TRUMP IN THE WEEK OF RELIGIOUS MURDER AND NEAR ASSASSINATIONS

As the President traipsed around the country conducting his Nuremberg Style rallies, the country reeled with the impact of two tsunamis of hate and violence. Not since the sixties with its Vietnam war death toll and accompanying bloody protests and the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King has the country been more on edge. Midst the crucial midterm elections where the President is fighting a desperate battle to motivate his base by resorting to the crudest possible rhetoric, including lauding violence, an attempted elimination of the entire leadership of the opposition was undertaken, which, had it been successful, might well have plunged the country into civil war. Then a brutal savage antisemitic attack took place in a synagogue where eleven worshippers were slain by a bigot armed to the teeth with an arsenal including an AK 47. 

It is fair to say that the Trump response to this anarchy and mayhem has differed from all other presidents in recent memory.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

The President occupies a unique position in American politics and culture. Once elected there is a reverence towards the victor that is unrecognizable in other Western Democracies. In the latter they have simple mechanisms to remove the country’s leader within the governing party. In America it is virtually impossible to do likewise and it requires a bipartisan effort where a Party has to publicly reject its leader. The President is thus there for the duration of four years unless he dies or in the one historical instance of Richard Nixon where he resigned to avoid the humiliation of being removed by two thirds of the Senate. 

The veneration dates back to America’s very beginning where a battle took place as to what would be the source of the country’s leader. Jefferson favored the populist model while Hamilton and Adams hankered for a more monarchistic approach, having little faith in the body politic. The unwritten compromise was the all powerful American President, who once elected by the people, would become the representative of all the people not just his party. This covenant between the individual who governed and those he served has been respected through the ages. However covenants are acts of faith not laws. 

So the President need not be a unifier, a healer, a father figure or an agent of comfort if he/she so chooses. He can be a provoker of division and a purveyor of fear if he so decides. Whatever the President may or may not be he has by tradition the largest megaphone in the country and therefore influence - in fact due to his unique constitutional position he is disproportionately influential. By his actions, inactions and words he can legitimize or delegitimize any policy, attitude or behavior. Put another way the POTUS can dictate the country’s agenda and move any policy or anybody from the fringes to the mainstream. 

It is fair to say that this President has sought to create a cult of followers who are exhorted to believe in their leader right or wrong. He disregards, delegitimizes and demonizes anybody or any institution that opposes him. 

Trump has thus broken the covenant which has been in operation for two and a half centuries. His modus operandi is to divide not unite, to create fear rather than pacify, to smear his opponents rather than encourage respect, to unashamedly serve his own and his Party’s interests rather than those of the country and to demonize "the other" rather than celebrate diversity which has been the formula for America’s success to date. All this is an enigma to the Presidency of the United States.  

It is with this as a background that Donald J. Trump faced the nation in the week that was.

DONALD J. TRUMP AND THE ATTEMPTED ELIMINATION OF THE LEADERSHIP OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 

While the POTUS was obviously not involved in the pipe bomb cataclysm the very issues and individuals that he has focussed on and demonized were congruent with the motivations of this bomber. Also glaringly evident was the fact that he did not allow his campaign to miss a beat as the country was galvanized by shock at the vast number of leaders targeted with pipe bombs. His immediate frustration at learning of the tragedy has been universally condemned and unfavorably compared with the responses of his immediate predecessors to calamities such as the Oklahoma bombing, 9/11 and the Sandy Hook shootings.

Trump expressed frustration at the wide coverage that the attempted assassinations had evinced and the fact that he was no longer the center of attention. He tweeted, “Republicans are doing so well in the early voting, and at the polls and now this “Bomb Stuff” happens and the momentum greatly slows - news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans go out and vote”. By so doing he made it obvious that reassuring the nation was not his priority. He dashed aside any suggestion that he should contact the high profile victims of these attacks, show support and solidarity and assure that he condemned, on behalf of the country, such acts of terror. 

When reminded that he had castigated bomb recipients such as CNN 633 times, Hillary Clinton 360, Barack Obama 137, Maxine Walters 73, John Brennan 30, Cory Booker 33 and John Clapper 20, he then resorted to playing the victim by rhetorically asking “How many times have I been attacked?” He then blamed a real victim, CNN and all the other “Fake News” outlets, for creating the environment 

Whichever way one looks at this egregious incident, the causes of which are multifactorial, with social media, for example, playing a large part, there is very little doubt what the perpetrator must have felt in his diseased mind while making his bombs in his white truck with pictures of Trump and Pence surrounding him and pictures of his victims in red cross hairs, that he was supporting his leader.

DONALD J.TRUMP AND THE WORST ANTI - SEMITIC ATTACK THE COUNTRY HAS EVER WITNESSED.

Throughout his Presidency, Donald Trump and his Jewish son in law have been at pains to reassure that the President is not an anti - semite. Their apparent need to do so was as a result of a host of incidents, actions, policies and insinuations that have been pointed at him. The principal defense of his pro Jewish position relates to his relationship with the Israeli premier, support of Israel per se and his declaration of Jerusalem as its capitol. 

His first clear cut attack on local anti semitism at a recent rally needs to be followed by confrontation of the individuals and groups that perpetrate this evil. The fact that he preceded his condemnation by laughingly apologizing to the crowd that he is going to have to tone down the volume hardly encourages his adoring fans to regard his message of denunciation seriously.  Like with the pipe bomb scare the President just continued campaigning in the wake of this synagogue carnage.

The Jewish Anti Defamation League, (ADL), condemned a statement in his campaign when he refused to denounce white supremacist anti semitic groups and David Duke in particular. They labelled his response as “obscene”. However, what loomed ominously as the largest affront to the Jewish community was a political attack on Hillary Clinton with a star of David next to her that apparently had been cut and pasted from an anti - semitic propaganda piece. The demonization of “crooked Hillary” was accompanied by an attack on the financial establishment which was represented by three prominent Jews, Janet Yellin, head of the Federal Reserve, George Soros, the billionaire and the head of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein. All four were being held responsible for exploiting the financial system at the expense of the American worker. Trump put into words what this all meant, “Its a global power structure that is responsible for all economic decisions that have robbed our working class stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of corporations and political entities” - shades of European anti Jewish bigotry of the twentieth century.

Then, early in his Presidency, Trump, inexplicably, failed to mention the six million Jews slaughtered on Holocaust Remembrance Day. But what caused the largest outcry was his statement on the Charlottesville riots which was colored by a murder of a left wing protestor and anti semitic chants such as “Jews will not replace us”. He claimed that both sides were culpable. Trump apologized afterwards but told Bob Woodward that that apology was the “biggest f - ing mistake” that he had ever made. 

The belief is that Trump is not an anti semite but is more than mindful that a very active minority of his base is and there is no way he is going to say or do anything to upset them. 

TRUMP - THE REFUGEE CARAVAN IS THE GREATEST THREAT FACING AMERICA

Then there is the vitriol heaped on the Latin Americans, (The Caravan), who are wending their thousands of miles trek across South America so as to be able to enter USA. Trump has made their mission and the “threat it represents to the safety of America” the center piece of his campaign message for the midterms. There is the canard that has been repeated again and again and never retracted that The Caravan is being financed by the Jewish bogeyman George Soros. The Caravan represents an existential threat to the sovereignty of the country Trump claims and he will bring out the military to stop them. 

AMBIVALENCE ON ANTI - SEMITISM AND THE CARAVAN THREAT - THE BACKGROUND FOR THE ATTACK ON PITTSBURGH’S SYNAGOGUE

It was in this rhetorical milieu that the gunman attacked The Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. What might have triggered the attack is the fact that the Synagogue supported the 130 year old Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. The latter, according to Jewish tradition, supports and comforts “the stranger” and has reaffirmed their support for refugees and asylum seekers in the light of The Caravan. The assailant vowed to kill all the Jews and referred to their support of the asylum seekers.

Again this attack took place in an environment where there is an historic 57 percent rise in American anti semitic attacks last year. All this venom has been fueled and amplified by the social media. However the demonization of The Caravan participants who are allegedly helped by the Jews and financed by a Jew, George Soros, had to make yet another diseased mind feel that he was not that far out of the mainstream. This even though he feels that Trump is not nationalistic enough and is surrounded by kikes, (a derogatory name for Jews).

AT THE END OF THE DAY

While these two horrendous acts have multifactorial and complex etiologies Donald Trump at the very least has failed to act as the Comforter in Chief. His lack of empathy immediately after the Pittsburgh attack by responding to the news by offering, “If there had been an armed guard the results would have been far better” hardly struck the right note. He needs further to condemn anti semitism unconditionally and all prejudice even when the perpetrators are his own supporters. Unless he assumes the traditional Presidential role and makes it clear that he is not ambivalent on the issue of bigotry this current toxic political environment will only worsen. The response to the religious slaughter coupled with his dismissal of what could be labelled as treason further enhances the criticism that he simply does not care about traditional American values.

One fact for sure is that the President of the United States,  in no uncertain terms, has sanctified violence. This has had the effect of validating his supporters bloodshed and making this behavior acceptable. The only question is to what degree does he believe it is okay? There is one statement that Trump made on the campaign trail that haunts Jay H. Ell to this day. At a time when Trump felt he may well lose the election his rallying cry was that the system was rigged. He then mused that the only recourse to that could be by the second amendment people……. 

A final thought from the former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks:

“One of the most enduring facts of history is that antisemites never think of themselves as anti - semites.”

TRUMP AND THE MID TERMS.

It is common cause that the 2018 Midterm elections are a referendum on the President Donald J. Trump. That is the way he wants it. That is the way the Democratic Party, (DP), want it even though they are not running as such. That is not necessarily how the Republican Party, (RP),  that was, want it, but they have no say anymore as the GOP is now the party of Trump. Trump has already signaled that any Republican candidate that wins owes it all to him and whoever loses has only themselves to blame after all he has done for them.

 It is also common cause, to put kindly, that the change of direction in American values and policy that Trump has initiated makes this the most important midterm elections in living memory. Up for grabs is the House of Representatives, the Senate, Governorships and State Legislators and with it the future direction of the country and America’s role in the world. 

So where, with two weeks to go, do matters stand?  

TRUMP AND THE ELECTION

As far as matters stand with The Donald things are fine. He has cocooned himself in his almost daily Nuremberg style rallies packed to the rafters with his cult following. It is reassuring to him and it is the same formula that saw him win in 2016. He craves the attention as an addict does for his fix. He unashamedly punts himself as the savior and commands the adoring mob to come and vote for him - “Don’t let me down”. His policy is based on fear, prejudice and divisiveness. It changes according to the “threat” du jour. Top of the pops is the immigrant caravan from central America that is dramatically projected as an existential threat to the country. He will put the country on a war footing if the sad motley crew reach the Southern border and call out the military. He blames the Democrats for the desperate lunge by a few thousand Central Americans fleeing from violence. This lead even Fox News’s Chris Wallace to label the claim “preposterous”. 

He smears the Democrats as a “mob” to the cheers, boos  and chants of “lock her up” of his own mob. All this while he lauds violence towards reporters specifically praising the Congressman from Montana, Greg Gianforte who was found guilty of beating up a newsman. “Never wrestle him, (Gianforte)” he screams. As the volume crescendos he eggs them further, “Any guy that can do a body slam like that. He is my guy”. This leads him to share with the frenetic masses, “I didn’t think at the time it, (his violence), would hurt him with the Montana voters. I thought it might help him. And it did”. He summed this all up by saying, “Democrats produce mobs. Republicans produce jobs”.

The election of Judge Kavanaugh is another rallying point. As he claims this election is about Kavanaugh, caravans, law and order and common sense. There is always the smear of the day and currently it is Elizabeth Warren for daring to prove him wrong that she had no native Indian blood. He offered her a million dollars if she could show that ancestry, which she did with a DNA test. He just scoffed at his promise and sniggered Pocohantas again. 

Trump will argue that he is winning. The polls are “fake news” as they were last time. In addition while his efforts are not helping the RP catch up on fund raising his own 2020 Re - election Campaign Fund is raking in the dollars. (A big plus is that he can divert that boodle to pay his escalating legal bills). He can counter further that the packed jamborees have not diminished one jot since 2016. Most important is while he has lost suburban Republicans and Independents, who put him over the top in the Presidentials, he still retains the base at about forty percent of the electorate. That, in case the Democrats don’t know it, makes him impeachment proof.

But even he has to know that his populist demagoguery formula failed spectacularly in the tens of special elections since 2016. Fox News have stopped their non stop coverage of the hate fests as their ratings go through the floor. He is being told day after day that he is on the way to loosing the House at least and that can trigger off a whole number of uncomfortable investigations which he has been protected from to date. However the POTUS is not a man who thinks more than one day ahead. He will handle that problem if and when it comes a long.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

In spite of the gerrymandering of districts up the yin-yang, this is the area where the RP faces its biggest onslaught. It is this arena that the mess that the helter skelter legislation is being brought home. Health care is the number one item on the agenda. Trump vowed to stamp out Obamacare in its entirety, including axing patients who had preconditions. He and the RP candidates are lamely claiming that they want all to be covered.The DP response is then tell your Attorney Generals to stop petitioning the courts to allow insurance companies to exclude those who need coverage most. In addition the avowed objective to slash Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security is not going down that well. The argument that this, rather than his tax give away to the rich, is producing the monumental deficit, is not believed. 

The Republicans and Trump were going to run on the tax bill. However that has been dropped like a sack of potatoes. The argument that the lion share went to the rich and corporations is obvious. This tack backfired as the Dems pointed out that this unbalanced give away to the “haves” is what has produced the giant deficit. The switch to Kavanaugh and immigration which is seen as splitting up families maybe a winner in the boondocks but women in the suburbs are not buying it. 

The upshot is that according to the most reliable forecasters, “Five Thirty Eight”, the Democrats have an eighty - five percent chance of controlling the House. They need twenty - three gains to do so. The consensus is that they will win about forty. However their enthusiasm is so high as reflected by unprecedented early voting and cash raising directly from the electorate some have forecast up to sixty - five reversals for the Republicans. 

THE SENATE.

The Senate is Trump’s best prospect of holding the thin red line in Congress. Currently the GOP have a majority of two seats. This election cycle where only a third of the States are having elections favors them massively. In addition ten Democratic Senators who up for reelection are running in States that Trump won in the General Election. The Democrats must hold all of those and have two gains in States that Trump faired in very well. The blue team themselves are in trouble in at least two States - North Dakota, (Trump majority 35%), and Missouri, (Trump majority 19%). Others too, such as Florida, (Trump majority 1%), and New Jersey, (Clinton majority 13%)  are being hotly contested by the GOP. Democrats have pinned their hopes on gaining, Nevada, (Trump majority  2%), Arizona, (Trump majority 4%) and even Tennessee, (Trump majority 16%). Real optimists are putting Texas, (Trump majority 9%) at risk for the GOP. 

The Senate can go either way. The DP’s best chance has to be a “blue wave” with a massive swing to the Democrats. However realistically with the unfavorable hand dealt to the DP, Trump should keep the brake on the Democrats becoming too powerful in Congress.

GOVERNOR’S AND STATE RACES

This is where matters really look ominous for Trump’s RP.  Governor’s races are not subject to gerrymandering, as the whole State votes. However here the DP are not competing with one arm tied behind their backs as they are in the Senate. The Midwest and Pennsylvania is where Trump flipped the Electoral College. The Democrats are on track for sweeping the whole region -  Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa and Pennsylvania. Bearing in mind is Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania's narrow victories that gave him the Presidency this has to be of major concern. 

There are ten States that the DP are in line for ousting the Republican Governor incumbents - Illinois, New Mexico, Alaska, Michigan, Maine, Nevada, Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio and Georgia. Two States that Democrats are on the verge of flipping are Florida and Georgia, both of which have historic African American potential Democratic Governors. Georgia is beset with controversy as there appears to be a determined voter suppression effort by the incumbent GOP head of State who also happens to be the Republican candidate for Governor. 

As Nate Silver of Five Thirty - Eight points out Governors of populous states have far more influence than those that are sparsely inhabited. Other than Texas all the major States seem plausibly in the grasp of the DP. Silver forecasts that the Republican Governors will control twenty - six and the DP twenty - four States after the midterms. However the DP governed States will have a population of one hundred and ninety - six million and the RP only a  one hundred and thirty three million, affording them far more influence.

The Democrats are hopeful that their prospective gain in Governorships will extend down ballot and they may take over State legislatures as well. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Donald Trump has been underestimated by anyone and everyone. He believes in his own invincibility and is two fifths of the way there to convince the American electorate. He plays by his own rules and when he is declared a loser by the conventional criteria he scoffs, abuses and turns the obvious on its head - The Democrats are a mob he screams to his own screaming mob. 

However he is first and foremost a salesman and his electorate are his customers. They can however have buyer’s remorse. He has sold them a Bill of Goods. He was going to open the coal mines “for beautiful clean coal” and get the coal miners back in the mines. He was going to rebuild the factories and bring jobs back to America. He was going to  build a “beautiful” wall. He would make America white again. He has delivered on none of the aforementioned.

Rather, as he promised, to push America back into the industrial revolution era. He played power games with China and pushed up the cost go living. Then he upset the traditional conservative and suburban Republicans by trashing their values and their firm belief of America’s responsibility as the moral leader in the world. He further showed a lack of understanding of the American Constitution - its belief that all men were created equal with inalienable rights,  its independent judiciary, its freedom of the press and its separation of powers. He cast aside personal responsibility and engaged in moral turpitude on a scale not ever envisaged by the mob in their hey day. 

So maybe just maybe this is the beginning of the end. Maybe on November 9 America will  begin to wake up from its nightmare. One can only but hope and pray. Remember of course that two weeks is an eternity in politics and Trump is full throttle ahead in turning the caravan in Latin America into Armageddon.

TRUMP, KASHOGGI AND THE SAUDIS: THE FALL OUT

As the drama surrounding the disappearance and alleged savage butchering of the dissident Saudi journalist, Jamal Kashoggi, in the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Turkey, intensifies once again President Trump takes center stage as the world awaits his response. They need not hold their breath as he has already indicated that America leadership on morality has been sold for a one hundred and ten billion dollars arms deal, over a period of ten years. Even then Trump is not telling the truth as all the cognoscenti are valuing the defense deal at far far less. What he is probably trying to spin is that he does not sell a seventy year old reputation cheap - The Art of the Deal and all that. 

Once again Trump is knee deep in controversy and while this disaster, for once, is not self inflicted his behavior and life long flirtation on the fringes has landed him in this mess. However the variables in this crisis may not be that easy to finesse as the players with an interest include Congress, the whole commercial world, the nations in the Middle East, Russia and China, America’s former allies in the Western world and of course the aggro Saudi’s themselves. It also focuses on how once again his own personal interests mesh with those of the United States of America.

TRUMP AND “FAKE NEWS”

The apparent assassination of a Washington Post columnist, who is a political refugee and an American resident, took place in a milieu where Trump has labelled the Press as the “Enemy of the People”, bullied them at his Nuremberg style rallies and claimed that any contradictory comment or criticism is “Fake News”. Even worse was an answer to Bill O’Reilly of Fox News when he questioned Trump’s love affair with Putin whom Reilly reminded him killed journalists and dissidents. - “There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers. Well you think our country is so innocent?”

 In his CBS interview this week he wailed that prior to being elected the press treated him terribly and what he had most wanted when he became President was that they he would give him better coverage but instead it got worse. Added to this narrative is his love affair with murderous despots throughout the world, Putin, Duterte, and Kim Jung On. Many have even argued that the de facto young charismatic leader of Saudi Arabia, Prince Mohammed Suad, believed in view of the POTUS’S antipathy towards the media and affinity for political murderers he could chance this vicious attack. Perhaps this is why The Donald’s answer to Leslie Stahl that if the Saudis were behind the disappearance he would inflict, “severe punishment” and that there was a lot at stake as “this man was a reporter”, was taken with a pinch of salt in America. 

However Trump would have to take many dramatis personae into his calculations other than himself before this was all over.

CONGRESS WEIGHS ON

About the only issue that the Republican Congress have excluded in their pact with Satan is letting America’s leadership as the world’s moral compass literally go to hell in a hand basket. They have already illustrated this in a bipartisan Senate vote on inflictiing sanctions on the Russians by ninety - eight votes to two. Promptly the Senate Foreign Relations Committee served notice with a unanimous motion calling on Trump to recognize that the disappearance of Khashoggi suggests that he could be a victim of a gross violation of internationally recognized human rights. They went further by calling for investigation of the highest ranking Saudi officials. The committee was acting in terms of the Magnitzky Act whereby the President has to respond to Congress within 120 days. The latter legislation allows for sanctions against officials for human rights violations. Marc Rubio has put down a marker that this alleged grotesque criminal act is not going to be passed over. The influential Lindsey Graham has threatened that if the allegations prove true that, “There will be hell to pay”.

If our Donald thought that his threading the needle by waiting before he would pass final judgement by threatening severe punishment but not removal of the arms deal would mollify the Saudis he had another think coming. Donald Trump Junior’s assertion that Khashoggi was a terrorist didn’t help the cause either. The Saudis saw matters as they were. They had been let down by their chief ally’s threats. They were not used to or interested in Trump’s “nuances and subtleties”.

SAUDI’S, THEIR MEDIA AND MSB REPLY

Saudi Arabia’s thirty year old crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud, affectionately known as MSB, and his clack were not about to react kindly to Trump and his high and mighty Congress. Trump would learn in short shrift that they could shout the odds and threaten even louder than him. Where they come from honor is what it is all about. What about the David and Jonathan friendship between the Trump crown prince son in law Jared Kushner and the real Crown Prince MSB? They were there for him big time when he was in deep deep financial trouble and The Donald himself with money galore when they needed it.

MSB’S Foreign Ministry issued a statement “emphasizing that they would respond to any measure against it with even a stronger measure. The kingdom’s economy has an influential and vital role in the global economy”. There were warnings of creating chaos and pushing the price of oil up to $200 a barrel. The State newspaper threatened to allow the Russians to set up a base in the Kingdom and drive the Middle East into the arms of Iran. Just in case the message wasn’t clear enough the report in the newspaper concluded, “If US sanctions are imposed on Saudi Arabia, we will be facing an economic disaster that would rock the entire the world”. 

The King of Saudi Arabia, King Salman, called on the Turkish Government to establish a working group to investigate what had happened to Khashoggi. In so doing he put some distance between him and the darling and great hope of taking the Saudis out of the Middle Ages, MSB. In so doing he must have thrown some sort of life line to The Donald that maybe they would axe MSB and throw him under the bus. But one shouldn’t hold one’s breath as from the Saudis world view The Donald should have not mixed into their internal affairs. The fact that the Rihad stock market dropped seven percent in one day and MSB’s grand vision, Saudi Vision 2030 where with foreign investment the House of Suad would become a world powerhouse, was in the balance after years of planning could easily blamed on Trump abandoning them. 

THE OTHERS

It appears that it doesn’t need much to unravel the whole American Middle Eastern alliance as Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, The United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain and Palestine put out government statements expressing solidarity with Saudi Arabia. This has to send shivers down the spine of Bibi Netanyahu who doesn’t need to be on the wrong side of the Arab Gulf Sates, Egypt and Jordan. He cannot say that he wasn’t warned time and again that Trump may end up being far more of a hindrance than a help

Then the former NATO allies Germany, France, and the United Kingdom issued a statement sharing “the grave concern expressed by others.” No longer is the USA part of the big moral four. The latter’s official attendance at MSB’s Vision 2030 was put in doubt. What was to be the showcase of the Middle East was now teetering. Saudi joining the world in the Middle East Davos like financial conference two weeks hence was put in further doubt by the withdrawal from it by several commercial, media and financial enterprises. The only consolation was that Trump’s Treasury Secretary Mnuchin hadn’t pulled out yet. 

And none of this takes into account how the Russians and the Chinese are going to exploit this windfall of a weakening  of American influence in the Arab world. 

IMPACT ON TRUMP AND LOCAL SCENE

Trump who has a thousand lives could not have expected that the murder in Turkey of a Saudi journalist, that truthfully he had nothing to do with, could potentially overturn the apple cart. He has still not enough insight to realize the trouble he might be in. Trump is cheerfully doing the rounds of his Nuremberg style rallies that even Fox is not running anymore. He is basking in the reflected glory of McConnell delivering Kavanaugh. The Kavanaugh appointment has ensured that the GOP will hang onto the Senate but receive a bigger thrashing in the House. It is too early to access whether this will have any impact in the midterms and the only way it could is if it results in an almighty fight with the Republicans in Congress over sanctions on the Saudis. He is likely to cave on that issue if the allegations can be proved and wink at MSB and King Salman that he will still carry on the relationship.

The best The Donald can hope for is that King Salman axes MSB or that miracle of miracles Kashoggi pitches up. There is always the possibility that they cannot prove that MSB and the Saudis did it and then an uneasy period will follow between the House of Saud and the House of Trump. At the very least Jared will just have to break off with the other spoiled brat. 

It would the irony of ironies if it the Saudi connection with all its financial improprieties, some of which are already spilling out, turned out to the POTUS’S Achilles heal rather than Russia. As for the Saudis maybe the chickens are finally coming home to roost. They have literally got away with murder in the past. Where did all the 9/11 attackers come from together with Osama? Who has sponsored twenty - two of the twenty - three world terrorist organizations? What about the genocide in Yemen….?

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Whichever way this incident is viewed the world will not be the same as a result of it. For the moment an innocent reporter is missing for two weeks and was seen going into the Saudi embassy and not coming out. The world awaits the spin, the gestures, the cover up and the rationalizations. For starters King Salman has offered the Turks the opportunity to search the Embassy and Trump is sending Secretary of State Pompeo off to speak to the King and offers that Kashoggi may have been assassinated by rogue killers….. 

It really depends if the Turks can be bought off or not. They  claimed they have evidence of the slaughter and spilled out the gory details. It is highly unlikely that that was bogus. 

KAVANAUGH, TRUMP, THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION AND THE GREAT DIVIDE

Not surprisingly, and virtually on party lines, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court, the third “independent” branch of government, in the most acrimonious judicial nomination process since Robert Bork’s forty years ago. America has always been divided but every President in living memory, once elected, has sought to unite the country. All Presidents that is except the present incumbent. In addition the Republican leader of the Senate has shredded the time honored mechanisms that ensured some form of bipartisanship in the election of Supreme Court Judges. Added to the mix was a Judicial nominee, who was selected for his partisanship which he then duly openly displayed in a remarkable exhibition of lack of judicial temperament. All this exacerbated the growing great divide in America and played out to unprecedented protests across the country.

 It is fair to argue that the spirit of the American Constitution was abandoned in the obscene desire for aging white men to enshrine the bigotry of the past. It is interesting to note that the issue they elected to fight on was the women’s right to equal protection under the law as manifested in the #METOO movement. The upshot of this all that the once hallowed institution, The Supreme Court, whose current approval is at thirty - seven percent, will be even further mistrusted.

THE DIVISIONS IN THE COUNTRY EXACERBATED BY TRUMP, KAVANAUGH AND MCCONNELL

Everything about the process relating to the Kavanaugh hearings was designed to deepen the already divided Republic. Trump continued with his Nuremberg style rallies, convinced that all he needed to retain power was just to hang onto his base, who are in fact a minority. He openly punted his support of his nominee while stooping to belittle Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who in attempt to relate the attempted rape by the nominee, was made out to be the dupe of the Democrats with her “unproven” allegations.  Kavanaugh, when he believed his nomination was on the rocks blamed a vast left wing conspiracy angry at Trump’s election and the acting out of revenge on behalf of the Clintons. (This partisan outburst by a contender to the final arbiter of constitutional disputes resulted in twenty - four hundred professors of law of all political persuasions and a former Supreme Court Judge to declare him unfit for the court). 

The final member of this unholy trifecta was the leader of the Republican Senate, Mitch McConnell, who in his fanatical desire to place on the court those whose opinions are so well vetted that the outcome of their decisions can accurately be predicted. In his three year thrust he has succeeded in destroying the fabric of the collegiality of Senate and its role as the moderating influence on affairs of state. It started when he unilaterally dropped the number of Senators to confirm a Supreme Court Judge from sixty to fifty. It accelerated as he refused to even consider a centrist Obama nominee to the Court leaving the seat vacant for a year till a Republican President named purist judges vetted by the Federalist Society. Having been saddled with Kavanaugh he sort to limit the documentation available for his vetting then when the latter was credibly accused by a number of women of sexual impropriety colluded with the WhiteHouse to limit the FBI investigations. All along he maintained that Kavanaugh was the victim of a smear campaign masterminded by the Democrats with the accusers either being dupes or colluding.

“ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL…. (WITH) ….. INALIENABLE RIGHTS”

On July 4, 1776 when Thomas Jefferson who is considered to be the Founder of American Democracy, wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “… we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights….”.  All men, needless to explain, did not include all women. Nor did it include anyone not white whom invariably were slaves. It may even, today, come as a shock to many that he didn’t even mean all white men. This situation pertained, as it did for two centuries, it was up to each individual State to decide who could vote and poll taxes and the like were instituted. Up to 1910 the Southern States excluded poor whites. It took Constitutional amendments and interpretations by the Supreme Court to get today’s situation which includes the responsibilities of each State not to gerrymander districts.

 The Supreme Court have been involved  in defining what these inalienable rights are, Decisions  include the fact that segregated facilities are inherently unequal, (Brown v Board of Education) and Roe v Wade a women’s right to control her body, specifically in relation to abortion. The most recent swing vote Anthony Kennedy, although a conservative on most issues believed that “inalienable rights” extended to gays, women, (abortions) and affirmative action. He was persuaded to resign so that he could be replaced by Kavanaugh.

Judge Kavanaugh’s judicial philosophy leaves little doubt as to where he stands ob Inalienable rights.

KAVANAUGH’S JUDICIAL PHILOSOPHY 

Broadly speaking there are two judicial philosophies. While there are several names for these divergent approaches from a laymen’s point of view they are that the Constitution is a living evolving document, (loose constructionism) versus it must be interpreted as to its original eighteen century intent, (strict constructionism). Brett Kavanaugh falls squarely in the latter category which has resulted in him issuing, to put it kindly, quaint opinions, which to date on the Appellate Court have been in the minority. Although he reassures, mainly in private, that Roe v Wade is settled law his minority opinion where he ruled that an illegal seventeen year old  who had been raped could not go through with an abortion that the Texas Courts had ruled that she could. Then he concluded that second amendment rights were equivalent to those of the first. That meant citizens had the right to purchase hand grenades, and even nuclear weapons. Most significantly from Trump’s world he believes in the divine rights of Presidents in that they cannot be subject to the law while in office.

It was with all this in mind that and with the emergence of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and other women who alleged sexual molestation by Kavanaugh that the Trump/McConnell axis sought to turn the issue of Kavanaugh’s confirmation on it’s head by claiming that men accused of sexual impropriety were the real victims as opposed to their accusers. 

THE POLITICAL, LEGAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL DEFENSE OF KAVANAUGH BECOMES THE MANTRA OF THE GOP 2018

The moving, electrifying and mesmerizing testimony of Dr. Ford was trashed directly and indirectly initially by Kavanaugh, then by Lindsey Graham and then became the mantra of Trump and McConnell. Kavanaugh was the victim as was Trump and all men accused of sexual assault. The liberal #MeToo movement was sexist labelling all men as predators by mere accusation. You now needed to fear for your sons, husbands, fathers and uncles being crucified by mere uncorroborated accusations. Trump told the adoring cult followers that he had been subject to endless false accusations. The fact that the facts did not back such a scenario was irrelevant. The statistics that one in three women had been sexually assaulted was liberal ‘fake news”. 

The defense of Kavanaugh to the specific accusations was that nothing was proven or corroborated. The fact that the FBI investigation was hamstrung by the WhiteHouse and not allowed to fully enquire into the facts was conveniently overlooked. So the claim that everyone was entitled to due process only applied to Judge Kavanaugh and not his accusers. Senator Collins the token female to lead the charge to nominate Kavanaugh was an ardent supporter of due process. She forgot that she had called for Senator Al Franken’s removal from the Senate on the basis of aged allegations alone. Franken had called for an ethics investigation into allegations that were mild compared to those of Kavanaugh but he was to be denied.

So self satisfied were the Republicans with the success of their own rationalizations that they declared victory on their tactics and got ready to march into the midterms to take on the women. They were secure in the knowledge that the Supreme Court Judge they appointed was not about to rule that an inalienable right of a women was to obtain due process in reporting sexual molestation. 

It remained to be seen whether the Republicans led by Trump, drunk with success could thwart history as women sought protection from molestation. 

“WE THE PEOPLE”

This is ultimately where the rubber hits the road. How would the electorate respond?

The Declaration of Independence had as one of its key concepts a covenant with the people in that the powers of government would be with the “consent of the governed”. As it so happens what transpired in the Senate was at the behest of a President who was elected with a minority of voters, with Senators who represented a minority of the population in order to effect for generations policies that were not supported by a majority of the voters. While the actions were within the letter of the law they were not in the spirit of the covenant. Most significantly those that perpetrated this action exacerbated division rather than recognize their responsibility to “We the people”. Furthermore they sought to nullify the concept of three independent and equal branches of Government by cementing their viewpoint for generations to come in one of them. 

As matters stand the majority of “The People”  were opposed to the Kavanaugh nomination and the Republicans overlooking very real injustices being perpetrated against women. There has been a mobilization of the women’s movement ever since the Trump inauguration that promises to alter the balance of power in Washington. They will be further incensed by the Republican Chairman of the Judiciary Committee explaining that the reason the Republicans had no women representatives on that committee was because it involved hard work.

So at the end of the day any hope to salvage democracy and the value system that has characterized America since it’s exception rests fittingly on, “We The People”. It is down to them because the system has failed them miserably. 

The current polling points to at least a loss of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. The Kavanaugh nomination seems to have fired up the GOP base so all bets are off in what must be the most important midterm elections in modern history.