% to 38%, and that 60% want stricter gun laws.  Since the US Census Bureau says there were 309 million Americans in 2016, and that 77.6% (or 240 million) of them were 18 or over, then we can reasonably think that about 55 million more American adults favored legal abortion than opposed it, while 48 million more adults favored stricter gun laws than oppose them.  Gallup says that 63% favor gay marriage, and that 65% of Americans value protecting the environment more than economic growth.  Using that same mathematical process, then 62 million more Americans favor gay marriage than oppose it, while 72 million more favor protecting the environment over promoting economic growth. An NPR polls shows that 66% favor citizenship for Dreamers (77 million more adult Americans than those who oppose it), and that a majority oppose Trump’s wall.  Finally, Statista.com says that Americans favor the absolute separation of church and state by 41% to 34%; that’s about 17 million more Americans not wanting more religion in government.  

In every case on these key issues, the views and actions of the Republican Party that won control of this country illegitimately are opposed by a huge majority of American adults - tens of millions of them in most cases.

Wait – what?  How did the Republicans win control illegitimately?  Well, there is now no doubt that the Russians interfered in 2016 in a big way to help Trump win the election.  Their help added to the Trump campaign’s own unprecedented use of blatant falsehoods (example: The Pope supports Trump!) to deceive American voters.  And we can’t ignore the final dagger in Clinton’s back, FBI Director James Comey’s announcement of “possible” wrong-doing by Clinton, just ten days before the 2016 election.  Comey’s action, which was a clear violation of FBI policy, reversed Clinton’s rising poll numbers.  The FBI ended up clearing Clinton, but it was too late, and well – you know how the story ended.  Those three actions, taken together, leave no real doubt that Trump did not win the election fairly; an objective observer could say that he basically stole the Presidency. 

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Why does Donald Trump have many millions of American supporters?  This question has been rolling around in my mind for several years now, because it so hard to understand why good people could support the man.  As documented in my earlier essay (Four Reasons), long before the Ukraine incident and even long before the Mueller investigation, there were four powerful reasons why Trump had no business being President.  Each of the four would have quickly disqualified the man in most Americans’ eyes just a short five or ten years ago.  And yet – he is President, committing vile, illogical, unethical, or illegal (and often – all of those together) acts every single day, while never losing any supporters.  How can this be?

It has become very clear that these people’s support is basically the result of two main factors.  One has to do with how many of his supporters, for a number of important reasons, just don’t have an accurate picture of who Trump is, the actions he’s taken, and the consequences of those actions.  But let’s leave that whole, complicated issue aside, and recognize that:

Trump’s supporters (his “base”) are politically conservative, do not like the direction the country has been going in recent decades, and they absolutely hated Hillary Clinton.  They saw Trump as the antidote to the liberalism that Clinton personified, and as a result, felt he was their only option despite all of his flaws.  They liked his efforts on immigration, abortion, protecting Christians’ rights, and so forth. 

Further, they liked that Trump was an outsider, rather than a politician.  Liked that he spoke his mind in plain words, liked that he wanted to bring down the establishment (the “Deep State”) that had kept the common people down, and liked that he wanted to get the government out of people’s lives.  So even when they do realize he’s a horrible person doing bad things, they’re willing to overlook that because he supports things that are important to them.  Evidence of this includes a 2018 article in TIME Magazine that stated that “Eighty percent of white evangelicals voted for and, by and large, continue to support President Trump,” even with his extra-marital affairs, constant lying, swearing, lack of humility and lack of just about every other Christian value.  https://time.com/5161349/president-trump-white-evangelical-support-slaveholders/

To summarize, they back the man because they like his policies.  And that takes us back to the original point made in my first paragraph.  This country is founded on the concept of majority rule.  That means we do what most Americans want, even while we respect the views and civil rights of those people who disagree.  Besides that, we are a nation of laws, not people.  That means everyone follows the law, no matter how rich or poor, no matter how powerful or powerless.  Right?

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The history of this country is the history of change, of progress.  We used to have slavery, we used to have only property-owning white males allowed to vote, used to have people executed for minor crimes, used to dump sewage and toxic waste into our rivers – we used to do a lot of things that we don’t do now, because the country has gradually, steadily moved forward.  In fighting against political progressives, the pro-Trump forces are basically saying they want things to stay like they were, back in the 1950s and ‘60s.  And that’s great, as long as their's is the majority view. 

But they are not the majority view in America today – we clearly saw that a few paragraphs ago.  And yet those views are running the show, because Trump essentially stole the 2016 election.  Just as bad is what’s happening to the federal courts.  The Republicans defied the intent of the Constitution by not allowing President Obama to choose the next Supreme Court Justice in 2016, and thus illegitimately-elected Trump got to place a conservative on the court the next year.  Incidentally, even a majority of Republican voters thought that blocking Obama’s constitutional right to name a Supreme Court Justice in 2016 was wrong.  https://www.usnews.  com/news/articles/2016-03-21/even-gop-voters-think-senate-shouldconfirm-scotus-nominee  

Just in case anyone missed the political hypocrisy involved, when Obama was President, (Republican) Senate leader Mitch McConnell claimed that it was improper to place someone on the Court in his last year of office.  Yet he now says that he would definitely let Trump name someone to the Court in his last year in office! https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/29/mitch-mcconnell-says-he-would-seek-to-fill-supreme-court-vacancy-in-2020.html

But besides that, illegitimately-elected Trump got to name a second Supreme Court Justice in 2018.  His very conservative choice was Brett Kavanaugh, who strongly appealed to Trump (who was accused of multiple serious crimes) for his belief that a President could not be charged with crimes while in office.  In an unprecedented step, more than 2,400 law professors of all political persuasions sent a letter opposing Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Court.  Additionally, for the first time in the nation’s history, the (Republican) Senate confirmed a Justice that the majority of Americans opposed. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/10/12/brett-kavanaugh-poll-majority-americans-disapprove-new-justice/1616237002/

But nevertheless, Kavanaugh is now on the Court, along with Trump’s earlier appointee, giving the Supreme Court a clear conservative majority, rather than the liberal-centrist majority it would have had if the people’s will had been respected.  That’s the big headline story.  But there’s more going on behind the curtain.  While we don’t hear much about it, Trump has been appointing unprecedented numbers of other conservative Federal judges – 158 named and approved by the Senate as of last November.  As the White House website boasts: “President Trump has appointed more circuit judges by this point in his presidency than any president in recent history.  Approximately 1 out of every 4 active judges on United States Courts of Appeals has been appointed by President Trump.  This historic transformation is only accelerating, with President Trump on pace to have more judges confirmed this year than in 2017 and 2018 combined.”

This is wonderful news – if you’re a political conservative.  But remember, conservatives are in the minority now in the US.  It is only because Donald Trump won the presidency, unfairly and with the help of Russia, gullible voters, and James Comey, that those judges will interpret the laws for the next 20 or 30 years.  That is a reasonable span of service for judges since they are appointed for life. 

So what we have now is a Supreme Court that will likely vote to protect Trump from prosecution, from having to comply with subpoenas, and in other ways.  A Supreme Court that will likely hear a challenge to Wade v. Roe and quite possibly rule against legal abortions, despite Brett Kavanaugh implying at his confirmation hearings that wouldn’t happen.  Conservative Federal courts, Supreme and otherwise, ruling in all kinds of ways that go against the country’s more progressive majority – that’s what we should expect, possibly for decades.

Meanwhile, the President has taken countless actions to gut environmental protections put in place by every previous administration, both Democratic and Republican, while continuing to deny climate change.  This will benefit his own businesses, as well as those of wealthy conservatives who back him.  But it definitely doesn’t reflect the wishes of the people.  The latest Gallup poll shows that 62% of Americans want government to do more to protect the environment, the highest level since the question was first asked in 1992.  And that number was before many of Trump’s subsequent attacks on the environment, including his latest move to repeal important protections for the nation’s streams and wetlands on January 22, 2020 that his own EPA appointees argued against. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/23/798809951/trump-administration-is-rolling-back-obama-era-protections-for-smaller-waterways.   Not to mention Trump’s attacks on immigrants’ rights, on the separation of church and state, on efforts to reduce gun violence; attacks on our strongest allies while chumming it up with Vladimir Putin; betraying our Kurdish allies to score points with Turkey’s dictator Erdogan, and so many other actions that the majority of Americans do not want.

అవును, లేదు!

By the way, it’s common lately for Trump supporters to stop justifying his actions and instead claim that they just like him because of the strong economy.  That's a little easier to understand, given the need to put food on the table, a roof over our heads, etc.  But those folks don't really have it right.  (NOTE: The following comments on the economy were written BEFORE the coronavirus pandemic and economic shut-down.  Obviously, all of the latest figures are much worse than what is reported here.)

You see, most economists agree that Presidents have little impact on how the economy's doing; perhaps something like 15% of its health is due to whoever's in office.  In Trump's case, it's probably fair to say his impact has been greater than average.  In any case, let's take a look at some numbers, starting with GDP, which he said he'd make grow at "4, 5, maybe even 6%" a year.  In reality, the strongest quarter ever in his presidency had a 3.5% gain, with the latest figure a dismal 2.1% growth rate.  And as the pro-business magazine Forbes wrote last year, "Obama's last three years had better growth than Trump's three years."  Hmmm…..

How about the budget and national debt?  Trump boasted that he would balance the budget "fairly quickly," and “completely eliminate the national debt within 8 years.”  Sounds great, right?  But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just reported that the US federal deficit “will top $1 trillion annually over the next 10 years, ultimately reaching $1.7 trillion in 2030.”  Meanwhile, the US federal debt now stands at $23 trillion, up from $20 trillion when Trump took office.  Oops!

But at least there's the stock market, right?  Stocks rose a very impressive 52.2% during Trump’s first 3 years in office.  However, during Obama’s first 3 years, stocks gained 78.6%.    So as another conservative magazine, Fortune, claimed recently: "The stock market is doing far worse under Trump than it did under Obama," and then backed it up on an apples-to-apples comparison of the two presidencies.  

Well OK - surely in the area of jobs, Trump has been a winner, right?  Um... no.  Back to Forbes again, where its headline "Trump Has Created 1.5 Million Fewer Jobs Than Obama", makes us wonder.  And just to be clear that it's a fair comparison, they followed up with "Trump’s job growth falls short of Obama’s last three years."  Dang....

Meanwhile, one of the nation’s biggest problems – income inequality – has not been addressed by Trump's policies that have mostly helped wealthy Americans.  As reported just 3 months ago “U.S. Census Bureau data confirmed that income inequality has hit its highest level since the federal government started tracking it five decades ago. The richest one percent of Americans now rake in one-third of the country’s net worth, while the bottom half of the population scrapes by with only 1.2 percent.”  https://www.fastcompany.com/90427855/while-trump-boasts-of-economic-growth-inequality-deepens

Granted, the economy has done well under Trump, or truthfully:  It has merely continued the strong trends established in the Obama years.  Stocks are soaring, unemployment numbers are amazingly low, and Trump has done some good things in the area of trade agreements, IMO.  But the theme he’s been pushing, especially evident during the State of the Union address, of saving America from the disastrous economic times of his predecessor, is an outright falsehood.  Especially when you look behind the curtains to realize that the costs of further economic gains during his administration include the huge additional debt and environmental destruction his policies are creating.  Donald J. Trump: the economic Wizard of Flaws.

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So returning to where this essay started, the bottom line is: People who support Trump, despite what a horrible person he is because he favors issues that are important to them are betraying our country.  They are NOT patriotic Americans, as they typically boast.  They are throwing away the concept of majority rule, of fair play, and of nobody being above the law just so they can get what they want.  They opposed his impeachment, just as they have opposed every other effort to reign him in and make him accountable for his horrid actions.  In other words, they put themselves first, and the nation second.  It’s shameful and brands them forever as being like Trump: Doing whatever it takes to get their way, regardless of the consequences.

Speaking of betraying the country, the very worst offenders are the members of Congress who keep protecting the President, denying that he does anything wrong, and continually pushing his agenda.  (Oh, and the current Attorney General, who's supposed to represent the American people, but who very clearly works as Trump's personal protector instead.)  While some in Congress support what he does, the majority of them know that he’s an illegitimate jerk, know that he constantly does things against the nation’s Constitution and better interests, but back him simply because they fear not getting re-elected if they cross him. 

The classic example of this is Trump’s current BFF, Sen. Lindsey Graham.  Back in 2015 when he still spoke truth, he said this about Trump: "He’s a jackass.  You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell… He's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot.  He doesn't represent my party.  He doesn't represent the values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for…”  Many other powerful Congressmen/women have said similar things, and even more surely thought these things privately.  But today, they all (except Mitt Romney, lately) back Trump – no matter what he does.  It’s another case of putting their own interests in front of the nation’s interests which, by the way, they swore an oath not to do when they assumed office.  Former (Republican) House Speaker John Boehner knows what’s up, and now that he’s out of office he can tell it like it is.  Boehner knows that now "There is no Republican Party. There’s a Trump party.”

There are always consequences.  Among the consequences for those betraying the country in pursuit of their own interests are that, in violating our Constitution, they are setting the stage for people in the future to violate conservatives' rights when they are in power, so they can do whatever they want.  This is what our country is becoming.  In the short-run, the minority of selfish conservatives wins.  But in the long-run, we all lose, and the US is no longer America.

Reparations for All!

(I wrote this about 15 years ago, and my thoughts on paying reparations to black Americans have changed a bit since then.  Still, there are some good points here about the history of slavery and the concept of mentalite.)

Renewed calls for the U.S. to admit its guilt in the whole issue of enslaving Africans, and to pay some form of reparations to the descendants of American slaves, have come on the heels of a recent conference in Africa.   Surely these would be cleansing acts, as well as a way to improve African-Americans’ self-esteem.  Acknowledging culpability is a necessary step in the long process of mending the immense damage done to the collective black psyche in America.  And it is only fair that blacks in the U.S. should be compensated for the incalculable role their ancestors played in making this country the wealthy superpower it is today – we are told.

What is missing in all of this, however, is some understanding of historical reality and perspective.  Most informed folks know that black Africans themselves, in capturing and selling other Africans, played a role in the slavery issue that is perhaps as heinous as the roles played by the Europeans and Americans.  But even more importantly, we can’t just blame Africans (or whites) without realizing that this all occurred in a much different time.  The slave trade that brought Africans to the U.S. in the 17^th-19^th centuries came after millennia of worldwide, indiscriminant enslavement.  For as far back as we have written records, men have enslaved one another (and women and children too) – sometimes for money, but more often as a result of war.

Babylonians enslaved Israelites, Persians enslaved Babylonians, and Romans enslaved them both.  Spaniards took Englishmen as slaves when they could; Native Americans widely practiced slavery.  Mexican-Americans rue how vile U.S. Yankees stole the Southwest from innocent Mexico, yet the Spaniards of Mexico enslaved native Indians and imported African slaves in vast numbers.  And the Aztecs, which any good Mexican is proud to tell you were their glorious ancestors, were slavers of the worst kind.  Cortez and his few hundred men conquered the mighty Aztecs in no small part because they were aided by rival Indians that had been ravaged and enslaved by the Aztecs. 

The Slavic peoples (Slavs) got their name because they were so often taken into slavery over the centuries.  Whites took whites and blacks as slaves, and Asians too, when they had the chance.  Black Africans did the same thing; Asians were hardly above taking slaves.  At some point or another in history, just about everybody was enslaved by someone else.  This is simply the way it was in the past, when the world wasn’t quite as nice a place as it is these days. 

But gradually people began to see things differently.  Massachusetts abolished slavery in 1789; by 1830, slavery had ended in all Northern states.  Britain abolished slavery four years later, France in 1848, and freedom-loving Holland in 1863, only 2 years before slavery was abolished throughout the entire U. S.  Spain continued to allow slavery until 1883, Brazil until 1888, China until 1910, and Ethiopia until 1923!  So the United States was hardly out of line with the morality of the time a couple of hundred years ago, and in fact was one of the leaders of the world abolitionist movement.  It’s neither realistic nor fair to hold slave traders of 300 years ago responsible based on the (dramatically different) morals of today.  It makes even less sense to hold people responsible today for what their ancestors may or may not have done 300, or even 150, years ago.  Because if that’s the way we’re going to do things…..

I know that my Scottish ancestors, the original Britons, were brutally conquered over the centuries by Germanic invaders (the Angles, Jutes, Saxons, etc.).  Germanic atrocities on the Britons between the 6^th and 12^th centuries are fairly well documented, as were many cases of enslaving the surviving Britons.  These Germanic tribes, benefiting from the work of their slaves, went on to create one of history’s most powerful and richest empires: the British Empire.  Since I can clearly prove my Scottish ancestry, should I not, then, respectfully but firmly request reparations from Elizabeth II, the current and enormously wealthy British monarch?

Then there’s the Jewish side of my family.  Oy – don’t get me started on how they suffered at the hands of just about everybody for 3000 years!   Just consider perhaps the most famous enslavement in history: that of the Egyptians over the Jews.  This episode lasted, coincidentally, about as long as the U.S. South’s enslavement of Africans.  Surely it contributed greatly to Egypt’s ability to amass and display great wealth, so very long ago.  Egypt’s kind of a poor country these days, though, so I’d be willing to accept some priceless antiquities from them for the way their ancestors treated mine.   Or – hey, this could really work out well: you know how so many African-American historians now claim that the Egyptian pharaohs were really black?  So then, Oprah and Michael (Jackson or Jordan) are basically the descendants of the folks that kept mine as slaves.  Those guys – they have some serious money, and are in a position to help mend my shattered Jewish psyche with some monetary reparations.

But what if Oprah or Michael or Michael aren’t descended from Egyptian slave-keepers?  Would it be fair to make them pay reparations?  That makes me think about my American ancestors.

You see, my people came to the U.S. in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and they all lived in the North.  None of them owned slaves.  In fact, the Streblers themselves didn’t get here until 1888, long after slavery was history.  Great-grandpa Burns (on mom’s side) volunteered to fight for the Union during the Civil War, and then signed up for another tour when his time was up!  Great-great grandpa Kieffer also fought for the Union, as did great-great grandpa Moeder, who was seriously injured in battle.  I’d be willing to bet that they signed up out of patriotism, and maybe for the veterans’ benefits, but they probably were anti-slavery, and they did help end that “peculiar institution” in this country.  Yes, I realize that they, and I, all benefited indirectly from the labor of Southern slaves.  But if reparations to the ancestors of American slaves should ever come about, would I be responsible for the same amount as someone whose granddaddies owned slaves?  How come? 

So look – here’s how it goes:  African slaves in the U.S. got a raw deal.  So has everyone else, at some point in history.  Even after slavery ended, blacks had it really tough.  By all means, let’s apologize as a nation for what happened in the past.  But we’ve got better laws and a better sense of right and wrong now, and slowly – slowly but surely – black folks are getting where they should be.  Today they are top athletes, Oscar-winning actors, national teachers of the year, Secretaries of State.  These people didn’t need reparations to give them motivation and purpose, and neither does anyone else.

America gave a big chunk of change to Japanese-American internment camp survivors, and Germany did the same thing with Holocaust survivors.  But that’s where it ends: you pay the living survivors for the egregious suffering they personally experienced.  You don’t go back generations; you don’t go back centuries.  Because if you do, then we all just keep paying money to one another, and I want Oprah’s phone number! 

Jon Strebler