Our country is now into its second year of what is becoming the most devastating era of its history.
As we take stock of the accomplishments of the 45th occupant of the Oval Office, we can see the wreckage beginning to grow amid the once towering pillars of our proud nation. The promise to “Make America Great Again†rings hollow as our Congress grinds to a virtual halt, a variety of the Executive departments spin aimlessly under inadequate, incompetent or insouciant leadership, and our international standing falters as we stumble from one bungled crisis to the next.
We watch aghast as one debacle after another continues to pile up at the door of our newest president.
Foundations of our democracy that have survived all challenges for over 200 years are beginning to crumble under a relentless stream of narcissistic attacks coming, of all places, from the man we just elected to be president. This fool has surrounded himself with an inadequate staff of incompetent sycophants and has placed stunningly unqualified individuals at the head of almost every department. He insists that they carry out a crushing decimation of each agency’s ability to function, and they are complying by systematically disassembling every facet of government. In addition to whacking out personnel and programs, they have taken a meat ax to the whole of government regulation, with administrative repeals and rescissions that are dismantling essential authority of critical agencies in almost every area.
We turned to the Congressional oversight committees expecting some sort of reprieve and found they are entwined in partisan positioning with no reason to expect objective intervention. The national press has begun to treat all these circumstances as normal happenings. After initially raising a hue and cry but receiving no adequate response, the press now seems to accept the misinformation and evasion streaming from the White House complacently, almost as though it were business as usual, but then carefully cataloging the twists and turns the administration takes as it descends lower and lower, noting only on occasion the historical observation that we have never before sunk to such depths, and opining pontifically that things are surely going to get worse.
On the international scene, any semblance of a coherent, integrated foreign policy has long evaporated. Our State Department is in shambles. The responsibility for a comprehensive military mission for the two hot zones to which we are committed has been abdicated to the generals, despite the crucial necessity for civilian oversight.
Without listening to anyone knowledgeable, without paying any attention to the historical precedents, and totally ignoring our allies who are most directly affected, the arrogant fool – by his own personal, irresponsible actions – has brought us to the brink of a nuclear holocaust on the Korean Peninsula.
We wait for the special counsel to announce his findings. But this process may come too late. With the cooperation of one cable news channel and joined by countless talk radio outlets, the old fool and the major party supporting him are relentlessly trashing the work of the special counsel and his staff, and denigrating the Department of Justice, the F.B.I. and the entire Judicial branch of government. As unbelievable as it sounds, the tactic is working. Current polls reveal that a substantial number of us no longer have faith in our legal system.
The considered legal opinion seems to be that a sitting president cannot be indicted for a crime and blunt fact is that this Congress will not impeach. Even if the Democrats gain control of Congress in the mid-terms, and the House should then vote out a resolution to impeach, unless there is a dramatic shift in attitudes there will not be 67 votes in the Senate to convict. This means that no matter what comes out of the special counsel’s office, or out of any impeachment attempt in Congress, it is going to be 2020 before we get a true chance at a respite.
The futility of it overwhelms. I have decided to take to my bed and pull the covers over my head.