Presidential Harassment

“Old evils return with new names.” John Gray, Seven Types of Atheism

Poor Donald Trump. The pussy-grabber is himself a pussy, whining about harassment from Democrats armed with subpoena power. The Republicans didn’t do this to Obama, Trump cries. No, the GOP wasn’t able to use scandal against Obama because there wasn’t any to speak of. Obama had many faults and his administration failed on many fronts, but for eight years it was never a cesspool of corruption and self-dealing like Trump’s criminal enterprise. Obama got a different brand of treatment. He was burned in effigy by Tea Party supporters, called a liar by Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina during a State of the Union address, and, most notably, hounded about his birth certificate by one Donald J. Trump. He’s not an American, Trump said, he’s a foreigner, not one of us. Trump beat this racist drum for a long time.

On the one hand it’s amusing to hear Trump moan about how unfair it all is, this man who constantly boasts about how strong he is, how tough, how macho, and on the other it’s infuriating. Trump is sitting in the Oval Office today for many reasons, a few of them valid, but he lost the popular vote and wouldn’t be in the White House except for the un-democratic structure of the American political system. The iron grip of the two political parties, the flow of dark money, pervasive gerrymandering, blatant voter suppression, the fact that Montana has the same number of senators as California, and that almost every presidential election is really contested in only 15 or so states. American democracy is anemic, at best, entirely based on personalities instead of substantive ideas.

Emails keep appearing in my in-box about 2020. They want to know which Democratic candidate I might support. I have no idea. Thinking of another marathon presidential election season, an American tradition that benefits campaign consultants and media types and PR flacks and the TV networks, but not voters, is nauseating. I can’t go there yet. What I know for certain is that whoever the Democrats nominate to take on Trump, he or she will be an enthusiastic supporter of the American Empire, of endless wars never declared by Congress, of obscene Pentagon budgets, of law and order on the domestic front, and of capitalism as the only economic system. He or she will pledge undying devotion to Israel, no matter what outrageous crimes against humanity that tiny nation commits. If Trump is the naked face of empire, a bloated and ugly one, the Democratic nominee will wear an elaborate mask, as Obama did, as Hillary Clinton tried to do though hers was cracked and worn. In one hand an olive branch, in the other a cruise missile. It’s never easy to pull the status quo down; too many people are invested in it, profit from it.

No savior is going to rise from this swamp to set the world right. The American Empire has had a long and bloody run and now this heavily armed frigate is headed for the reef at full speed. The crash might be spectacular. The masts will snap in two, the canon and the barrels will go over the side, the hold will fill with water. There will not be enough lifeboats. As the boat slowly sinks the plaintive wail of all the innocent victims of the American Empire will be heard. Koreans and Guatemalans and Salvadorans and Iraqis and Afghans and Yemenis and Panamanians and Palestinians and Vietnamese.