The fun that our President provides us — a "not serious" nation amused

© 2017 Peter Free

 

22 July 2017

 

 

It is difficult to take the American national mentality seriously — unless you are the unfortunate focus of its missiles, bullets and bombs

 

I have resigned myself to the (debatable) fact that we have degenerated into an especially boisterous Theater of the Continually Absurd. Daily "intended to be serious" political follies amuse the figurative handful of (non-ignorantly) bright people left among our populace.

 

 

Consider just this one development

 

It represents a deliciously pointed thumb into Respectability's eye:

 

 

Some of President Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways to limit or undercut special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, building a case against what they allege are his conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s authority to grant pardons, according to people familiar with the effort.

 

Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the president’s pardoning powers among themselves.

 

© 2017 Carol D Leonnig, Ashley Parker, Rosalind S Helderman, and Tom Hamburger, Donald Trump asks lawyers about powers to pardon himself and his children in Russia probe, report reveals, The Independent (21 July 2017)

 

 

In sum, the White House is considering using the Constitution to overturn the New King's alleged susceptibility to having to operate under the American rule of the same.

 

 

This is not a new development

 

The Obama and Bush II administrations endeavored similarly in more camouflaged ways. Bush in "proving" that NSA spying, torture, drone murder and preemptive wars are legal. And Obama in reiterating pretty much all four in escalated (and arguably even less defensible) forms.

 

I have to "respect" President Trump for his willingness to be overtly authoritarian. Why not visibly be what one is?

 

 

The moral? — Freedom lasts only as long as we are willing to bloody the conniving self-aggrandizers, who so enthusiastically crush it

 

Let's keep that in mind the next time we are tempted to whine about democracy's erosion.


In a dark way, our national collapse amuses me. The phrase "American exceptionalism" takes a new twist. Historically "hypocrite America" is reaping its due.

 

The planet's competing societal structures must be laughing. Politely hidden, of course, behind diplomatically appropriate hands.