The Rise of Rollerball

Trump's amphibian brain computes getting elected as his license to swell with power. As a cold-blooded denizen of watery climes, he'll devour every sitting insect and a few flying ones too. In human terms, he's authoritarian, and you need to understand that word. It means "demanding blind obedience." Dissent is betrayal and resistance will be punished.

Social media joked about him way back in 2015 as "Trumpolini," a tin-horn, would-be dictator so amazed by his own brilliance that he couldn't see his muddy feet. Now he's president, with his election shaded by Russian interference and alleged "massive voter fraud," with a rising resistance all around his new house, and the ever-present poking, poking, poking of a press not inclined to "keep its mouth shut."

He's the "I Alone Can Fix It President," and we better stay out of his way, cause he's got a sidekick with a loaded gun ... Steve Bannon ... and a poolroom-tough little hussy singer in Kellyanne, who also packs heat. People will die.

Dissent Is Betrayal

The exact wording of Trump's written firing of Acting Attorney General Sally Yates last night claimed that Sally had "betrayed" the Justice Department because she said she didn't think Trump's Muslim ban was strictly legal, and she wouldn't defend it in court. Betrayed in the context of democratic government, let alone the context of Donald "Rollerball" Trump's presidency, means treason (and you know what treason leads to).

It's not the firing of Sally Yates that cuts deep. It's the firing for implied treason against the regime. Sally Yates took a stand on what she believed, based on a knowledge of federal law, and she paid the price. We all knew she'd be fired as soon as she issued the statement yesterday. But it's not the firing. It's the imperial hand.

No Republican leaders in Congress will now admit to having been consulted by Trump people about the surprise Muslim ban (though some of their staff consulted with Bannon or his deputy on the language for the ban). Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) was not consulted, nor was Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.). “This is emblematic of a new, power-hungry White House staff flexing its muscles without consulting the public servants responsible for implementing their fiats. If this type of behavior continues, then this administration is going to lose all of its friends very quickly,” one Senate GOP aide said.

Resistance Will Be Punished

The US Department of State -- and it alone among all cabinet-level departments (?) -- established guaranteed protection for any foreign service officer who dissented from administration policy and who spoke up about it, directly to the Secretary of State. The Dissent Channel was set up during the Vietnam War era as a way for foreign service officers and civil servants to raise concerns with upper management about the direction of U.S. foreign policy, without fear of retribution. Those last four words are essential for the procedure to work.

"Dissent" cables are sent to the State Department's policy planning director, who distributes them to the secretary of state and other top officials, who must respond within 30 to 60 days. They can respond with an opposite argument, or they can reassure the dissenters they're being heard, or they can stall. But they must acknowledge the dissent with a paper trail. There are typically about four or five dissent channel messages each year. "Freedom from reprisal for Dissent Channel users is strictly enforced," according to the State Department.

So what happened yesterday when "dozens of career diplomats" all over the world -- dozens -- cabled their dissents to the Trump Muslim ban?

This happened: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer stood in front of the press corps and sent a dark warning to State Department dissenters: “Either get with the program or they can go."

Resistance is futile.

A Dictator Demands a Compliant Press

Is there any doubt now that both Trump and Bannon (and that saloon moll Kellyanne too) mean to use the national press to invalidate any news against its actions? If everything critical of you is "fake," then you might be able to get away with anything.

If this isn't a constitutional crisis -- this whole presidency -- then I don't understand the term.

The Fox News Presidency

Does Donald Trump read anything longer than his own tweets? Did he read his own book? He is not a studious man nor a reflective man, and that famous book was the product of a ghost writer. He doesn't read books because he's already, like, very smart. He's told us. 

Trump speaks on impulse and decrees on impulse, based on what someone told him -- a golf buddy, the last person in the office, a TV talking head. Trump is said to consume TV compulsively, especially Fox News and most especially Morning Joe on MSNBC, and he obviously Googles his own name like an addict snorting a line.

Somewhat reassuringly, I think, for the future of the planet, at least some of his closest aides know what they're dealing with and are on nursery duty. Leaks coming out of the White House since Minute One paint a picture of Trump as "a clueless child" (Chris Cillizza). 

I like to think that son-in-law Jared Kushner is one of the leakers. He certainly knows Trump better than anybody, as the golden son-in-law with a fortune of his own. He also knows Trump through the eyes of his wife Ivanka, and she knows her dad. She's surely shared impressions with Kushner, who now sees everything at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Kushner has many press contacts; he was recently himself a newspaper owner. He's powerful, though obviously no match for Steve Bannon (see below). 

Kellyanne Conway must also be a prime leaker. Despite her TV act -- "Get-Your-Fortune-Here! One Dime, Get Positive Words. One Quarter, Get the World!" --  she clearly knows by now what she's dealing with. Trump doesn't always listen to her, with regrettable little media storms to follow. (Bannon, again, is stronger than she.) Trump doesn't read memos, and Conway's office is farther away in the WH than Bannon's, so she's resorted to "the best way to reach him, change his mind or otherwise bend his ear -- through a public airing of grievances." She's done it before, gone on TV and said things guaranteed to get his attention, even if it leads to a greater tantrum, so why wouldn't she be leaking an impression of him as a very bad little boy?

Time and again, the image of Trump pushed by his “aides” is one of a clueless child — someone who acts on impulse, disregarding the better advice of people who know better. We know he needs to be managed or else he will say and do stupid things, the message seems to be. "We're working on it." (Cillizza)

The Inner Trump Child

He is his very own North Korean anchorwoman. He can't stop talking about how wonderful he is, and watching to see how much we love his every antic. How's this for childish:

"On the morning after Donald Trump’s inauguration, acting National Park Service director Michael T. Reynolds received an extraordinary summons: The new president wanted to talk to him.

"In a Saturday phone call, Trump personally ordered Reynolds to produce additional photographs of the previous day’s crowds on the Mall, according to three individuals who have knowledge of the conversation. The president believed that the photos might prove that the media had lied in reporting that attendance had been no better than average." (Karen Tumulty and Juliet Eilperin)

His more devoted followers, who evidently can't tell reality TV from reality, think he's just "being real," "speaking his mind," "saying what he thinks," and the hoariest and emptiest excuse of all, "he's  draining the swamp" (as though a 10-year-old knew the first thing about plumbing). Representative Mark Sanford, Republican of South Carolina (the "Appalachian Trail governor"), said wisely, “I think you can move from 'real' to bizarre if you don’t watch out. And some of what he’s done in tweet-world and others certainly fit that mold.”

Steve Bannon Uber Alles

You can certainly see Bannon's fingerprints all over the CIA speech and the raging press conference that followed. If you couldn't see Bannon's fingerprints before, you could certainly see them after the extraordinary outburst yesterday in which Mr. Trump's chief strategist told the press that he views them as "the opposition party" (not the Democrats, who are feckless non-entities) and warned any media not Fox News that it had better just "keep its mouth shut."

Or else?

Before I forget: Fuck you, Mr. Bannon.

Lie Down With Dogs, You Get Fleas

The glorious honeymoon between Trump and WikiLeaks is likely over now (according to a McClatchy reporter):

WikiLeaks 

✔@wikileaks

Trump Counselor Kellyanne Conway stated today that Trump will not release his tax returns. Send them to: https://wikileaks.org/#submit  so we can.

11:53 AM - 22 Jan 2017

WikiLeaks 

✔@wikileaks

Trump's breach of promise over the release of his tax returns is even more gratuitous than Clinton concealing her Goldman Sachs transcripts.

12:15 PM - 22 Jan 2017

Trump had benefitted from WiliLeaks for helping destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, and he had promoted WikiLeaks on his Twitter feed during the campaign. Gotta be more careful whose pussy you grab, Mr. President, because sometimes they grab back.

That great appreciator of "alternative facts," White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway, keeps claiming that "nobody is interested in Mr. Trump's taxes," while recent polls show that over 70 percent of the people want them released. A petition on WhiteHouse.gov was put up on Friday urging Trump to release his taxes, got 200,000 signers by Saturday, and now has over 260,000 names. You can find it here: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/immediately-release-donald-trumps-full-tax-returns-all-information-needed-verify-emoluments-clause-compliance.

And fer gawd's sake, if you have Donald Trump's tax returns, please send them to WikiLeaks!