Day 20, Shutdown

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                                                                   The “All Hat, No Cattle” Presidency
 
            As we continue to watch the government shutdown it becomes more and more apparent how unfit for the Presidency Donald Trump is.  Not that that is news, of course, but his obstinate clinging to his “wall” has more than revealed the Emperor’s New Clothes.  Two ideas I ran across on Wednesday really clarified the situation for me and I thought I’d share them.  One was from Eddie Glaude, the chair at the Center for African-American Studies, a professor at Princeton and a frequent commentator on MSNBC.  In discussing the “wall” he referred to it as a “monument to ideology,” comparing it to statues of Confederate generals in the South.  In Trump’s world, the “wall” represents far more than a simple physical barrier designed to keep immigrants out of our country.  Like those statues of Confederate generals and politicians, it is a symbol, asserting the power of white men to control what goes on in (or who comes in and out of) our country.  Just as those Confederate statues (erected during the Jim Crow era in the South) were designed to send a message to Black folks about who was in charge, the “wall” is a clear signal that Brown people are not wanted in the United States.  And that fits perfectly, of course, with what we know about Donald Trump.  From his opening statement declaring he was running for President, he displayed his penchant for fantastical mendacity as he claimed Mexicans were raping and murdering our citizens.  He repeated this lie in his Oval Office address and he may well believe it --- just as Southerners believed (and white supremacists still believe) African-Americans are savages who only want to rape their women and kill their “masters.”  So, the “wall” has become Trump’s totem, his symbol for his rather simplistic white supremacist, white nationalist ideology --- indeed, the “monument” to that ideology.

            What also appeared in the news on Wednesday was a story (it ran in the NY Times and in Vox) about how the people in Marianna, Florida were suffering because of the shutdown.  It seems there is a federal prison in Marianna where many of the "non-essential" workers were “furloughed” (think about that descriptor!) and will be missing paychecks, etc. until funding is passed by Congress and signed by the President.  Crystal Minton, a secretary at the prison expressed her displeasure with the President, whom she had voted for, by stating: “He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.”  Take a look at that quote again. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.  Behind those words we get a glimpse into the soul of the Trump base.  We knew Trump appealed to people who could not bear the notion that we had had eight years of a (god forbid!) Black President but what the quote also reveals is the belief that Trump would, in fact, hurt those people (Democrats, the “elites,” etc.) who had supported that Black President!  Having watched the rallies with the “Lock Her Up” and “Build the Wall” chants (not unlike Reichstag rallies but, hey, I won’t go there) we can see Trump’s viciously negative appeal to the basest, darkest side of those who could not identify with a country that elected a Black President, a nation which had become more and more urban and "colored," a culture which was growing in new technologies while watching old technologies disappear or move to foreign shores. 

            And behind it all was this phony con man who had, with the help of producer Mark Burnett,  convinced Americans that he was, in fact, a wheeling-dealing businessman who was wealthy beyond imagination --- a man who couldn’t get a loan from any U.S. bank, who ran businesses into the ground, who didn’t pay his contractors, who used illegal workers to build his personal palace, and who had denied renting to African-Americans.  This is a President who does not read (and I honestly believe he has learning disabilities), who has an aversion to facts, to science, to the notion that evidence is required to verify statements.  He has hitched his wagon to a “wall,” his lodestar, and now, when he can’t fulfill his spurious campaign promise (“Who’s going to pay for it?”) he is willing to declare a National Emergency and divert Department of Defense funds to save face!

            These are the actions of an autocratic leader, of course, and as the Mueller noose tightens and the Democratic House won’t give him his “wall” (as their opening gambit---wait until the committees begin investigating!), Trump can see his House of Cards collapsing around him.  Of course, as long as the spineless Mitch McConnell remains his faithful servant not much legislation will see the light of day but once Mueller hits the fan who knows what kind of meltdown we might see.  Until then we’ll keep hearing about the “wall” and if this shutdown continues for the “months and years” Trump says it might, there are 22 Republican Senators (including McConnell) who will be up for re-election in 2020 and they may begin to finally show some spine and stand up to this ideologue who is the proverbial “empty suit.”  Until then, we will have to support the Democrats in their resistance, as well as their attempts at passing voting rights and health care legislation, hoping, too, that those who support Trump begin to realize he doesn’t care who he hurts as long as he saves his own skin.