UPDATE:
The piece below concludes with the dreadful realization that perhaps nothing — “not even the ‘Fifth Avenue’ scenario” – might bring Trump down.
However, lurking in the back of my mind –- should such a miracle on 5th Avenue or anywhere else ever occur — has been the alarming thought that we may be jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
Why? Well, there is that “eveready” (no offense to that great battery), pious Mike Pence patiently waiting in the heavenly wings.
Or, as Frank Bruni puts it in a New York Times opinion piece, “the holy terror waiting in the wings.”
“That would be Mike Pence,” Bruni says, “who mirrors the boss more than you realize. He’s also self-infatuated. Also a bigot. Also a liar. Also cruel.”
It is also Bruni’s takeaway from a forthcoming book by journalists Michael D’Antonio and Peter Eisner:
To that brimming potpourri [Pence] adds two ingredients that Trump doesn’t genuinely possess: the conviction that he’s on a mission from God and a determination to mold the entire nation in the shape of his own faith, a regressive, repressive version of Christianity. Trade Trump for Pence and you go from kleptocracy to theocracy.
Bruni asks D’Antonio “the nagging, obvious question: Is America worse off with Trump or Pence?”
“I have to say that I prefer Donald Trump, because I think that Trump is more obvious in his intent,” he said, while Pence tends to “disguise his agenda.” D’Antonio then pointed out that if Pence assumed the presidency in the second half of Trump’s first term, he’d be eligible to run in 2020 and 2024 and potentially occupy the White House for up to 10 years.
So, be careful what you wish for or, as Bruni concludes, “Heaven help us.”
Please read Bruni’s eye-opening piece here, before, after or without reading the “original post” below — but do read it.
Original Post:
In a recent piece, contributor Shaun Mullen lists a few of the innumerable scandals and possible crimes committed by Mr. Trump — scandals “that would have felled many a mere mortal”
Among those mentioned by Mullen, “threats, cover-ups, rank corruption, engineered cruelty, environmental rollbacks, incessant saber rattling, endless stream of firings and forced resignations, the use of lies and cries of ‘fake news!…’”
Voicing the desperation that so many of us feel at how this “mere mortal” survives and even thrives in a morass of corruption, lies and unprecedented outrages, Mullen posits that perhaps something “totally unexpected” may bring down the crooked emperor and he asks readers for opinions as to what this totally unexpected event might be.
For many months now, a serious scandal has been brewing around this president and, on Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that courts can proceed with lawsuits accusing Trump of “unconstitutionally accepting payments from foreign and state interests through his Washington hotel” in violation of the Constitution’s “emoluments clause,” which prohibits federal officials to accept benefits from foreign or state governments without congressional approval.
Norman Eisen, chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics says, “It is another major crack in the dam that has so far been holding back accountability.”
Two other lawsuits based on the emoluments clause are also being heard in other federal courts, notes TIME.
This is it! I thought, this is the “unexpected event,” the crack that will finally cause the bag of spit dam of lies and corruption to burst and, in a roaring flood of public indignation, wash the crooks away and cleanse the swamp once and for all.
But before responding to Mullen’s question, I decided to “fact-check” my premonitions about the Emoluments Clause by polling some of my imaginary Trumpista friends, legislators and news media.
One friend pushed back, “You Liberals are bat crazy. What’s wrong with emulating our great leaders of the past? Our president is just trying to make America great again”
Another said, “Emollients are good for you. Why are you trying to criminalize their use?”
Finally, someone else mumbled something to the effect that Trump haters and America haters are trying to destroy historical monuments in the South.
At this point I decided to do some “googling” to corroborate a suspicion I began to have. Lo and behold, “Searches on Merriam-Webster’s website for the word ‘emolument’ jumped more than 9,100 percent on Wednesday” following the federal judge’s decision to allow the emoluments case to move forward, according to The Hill.
Disillusioned, I contacted some Republican lawmakers. In all fairness, most of them know what the “emoluments clause” is, more or less, but I was surprised — although I should not have been — at their comments, mainly along the lines of “Let Trump be Trump”; “Another Democrat witch hunt”; “He is not perfect, but look at the economy, jobs, jobs, jobs…”; “What about when Hillary…what about how Obama…”; “How about when Obama wore a tan suit?”
No opinion survey would be complete without polling at least one news source. And which one better than fair and balanced Fox News.
The echo chamber response was uncanny in quality and fidelity. I swear I had heard the same refrain just a couple of days earlier from none other than the Fox “parroter-in-chief,” something along the lines of “What you are seeing and what you are reading is not what’s happening…don’t believe the crap…”
Dejected, I realized that nothing – not even the “Fifth Avenue” scenario – would qualify as the “totally unexpected event.”
Sorry Shaun.
With my apologies to Andy Borowitz for whose version of the “emoluments clause case” I can hardly wait.
Dam image credit: Carol Bean flickr.com
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.