A Midsummer Night’s Dreams and Nightmares

Of warmth and storms in July 2023...

Ed. Note:  The Resistant Grandmother (TRG) had taken off a month to complete a second eye surgery and celebrate its success with a two-week visit with my grandchildren.  That's a sacred time when political writing must take a back seat to making cookies, reading stories, pushing strollers, and constructing finger puppets.  Mmmm…

But I’m back.  Thanks for waiting.

At this point at the height of a summer that’s both beautiful and plagued by weather nightmares, this writer fears danger ahead, but also believes there are reasons for remaining hopeful.  Republicans are in power in the House and using their perch to wreak havoc.  Their lies are resonating with too large a percentage of the American people.  But they’re also transparent to many of us, and so there’s hope the truth will win out if those of us who stay rooted in reality don’t give up.

The danger
Trump continues to suck the oxygen out of America’s pollution-filled, high AQI-graded air quality while spewing garbage policies intended to kill American and global democracy.   His July 1 South Carolina rally was a case in point, as the former president signaled a dystopian American and international future should he win a second term.  He’s desperate with cornered animal instincts to stay alive.

TRG decided a long time ago that watching Trump speak for any reason was bad for my health.  So I turned to coverage by Newsweek and The Hill to learn what he said that day.  And it’s chilling.  He’s sticking to the same tropes – the USA sucks, I’m your savior, I suffer so you don’t have to sort of thing.  But as the legal walls close in, the stakes are becoming clearer for him and us: he must win to avoid legal accountability.  And if he does, he’ll burn down America to get revenge and make sure he never has to suffer for his crimes again. 

Threats from a cornered man
The former president lied and threatened Americans on a number of subjects.  But TRG has narrowed his comments to three main areas: his plan of retribution against the American government; rantings about current indictments, suggesting as president he could avoid them; and dictator-like threats that as president he would solve the Ukraine war overnight – the implication being he would force Ukrainians to bend their knees to the Russian bear. 

On what he’ll do to wreak vengeance on democratic institutions who are holding him to account for crimes against the country, Newsweek reported: “If elected president, Trump said he plans to undertake a campaign of retribution, including launching inquiries into progressive district attorneys and prosecutors he claimed are soft on crime and the appointment of a special prosecutor committed solely to the prosecution of Biden and his family…” (https://www.newsweek.com/five-key-takeaways-trumps-south-carolina-rally-1810324).

"When they indicted me for nothing, I said all bets are off," Trump announced.
Translation: Trump plans to go after prosecutors in the Department of Justice (see Jack Smith) who have dared to hold him accountable for stealing national security secrets and planning the Jan. 6 insurrection with the goal of throwing the 2020 election to him. 

Trump also railed against possible indictments by Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis for trying to overturn the Peach State’s 2020 vote tallies for Biden, captured in the infamous Jan. 2, 2021 call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Roy Cohn lives
Using the classic Roy Cohn tactic of roughing up one’s political enemies during legal challenges, Trump suggested Willis should prioritize prosecuting local criminals over an American president who tried to steal a presidential election, saying: “Atlanta is more dangerous than Chicago." (Fact check:  As is usually the case, red states suffer from higher crime rates than blue ones, even those with large metropolitan areas.  Based on 2023 FBI crime data, Atlanta sees more violent crime than Chicago (55.3 v. 49.9) and higher rates of property crime than the Windy City (75.4 v. 46.3).  

Regardless of crime comparisons between the two cities, to suggest the Fulton County district attorney should overlook a president’s attempt to steal an election amounts to a provocation to a dereliction of duty.  No reputable prosecutor would overlook such an existentially important crime, let alone accept the contention that prosecuting crime by common criminals and a criminal president should be an either/or choice.

Strong, strongly, strength, etc., etc.
Trump defended the legitimacy of his phone calls using the same adjective he used when describing his extortion call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky –  "perfect." He also likes to use the words “strong,” “strongly,” and “strength” even though he is not and has none in terms of protecting Americans from harm
(see Covid). 

He also claimed his phone calls to Georgia election officials could not be used against him due to a Florida statute requiring both parties' consent to recording phone calls. (Fact check: The Peach State has a “one party consent” wiretapping rule, requiring only one of the two parties involved in the call to consent to the recording (Georgia wiretapping code 16-11-62(1), 16-11-66.)

Since Georgia election officials found it in their best interest to record the then-President’s attempted extortion attempt of the state’s 2020 presidential election results, they correctly believed it was in their – and the public’s – best interest to record the call. Georgia law prevailed in this case as the call was made to Georgia officials. Had the call been made in Florida to Florida officials, the two-party consent provisions of that state’s wiretapping provisions would have taken precedence (https://thehill.com/video/597991-watch-live-trump-holds-rally-in-south-carolina/)

TRG’s observation: Once again, a then-American president and his staff failed to understand the legal details of their dangerous “find just enough votes” stunt, and apparently Trump still doesn’t.  He continues to spew misinformation almost three years later about the same tired, incorrect claims.

His inattention to important details suggests a deliberate or inadvertent dullness.  Either interpretation should disqualify him for a second term.

Again: Trump insensitivity and cruelty for Ukrainians
At the heart of another Trump rally rant was the war in Ukraine, which Trump claimed he could bring to an end within “24 hours.” 

Disregarding Ukrainians’ right not to surrender to the Russians, Trump doubled down, describing how Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons should be a catalyst for Ukraine’s capitulation, overlooking NATO and Ukraine’s united and successful stand against Russia’s murderous putsch.  

The recently expanded NATO membership under the leadership of President Biden makes such a Russian threat less likely, since the former Soviet country now is surrounded by a united European and American configuration, virtually making the Baltic Sea NATO territory.  Trump’s words show how he would operate out of an obeisance to Russia, although the current American-led NATO alliance has established an upper hand.

Of clowns and Stalin
Another source of midsummer nightmares occurred on Wednesday the 12th as House Republicans staged a Q and A with Christopher Wray, the FBI Director, resembling something between a circus act and Stalin show trial. 

In a breathtakingly vulgar all-party plot to hoodwink voters, the narrow Republican House majority staged Wray’s interrogation as a celebration in exposing the “FBI’s weaponization of government.” 

“The American people realize how you have personally worked to weaponize the government,” began a primly bunned Harriet Hageman, an alt-right Wyomian who successfully ran against Liz Cheney, ousting her from Congress because she served on the Jan. 6 select committee.

The weaponizer in the mirror
The amount of disrespect House members leveled against Wray, the FBI, and the Department of Justice continued unabated, revealing the upside down nature of what Hageman and others were asserting. Instead of the FBI and DOJ weaponizing its offices against the American people as GOP’ers claimed, the House GOP hearings were a weaponization of government power against government officials, in and of itself.  The House hearings became a vehicle to punish Trump “enemies” like the FBI, etc., soften law enforcement’s efforts against the former president, and grease the ground for Trump’s return. 

The boy Gaetz
Piling on, Florida’s Matt Gaetz who, adolescent-like, no longer hides his enthusiasm for tearing down American institutions like the DOJ and FBI, smilingly asserted when his turn came up to question the FBI director: “People trusted the FBI more when J. Edgar Hoover was running the place.”

Rep. Wesley Hunt of Texas followed Gaetz, asking incredulously and smarmingly, “You’re not aware of those numbers, Mr. Wray?

It would have been hard for the Republican- (Trump-) appointed Wray to answer the question without being insulting to a member of Congress from his own Republican Party– a courtesy Republican Congressional questioners did not repay in kind. 

Democrats: the new FBI bulwark
That’s because Wray knew what Congressional Republicans were keeping unmentioned: that the NBC poll at the heart of the questioning shows that FBI favorability is only low among Republicans.  Only 17 percent of GOP’ers think favorably of the Bureau, according to the NBC poll. 

What GOP’ers failed to mention was that while Republicans had low opinions of the agency, Democrats had high opinions – almost 60 percent viewed the FBI favorably.  It’s not illogical to believe Republicans have a negative view of federal law enforcement because GOP officials are constantly bad-mouthing them, as was true during Wednesday’s grilling. Republicans must have strategized that the Republican-appointed Wray would not make this distinction in his responses, although Wray did point out to the Florida and Texas questioners that FBI job candidates had gone up “100 percent” in both states. 

Of note: According to Gallup, only 20 percent of Americans approve of the way the Republican-led Congress is doing its job (news.gallup.com june 2023).

The Worst Pies
With its putting Wray through the meat grinder with Sweeney Todd glee and brazenly passing a bill Thursday that would deny American military women the freedom to seek reproductive health care out of any (red) anti-abortion state to which they’ve been assigned, the GOP has become at best a drama-driven, shrunken version of its former self – certainly no longer of the stature of the political entity that was formed to stop slavery before the Civil War. 

The immediate goals of the Republican Party – to support the ambitions of Donald Trump by attacking the governmental institutions that have tried and/or been successful at reining in his anti-democratic impulses – may gain the GOP short-term victories, while hurting the country long term. And there are also no signs that Republicans care about that.

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank reports on GOP’ers’ devil-may-care approach to spouting lies that affect the country, saying:
“(Their) lies…about the Justice Department, public health agencies, the IRS, and the military serve Republicans' short-term interest of discrediting the Biden administration.  But the lies are also the right’s support for the basic functions of government that even conservatives once long supported, such as law and order and national defense. Maybe that’s the goal.”

Destruction is as deconstruction does
Just as Republicans may want to destroy American institutions, ironically, they may be on the road to destroying the party itself.  Consider the case of the American Whigs of the middle 1800s.  

Founded in the 1830s, Whigs were a paragon of sound policies compared to today's GOP: strong support of the rule of law, maintaining social order, and protecting the rights of minority interests in the U.S.   It served a constructive political purpose until its ideas no longer found traction with the American electorate, and an ensuing lack of public support caused the party to fold in 1856.

The chaos party
By comparison, today’s GOP embraces chaos to spur Trump’s chances of regaining the presidency and doesn’t seem to care if its policies, like restricting reproductive care for women, are popular or not. Its over the top interrogation last week of the Republican-appointed FBI Director, calls for dismantling the FBI and DOJ, and punishing members of the military through restrictions on reproductive care and holding up military appointments and pay raises over that issue are other cases in point.

Reasons for hope
In spite of Republican dishonesty and lawlessness, a Democratic president is astride a world united in standing up against Russian aggression.  The obvious respect world leaders gave a very confidant and on-point Joe Biden last week in Helsinki reminded this writer of post-war American leadership that made all the difference in preserving freedom here and abroad. And reminded all of us of the shame Donald Trump brought to America as he bowed down to Putin on the same stage exactly five years ago. 

Money talks
Money is flowing into Biden’s campaign coffers – tripling that of any Republican rival, a dollar-filled sign average Americans may appreciate him when polls still do not.

States like Arizona are ramping up their own investigations into 2020 “alternate elector” scams, widening a states-supported legal net around the former president that can blunt any one federal or state attempt to pardon the twice impeached, twice indicted (so far) former denizen of the White House TV rooms.

Inflation is coming down – three percent this week compared to nine percent last year.  Idealists like me may pooh pooh mundane personal financial issues as presidential election drivers, but they’re important, even to idealists.  And the Biden economic team may be proving the “recession is coming!” Cassandras have
been wrong. 

Most important – the Republican Party and its 6-3 Supreme Court majority routinely shoot themselves in the feet through their extremism – especially against women’s reproductive needs.  Their cruel decisions have hurt women in the bedroom and emergency room, but they show no signs of letting up, and so this will act as a key driver in the 2024 election.  Women are boiling mad and will show up at the ballot box in ‘24 – not voting for the GOP who have put them in this terrible place.

Democrats are involved, seemingly at levels equivalent to 2018, 2020, and 2022. Remember the “red wave”?  I don’t either.

Here’s a link to help the Democratic Party support Biden and candidates throughout the country:

https://actblue.com

.  

A pleasant midsummer night to all…

—trg