A Trump-Inspired Holiday Reading List... Humbug!!!!

There's no other way to put it, 2018 sucked. I still put a lot of faith in what James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers about "ambition being made to counteract ambition" as an antidote to the "mischiefs of faction." Even if Trump's election in 2016 signalled the status quo was no longer acceptable (a judgement of voters I understood), I slept well at night knowing the the famous "checks and balances" and the "separation of powers" would limit any of the worst impulses of an inexperienced, incompetent narcissist such as we have.


I don't sleep quite as well as I used to and am not as certain as I used to be that Madison's design is up to the task. Trump has not had it easy, and I think Madison's constitutional design has a lot to do with it. Everywhere I look, there are signs of that design in action, thwarting the concentration of power, holding those who govern to account; nearly every Trump organization, associate, or action is under some form of investigation by one or more levels of government. POTUS has a lot of legal problems, many of which are going to get worse when Democrats formally take control of the House of Representatives in 2019 (elections do have consequences).

The Shady B-Team

That said, I despair at the damage Trump has been able to inflict. I attribute an awful lot of it to the shallow incompetence of Trump and all of those who were far enough down the depth chart to be willing to sign on to work for this administration. I buy the line of reasoning that holds Russia threw a lot of Jello at the wall in 2016 hoping some of it would stick. Some of it stuck on Trump, a nearly perfect weak-link vehicle for Russia to sow the seeds of mischief. I actually think Trump believes what he's saying about there being "no collusion" with Russia; he's been a perfect dupe. Just look at the "D-List" crew that was advising Trump during the campaign, starting with Carter Page-- surely Trump's equal in the "hapless Russian dupe" category. I have yet to see an interview with Carter Page that isn't a completely incoherent word salad.

What Russia has been up to may have been like Jello on a wall, but they have received some pretty serious bang for their buck. A lot of blame has been tossed at social media for being a vehicle for all of this, but I'm also a bit embarrassed for all the voters that were duped by it (Pizza-gate, anyone?).

Left-wing media outlets have been placing a lot of stock in Robert Mueller's Russia probe ever since it got going in 2017. It's an investigation that seems always on the precipice of being complete. And, after that, the only logical move is impeachment, right?

My bet is that those hanging the fate of civilization on Mueller's shoulders are going to be disappointed. I have a strong suspicion that Mueller's report is going to less about smoking guns, treason, or the active subversion of democracy than it will be about a shambolic pit of sleaze and incompetence, driven by the worst impulses of nationalist populism, gas-lit by right-wing cable news anchors who've become more influential on POTUS's thinking than his own cabinet.

The Trump Administration began with a few-- only a few-- solid cabinet members. Nikki Haley, James Mattis, John Kelley, Gary Cohn, and H.R. McMaster were all respectable choices. Nearly all are gone. For most, it will be some time before their professional reputations can be restored. The stain of the Trump Administration will be on them for a long time, regardless of their motivations for being there.

I've despaired that Madison's design in thwarting the concentration of power didn't imagine the hyper partisanship that has transformed the Republican Party into the Party of Trump. In fact, Madison said nothing about party, although he designed a system that virtually necessitates the creation of "faction" in order to get anything done. I've also despaired over the possibility that what Madison put together in the U.S. Constitution was never envisioned for the hyper-power status America has occupied in the postwar period. Indeed, the entire system was a compromise between Federalists who saw stability in the formation of a large republic and Anti-Federalists who wanted things kept more locally autonomous. Neither side envisioned the pressures toward centralization of the state throughout the twentieth century-- Great Depression, World Wars, welfare state expansion, Vietnam, Post-9/11 terrorism, etc.

In the past week or two, I've for the first time started to see cracks in the dam for Donald Trump. I'm also cognizant of the fact that Richard Nixon looked like he was in pretty good shape in the summer of 1974, just before he wasn't. Trump's fortunes in office could change very quickly. 

Yet, I am less worried about Trump himself, or his administration, than I am about what it's unleashed. Who puts genie back in the bottle? Can a normal politician hope to win an American presidential election? If a normal politician emerges, what happens to the millions of voters for whom Trump and other nationalists were their political and cultural standard-bearers? This, not Trump, is our real problem. It's a problem common to all of the populist movements sweeping the globe at the moment. It's about economics, it's about culture, it's about urban elites vs. rural populations who feel looked down upon. It's about the erosion of faith in some of our most fundamental democratic institutions, and no one with any apparent solutions for how to restore them.

We could really use someone like Abraham Lincoln who, in December 1862, closed his annual remarks to Congress by saying:

Not Trump

Fellow-citizens, we can not escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We—even we here—hold the power and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free—honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just—a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.

Lincoln was presiding over a country that, at the time, seemed irrevocably broken. He grasped the stakes and worked hard to build the bridges necessary to salvage the Union. Trump is exactly the opposite. His incompetence, sleaze, and graft are accelerating the decline of that "last best hope of earth" and widening the door to authoritarianism at home and abroad.

All of this brings me to my holiday reading list. Given the above, what I am reading and why should be obvious. Happy Holidays!!!!