TRUMP - THE LAWLESS LAW AND ORDER PRESIDENT

 

Donald Trump is running for President, like he did in 2016, on Law and Order and racism. He is ignoring the fact that the violence he is referring too is happening on his watch and that the mantra “You won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America” is like everything else that is emanating from his campaign - without any evidence whatsoever. The irony of his cry “Make America Safe Again”, ignores the fact that it is the unsafe America he has created that he is referring too. Jay H. Ell will show that he is the most lawless President in living memory. 

Up untill recently the focus on Law and Order had subsided as the issue of crime has not been in the top four worries of the electorate. But the picture changed with a spate of police shootings of unarmed African Americans resuscitating the Black Lives Matter movement. Then when a tiny town in Wisconsin, Kenosha, became a raging angry homicidal melting pot simultaneously as the RNC were trespassing on Government property, the whole issue became front and central to Trump’s re election strategy.  Street violence followed yet another police shooting of an unarmed black person in Kenosha with the inevitable sad aftermath of looting and clashes, Trump became more vocal at toting his non proven skills at resolving the crisis and therefore the compelling need to anoint him for a second term as President. He has seized on this issue with a vengeance as his approval ratings on everything else are in the gutter.

All this to the background of Trump being anointed as the undisputed dictator of the Republican National Party. The latter declared that their entire platform for the 2020 Election is to support their leader, Donald Trump - reminiscent of the 1930’s cry -“My leader right or wrong”. It is just the American electorate as a whole that he has to convince now. 

The POTUS needs reminding that he is the current President, that it is in Trump's Great America, which he hopes to keep Great that this crisiis is taking place. If anything Trump is a facilitator of violence and if his overall record is examined one needs a Law and Order President to reign him in. Anybody that is associated with him is indicted. He has a resume of clashes and settlements with the law over fifty years and at present he is breaking the law with gay abandon. He and his family are currently being criminally investigated by two branches of the Judiciary. His Presidency has been punctuated by infractions that would make a mob boss blush. 

.

ANOTHER BLACK LIVE THAT DOESN’T MATTER   

Trump seized on the Kenosha issue as it dovetails with his attempt to terrify white suburban women back into his tent as he conjures up black hordes squatting in white suburbs resulting in their real estate values tanking. Trump implies the old racist canard white women aren’t safe from the rapacious blacks.  The POTUS without as much as an acknowledgment to the fact that the protests and their sequelae followed the actions of the shooting of an unarmed black suspect where a half a dozen bullets were fired into his back, went into full throttle. “We will NOT stand for looting, arson, violence and lawlessness on American streets “, he triumphantly tweeted. (BTW the “housewives” in the suburbs need to fear the POTUS if his Access Hollywood tapes are to be believed that he can “Move very heavily on them”).  Journalist Jean Carroll is researching other womens' complaints prior to the 2020 election following her detailed and corroborated allegation of Trump’s rape of her. 

Had Trump waited a little bit longer before going on his rant he would learned that an obsessive supporter of his, who had attended his rallies, and had tweeted the Trump mantra, “Blue Lives Matter”, shot and killed two black protestors and injured one. He also might have come to terms with the fact that black sportsmen had had enough of the abuse and ridicule they had faced for standing up for justice. It was like eons ago when Trump felt he was on the right side of history when he called kneeling quarterback Colin Kaepernick “a son of a bitch”. Now corporations and more Importantly team franchises were backing their players. That very night league games were postponed in protest to yet another shooting.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE LAW AND ORDER PRESIDENT LATELY

Well the Law and Order President has just learned that his former Campaign Advisor Steve Bannon has been indicted for fraud. He joins another of Trump’s Campaign Managers, Paul Manafort, who was convicted for bank and tax fraud and is currently serving seven and a half years. The Republican led Senate Committee recently stated that during Trump’s campaign that Manafort was providing a Russian intelligence officer with campaign and other information - so much for the Law and Order candidate. Donald Trump’s key to the evangelical vote Jerry Falwell Jnr has just been forced to resign as a result of a salacious sex scandal. You cannot make this up - Law and Order President Trump’s chief connection with the Evangelicals is a sexual deviant. 

Just to stick to what is happening to the Law and Order President in the here and now he and his family are currently being investigated by the New York State’s Attorney Office and the Manhattan Attorney. With regard to the former his son Eric who made such a stout recommendation for his dad at the cult meeting, has refused an order to be deposed in the criminal investigation of The People v President Trump and the Trump Organization on bank and insurance fraud. Trump also is in the process of having his tax returns finally released in relation to an investigation by the Attorney General of Manhattan, New York. This case has already been to the Supreme Court once where the latter ruled that a sitting President was not immune from a criminal investigation.

Then in California a court ruled that the President had to pay for Stormy Daniel’s legal fees in her litigation against him. To add insult to injury Trump’s sister a former Federal Judge Maryanne Barry, confirmed what her niece had written in her tell all book, that he illegally got a friend to write his entrance examination to get into the University of Pennsylvania. Admittedly the statutes of limitations have run out on that crime but still hardly something you would want on your resume while the cult coronates your leadership.

A number of cases involving sexual abuse are wending their way through the courts to add to the Law and Order President’s woes.

OPEN ABROGATIONS OF THE HATCH ACT THIS WEEK BY THE LAW AND ORDER PRESIDENT 

All political parties have to spend a year and a fortune of money to organize and arrange a Congress. Central to the Congress is the venue. Initially the RNC elected the swing state of North Carolina.The RNC Convention Plan to re elect Trump was in the characteristic chaos of everything Trump. They told the Governor of North Carolina he could go to hell if he thought that they would conduct their jamboree according to CDC Guidelines and North Carolina law. They would change the venue even at that late stage for Jacksonville Florida. From the get go it was an idiotic decision because that city did not have the accommodation for the thousands that would pitch up. So the ever thinkers on their feet decided that they would bring in ships. The problem with the latter was that they were petrie dishes for Covid. Jacksonville could never have been on as more and  more Covid hit. 

Then Trump came up with the brilliant idea “Have it all at my House”. It is after all “His House” and there he could ignore Washington DC and CDC regulations on Covid.  For those that don’t know he believes he owns the Government, it’s property including the WhiteHouse. Everyone in the Fedral Government owe loyalty to him not the American people. The GOP still needed some token center so three hundred delegates were sent to spend the week in North Carolina where Trump made a guest appearance. For an hour he gave them an unscripted rave about The Deep State, even though he had been President for nearly four years so he is the Deep State. With a straight face he claimed that it was out of respect for the Great State of North Carolina that they were all there!

The Hatch Act specifically states that it is illegal to use Federal Property for non governmental activities. Trump with all the pomp and ceremony accorded to his Office utilized the Whitehouse as a backdrop for his re election effort. A long video segment of a naturalization ceremony was featured.  Melania gave her speech in the Rose Garden where guests sat non social distanced and unmasked as they did with Trump with election notices plastered all over the show indicating that it was like a Trump Hotel or Trump Tower.

On night three Mike Pence Vice President utilized another Federal Government property for the Trump Party at the historic Fort of McHenry at Baltimore. 

Then Federal Property was utilized for the endless procession of speakers at the Convention - not the North Carolina or Jacksonville Florida venues. The stately Andrew Mellon Auditorium was dolled up as the speakers lined up one after another either on tape or in person to hail the king. (The “housewives” wore in the main red dresses or red pant suits and the men red ties).There is some debate as to whether or not this facility could be legally rented to the RNC. The Democrats have pointed out that it is no coincidence that the nearest hotel to the facility belongs to family Trump who doubled their room rates for Convention week.

Mike Pompeo was the first Secretary of State since the war to speak at a political convention.  So from the top of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem where the tax payer was paying one big  bill for him and his entourage to stay, he chimed in his bit as to what a cultural icon the six time New York bankrupt artist was. For the uninitiated the Israeli backdrop was for the benefit of one of the key components of his base the Evangelicals where he has been losing ground of late. This move reassures them that Israel will be around for the Messiah to return.

Without a doubt the most gross and cynical abuse of using tax payer facilities at no cost was the utilization of the WhiteHouse for a citizenship ceremony for five individuals who Trump is generally trying to keep out as they are all from sh..thole countries. Then he pardoned an armed robber who redeemed himself by studying the bible and starting a movement entitled “Hope for Prisoners”. 

But as Mike Meadows, Trump’s Chief of Staff, claimed nobody outside the beltway cares about the Hatch Act. With no irony whatsoever he added that, “People expect that Donald Trump is Going to Respect Republican values”. As they say in the classics “Tell that to the Judge”. As an aside Meadows was one of the Hatch Law’s greatest supporters in Congress drafting multiple pieces of legislation to strengthen the law and increase punishments for infringements. 

Jay H. Ell was reminded of the Royal Family waving to the crowds from Buckingham Palace as the Trump crew stood on the balcony of the WhiteHouse acknowledging the cheers, presumably of the nation. 

Quite a busy week in the arena of Law and Order for our Law and Order President.

“I WILL PICK ONLY THE BEST PEOPLE”

Let Jay H. Ell return to those of his campaign team that were indicted in addition to Manafort and Bannon. There was his Deputy Campaign Manager Rick Gates, Manafort Associate Alexander van der Zwaan, Advisors George Papadopoulos and the notorious Roger Stone, whose sentence Trump negated. Michael Flynn his National Security Advisor is awaiting sentencing while his Attorney General Barr is trying to get his charges quashed even after he pled guilty. Then of course there is his former personal Attorney Michael Cohen whose indictment named Trump as “Individual One” who instructed Trump to make the illegal payment to Stormy Daniels.

Of course there is so much more to come. His current personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is under criminal investigation in New York and two of Giuliani’s associates, who had endless meetings with our Donald on the subject of Ukraine, Lev Parnias and Igor Fruman, are scheduled for trial in 2021, 

LAW AND ORDER TRUMP, MOTHER RUSSIA AND DADDY PUTIN

It is illegal to obtain any help of any sort from a foreign country during an election. Trump publicly stated, “Russia are you listening” in connection with the procuring of Hillary Clinton’s e mails by means of hacking. The Mueller report claimed that it could not prove actual criminal collusion with Russia in their assistance of him in the election. However Mueller’s probe and a thousand page Senate report headed by the Republicans documented that he sought and welcomed their aid. The Mueller investigation laid out a powerful case of Obstruction of Justice against the President but it went no further because it is apparently Federal Justice Policy not to indict a sitting President. A reading of the Senate Intelligence Report presents a strong case for perjury as well. 

Trump has to be asking himself why the Senate Controlled Intelligence Committee released this damning report on the Russian intervention, detailing his knowledge involvement and encouragement, in the 2016 Presidential election. That combined with the fact that any Senator that was in a remotely close race except for Joni Ernst (Iowa) was not on the Congress speaking list. The swing states include red states like Florida, North Carolina, Texas and Arizona. The Law and Order President is showing no leadership in warning Russia to “cut it out” as the Intelligence Community state that Putin is at again. Trump has failed to challenge Putin, who has put a bounty on American soldiers that has been collected by the Taliban. The Senators in swing States see being associated with Trump as detrimental to their cahnces.

His inexplicable cow towing to Putin has lead even the most Conservative of commentators such as Francis Fukuyama to muse that the Russians may have stuff on the Law and Order President.

TWO RECENT LAW BREAKING ACTIVITIES WHERE TRUMP SETTLED WITH THE COURTS.

The Law and Order President created a University where he defrauded students to enroll with the promise of obtaining a degree so they could increase their incomes The sales pitch was revolting and the recruiters were instructed how to persuade victims to part with savings. Trump forestalled the litigation. He settled by paying the plaintiffs twenty - five million dollars. He bragged what a bargain that was. The second glaring example of the Law and Order President’s lawlessness related to the “stealing” of moneys from his Charitable Foundation. The Courts ordered it shut down and ruled that Trump could not form another. He was heavily fined as well. The Court found incontrovertible evidence that Trump had used moneys for his own political purposes that ironically been donated by others.

These two gross abrogations of law that have been adjudicated in the past four years are the epitome of evil.

BUT BIDEN IS THE CORRUPT ONE.

Trump devoted much of his speech to attacking Biden. The fact that he fears  Biden’s candidacy was epitomized by the fact that he risked his Presidency by the illegal action of insisting that the Ukrainian President provide dirt on Biden in return for moneys that Congress had appropriated for Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression. Much of the heavy lifting of the attack on Biden and his son Hunter was undertaken by the former Florida Attorney General Pat Bondi as she did in Trump’s impeachment trial.

What Bondi omitted to share with all and sundry was that she is linked to one of the President’s illegal operations. Bondi had been one of the many Attorney Generals in the country who had supported the complainants in the litigation against Trump and his bogus University. However she withdrew her support around about the time that she received a check in support of her re election campaign from Donald J. Trump the Law and Order President. The source of the moneys was the Trump Charitable Foundation. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

So Trump has elected to run on his racist agenda and Law and Order. It remains to be seen how successful the new cult leader of the Republican Party will be. His love affair with the gun loving vigilantes and his threat that the election will be rigged against him raises the fear that he might not accept the result.

The RNC aided and abetted Trump in proceeding as if the Coronavirus crisis didn’t exist while simultaneously hailing him for the greatest response to the pandemic in the world. America was led to imagine that the hundred and eighty thousand victims would rise from the dead when a vaccine emerges.

It is becoming more and more evident that the lawless Trump, the GOP’s leader right or wrong, is on the path to authoritarianism if he is re elected. His distortion of reality is veering the country in the direction of George Orwell’s 1984. 

BIDEN AND THE VIRTUAL DNC CONVENTION NAIL IT

The  virtual DNC Convention which was held prior to the most important election in the country since 1864 has come and gone. There is an overwhelmingly positive consensus about the remarkable technical, artistic and compelling production which crisply underlined a number of campaign messages. It consolidated the belief that former Vice President Joe Biden was as much a man for this time as Churchill, FDR, Mandela and King were for theirs. The canard that he was “losing it” tweeted in stone by Trump was shattered as the stark choice between the current malignant  incompetent President and the capable decent Biden was clearly presented, not the least by Biden himself. 

What was at stake was crystalized as the fight for the Soul of the Nation. The life, the person, the family, the values and the service of Biden were skillfully interwoven into the narrative through biographical stories told by “We the People” as well as a broad cross section of the Democratic, Republican and of the country’s established institutions' leadership. The challenges facing the country in its health and economic Covid Crisis, racism. job creation, health care for all, gun violence, climate were front and center as were the solutions to them. The choice of Kamala Harris as vice president helped Biden create the vast tent that represented all the American peoples. What could not have failed to impress was the joyous manner in which his former Democratic rivals praised him.

The heavy lifting of explaining why the current President was totally unfit for the job as envisaged by the Founding Fathers was left principally to the Obamas and the Clintons. The former gave speeches of a lifetime while the latter succinctly made it quite clear what choices the country faced.

DNC CONVENTION - DELIVERING THE MESSAGE IN THE AGE OF COVID

Political conventions traditionally have been the greatest shows on earth. There are the crowds, the costumes, the cheerleading, the balloons, the placards and the circus like atmosphere that is so uniquely American. Generally speaking they don’t alter the political landscape very much as they are so tightly choreographed that nothing really game changing happens. This year it was all so different. There was no chanting no drama on the jam packed floor. It was a Convention in the Age of Zoom. 

The director of the whole production was Ricky Kirschner who is responsible for the half time shows at the Super Bowl.There were literally hundreds of zoom feeds.The Milwaukee Stadium which was the initial venue had been turned into a nerve center ala the Houston Space Center. Much was pre taped. All two hours were choreographed for each night with tight programming. The problem that this type of venture presents is that it has to entertain as it lacks the spontaneity of the maneuvering behind the scenes. the real time revelations and the contemporaneous commentary and interpretations by the punditry.

 It also has to have distinct messages with testimonials and in delivering them the “infomercial” feel has to be avoided. In the event it turned out to be a highly slick production with appropriate real entertainment. Continuity was cannily provided by not utilizing the old time party insiders as Masters of Ceremonies but rather well known female, (aka “Housewife”) entertainers, Eva Longria Baston, Kerry Washington and Julia Louis Dreyfus. A highly polished production with graphic presentations of the plight of the everyday voter intermixed with the political types.

DAY 1 - “WE THE PEOPLE”  v  “I ALONE CAN FIX IT”

The central theme of the opening night was to show the stark contrast between the America of “We the People” and that of Trump’s - “I alone can fix it”. The three areas he couldn’t fix were where his approval rate was in the thirties - the disastrous pandemic, the economic misery and the management of racial injustice - were front and center. There was a montage of “We the People" from all walks of life who had been impacted, all interwoven with the personal story of Joe Biden. Joe was himself a man of the people - the opening night biographical feature was his daily train rides from Delaware to Washington and back as a single parent caring for his boys. The underlying subtext was the juxtaposition of the empathetic man of the people and the spoiled brat amoral autocrat looking out for himself. 

The most stinging condemnation from one of “the people”, on a night whIch was cluttered with several from all walks of life, came from a young lady, Kristin Urquiza whose father died of Covid. She told the story of her father who, “…had faith in Trump. He voted for him. He listened to him”.  Most significantly he believed the POTUS when the latter opined that all was under control and the virus would disappear, that there was no need for social distancing and if you had no underlying conditions you would be fine. Her father went to a karaoke bar with fatal consequences. “My dad was a healthy sixty - five year old whose only preexisting condition was that he trusted Donald Trump. And for that he paid with his life”. If any testimonial served as a metaphor for where America was at this point in its history it was this sad yet angry daughter’s saga. The cameo will go down in the history books and it will be seen again on this campaign trail. Kristin’s story was the first of the Convention to go viral.

“The People” were followed by an impressive array of their representatives who illustrated the unprecedented coalition from every section of the political spectrum. Jay H. Ell has to mention Jim Clyburn, without whom, there would have not have been the unifying figure of Joe Biden to take on this challenge on behalf of “We the People”. When the Democratic Primary was in disarray and it looked for all the world that the fight would end up with two polarizing figures Michael Bloomberg and Bernie Sanders, he waded in boots and all by mobilizing the African American vote behind the current candidate. The seasoned warrior from the Civil Rights era succinctly outlined his rationale. He had seen it all and he knew that what was needed was an empathetic unifier, “We know Joe and Joe Knows Us”.

Bernie Sanders gave an impassioned plea for unity, “…I will work with progressives, with moderates and yes with conservatives to preserve this nation … authoritarianism has take root… this election is about preserving democracy… the future of our democracy is at stake". This time in 2016 he had barely given up the fight against Hillary. Besides the dire urgency of the situation had driven him and the fact that he has had input to the party platform could have done no harm. 

Republican John Kasich had a far tougher task than Sanders to sound convincing. In his virtual plea he stood at the crossroad of two paths. It may have looked kitsch to some but it summed up the dilemma he perceived the country to be in. His speech followed the earlier pleas of a string of former high ranking Republicans and there were many more at home. Kasich who had been a popular Governor of Ohio and a Presidential contender against Trump, stated the obvious, “Many of us can’t imagine four more years going down this path”. To the waverers in the middle of the party he reassured that Joe would not betray their trust by “going too far down the left”. However as he summed up “The stakes were great” and “Joe Biden was a man for our times”.

The Obamas to date had been dignified and rarely intervened in the political arena unless Barak had thought the circumstances really warranted it. Michelle, who is the most popular political figure in American politics, for the most part has been mum. She hates politics. She also knew what it took to be President and the challenges that were to be faced. So from the latter vantage point she delivered with a vengeance. One of her themes was to clarify how to interpret what she had said in 2016 about going “high” … “But let us be clear, going high doesn’t mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty. Going high means taking the harder path. It means scraping and clawing our way to the mountaintop. Going high means standing fierce against hatred and remembering that we are one nation under God”. -All this vintage Martin Luther King and underlining the theme of the night of “We the People”.

The former First Lady, speaking with controlled anger for close on twenty minutes, was unequivocal in her message:  “Let me be as honest and clear as I can. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job. He cannot meet this moment….. it is what it is….. if you think things cannot possibly get worse, trust me, they can and they will …..if we have any hope of ending this chaos, we have to vote for Joe Biden like our lives depend on it.

And on that salutary note Day One ended.

DAY TWO - LEADERSHIP MATTERS

if there had been any lingering doubts that these two hour programs were going to look and sound like infomercials Day 2 dispelled the notion. The biography of Joe was advanced as Jill became the mother of his boys. The relationship, the marriage and the making of a family were crisply and empathetically unfolded. The working through the pain of loss which was to be faced again and again in their lives served as a basis for his tireless supporting and caring for others. 

Healthcare which was the number issue just a few months ago was showcased in narrative style with Joe Biden in conversation with those who might have died without Obamacare. This is still the hot button issue and six Republican States have had the Medicaid component introduced following referenda that mandated it. At this very moment Trump and his Justice Department are appealing to the Supreme Court to have the healthcare act to be revoked!

The evening also witnessed testimonials from those across the political spectrum of friendship and government who outlined his character and his qualifications for leadership. There was Colin Powell, Bush 43’s Secretary of State, who emphasized that Joe Biden was respected by the leaders throughout the world and would allow America to hold its head up high again as opposed to being the laughing stock it now is. Former Obama Secretary of State John Kerry recalled his historic achievements. Then another Republican Chuck Hagel who had been Minister of Defense underlined that kind, caring and empathetic Joe could be as tough as nails when it came to defending the country.

The topic of security with former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates laying bare once again Trump’s treachery. She claimed that Trump did not lead America for Americans but rather ran it as a family business. This coming on a day when a Senate bipartisan one thousand page report categorically concluded that Russia had intervened, with Trump’s bidding and knowledge, in the 2016 election in his favor. They concluded, inter alia, that Trump’s Campaign Manager was a security risk having provided information throughout to a Russian intelligence officer. Trump’s treachery was further exemplified by yet another high profile resignation from his administration a Security Official from the Department of Homeland Security, (DHS), Mike Taylor. He noted that Trump would align himself with dictators throughout the world. Taylor, a Trump appointee attested that Trump wanted to turn the DHS into his re election tool. He claimed, “I saw first hand how dangerous Trump is for America”. Dozens of former Republican appointed Security Officials signed a similar condemnation.

It fell to former President Bill Clinton to starkly outline the choice America faced which he did in a mere five minutes. It was evident that his communication and assessment skills were still razor sharp and had Hillary not so bizarrely lost he would be still a major force in the Party that has evolved so dramatically in three decades. He detailed America’s damning statistics on the pandemic under a President who refused to take responsibility - “It is what it is”. Clinton summed it all up: “The Oval Office is the Command Center but under Trump it is chaos, it is the Storm Center. If people want a President who denies responsibility… who defines his job as watching TV all day and zapping people on social media, he is your man. Joe Biden is just the opposite. He is a go to work guy., down to earth guy, get the job done guy… he will take responsibility and not shift the blame… unite not divide.. our choice is Joe Biden”.

All this content neatly woven together with the two dramatic features of the night - the roll call of the vote to formerly elect Biden as nominee and the Keynote address. The former, traditionally conducted from the floor amidst shouting and screaming was presented as a delightful travelogue of America’s fifty - seven states and territories with a charm providing a snapshot of America’s picturesque beauty, costumes, customs and diversified populations. Like a Rogers and Hammerstein musical it had a homely feel where contrasts were presented in celebration and not to create division. There was pride, braggadocio, exhortations and whooping up support for the Presidential nominee. 

The Keynote speech  featured seventeen young rising stars of the Democratic Party throughout the country who held state and local positions. They all strung together one liners and  it showed off the incredible diversity of the Party which is reflective of the country and all its social and racial components. The message of the campaign, pandemic misery and its negligent mismanagement, economic collapse and inequity and racial injustice came through loud and clear. Both the aforementioned montages managed to give cameo appearances of two of the rising stars in the Party, Alexandria Ocasio - Cortez and Stacie Abrahams. The former bears the mantle of being the future leader of the Progressive wing of the Party and the latter, as eloquent, nearly pulling off a sensational gubernatorial victory in Red Georgia, having been hobbled by voter suppression.

Oh the feature that went viral was video taken when a young elevator operator screamed out at Joe Boden, “I love you”. Jacquelyn Brittany explained, “In the short time I spent with Joe Biden, i could tell he really saw me, that he actually cared, that my life meant something to him…. he’d take my story with him”.

A testimonial from John McCain’s widow who added to those who bore witness to his integrity, kindness, diligence and friendship underlined the ever increasing Republican support.

Then to tie it all up a story and testimonial from Jill Biden. It was powerfully and poignantly done with the setting being an empty classroom where she had taught. The backdrop was in sync with the pain families are facing with children not at school with the elephant in the empty corridors being the, “Is What It Is”, President. By the way the producers of this segment were the Oscar nominated pair for the movie RBG. 

DAY 3. THE STORY OF TWO BLACK FIRST GENERATION AMERICAN DREAMERS

Another blockbuster night where Biden’s platform was further laid out in an original fashion by an array of female leaders. However the night belonged to two first generation black Americans one its first black President and the other the first African American female Vice Presidential nominee. They had contrasting narratives but first onto the rest of the evening.

 Underlining the fact that in the House of Representatives whose first female speaker Nancy Pelosi reported that female representation had reached almost a quarter of the membership, almost exclusively Democrat. In addition to Pelosi, Gabby Gifford the gun violence advocate whose legislative career was cut short by an assassin, Elizabeth Warren whose main thrust at the moment is to provide free child care for working mothers, Michelle Grisham the Governor of New Mexico, Obama cabinet member Hilda Solis and Hillary Clinton made up the all female cast. 

The plight of immigrants particularly those who were brought here as children was addressed as well as the whole thorny issue of producing an overarching coherent policy. Trump, who was not the focus of discussion in the first half of the evening, stark savagery was exposed when he was featured referring to these souls as “Animals”. Climate change, and job creation, two other hot topics that were central to the Democratic platform were addressed. Needless to add a Women’s Right To Choose was also featured. There were several taped interviews of those that had been impacted by the historic Roe v Wade decision and a promise to enshrine it legislatively.

Throughout there were flashbacks illustrating the Presidential candidate’s leadership in most of these arenas throughout his decades of service. This was skillfully and tasteful executed and was a far more effective way of displaying the biography of Biden. The traditional manner being hours long documentary. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the defeated Presidential candidate in 2016 could have used her five minutes to lament how she was robbed and gloat, “I told you so” instead she offered a sober analysis of the task that lay ahead. She reflected on those who had confessed to her that they could have done more in 2016 by advocating that America could not afford another “woulda, coulda shoulda” election. She pointed out that everyone now had an answer to Trump’s 2016 question, “What do you have to lose?”. She reminded that Joe and Kamala could win the election by three million votes and still lose.

Hillary was a fitting lead in to what was to follow - two, first generation African American dreamers, who if Trump had his way would not be in the United States today. They presented two contrasting worlds - the fear, disappointment and controlled anger of one who had reached the pinnacle of success in the highest office of the land the other exuberant as she stood on the threshold of achieving her dream as the first woman of color to reach the nations’s second highest office.

President Barak Obama who is more American than most Americans, certainly more so than the present WhiteHouse incumbent, gave a speech for the ages. In the hall in Philadelphia where the aspirational Constitution had been hammered out, he provided the strongest argument for the values that were at stake in this election. This after taking a decade and a half of abuse and racism from the man who was now supposed to embody the democratic liberal tradition that America stood for. He dissected Trump’s job performance declaring, “Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe, a hundred and seventy thousand Americans are dead, millions of jobs gone while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses are unleashed, our proud reputation badly diminished and our democratic institutions threatened like never before….”

He exhorted the citizenry not to allow their power and democracy to be removed and harkened back to the two century fight for the franchise and what had to be endured to achieve that… any chance of furthering what had been achieved depended on the outcome of the election.

With the responsibility for the moment, at least not now, of not prosecuting the case against Trump lifted from her shoulders an almost joyful Kamala Harris could reflect on her life and upbringing by a single dedicated mother. From the get go social values were inculcated into her DNA as her exceptional intelligence and hard work catapulted her to the top. Her razor sharp mind was on display in the hearings of Judge Kavanaugh and William Barr. She is tough and she is soft. She represents the America Trump is railing against - a mixture of South East Asian and Caribbean heritage. He stoked up birtherism related to Kamala reminiscent of the Obama interlude and called her “The meanest, most horrible, most disrespectful, MOST LIBERAL of anyone in the US Senate… “. Stick around Donald you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Just one note on the production where Obama’s set gave an intimate close up chatty feel. It benefitted from not being punctuated by those ludicrous standing ovations every ten seconds. By contrast Harris’s arena was eerie as she addressed an empty auditorium. It was if she was in a mausoleum. She could have benefited by an Obama like arrangement. 

It was fitting that on this day Trump welcomed the dangerous loons, QAnon onto his team. They like Neo Nazis in Charlottesville had "good people" and more importantly, as Donald explained, “They liked him”.

DAY 4. COMETH THE HOUR COMETH THE MAN. 

The day started with a fitting metaphor to the Trump reign, another key member of his revolving door inner circle - Campaign Chairman, Steve Bannon was indicted for fraud. In case anyone needs a reminder Trump promised that he would surround himself with “the best”. However that was not even part of the news of the day. For once it was all Biden and his inclusive big tent vision.

Once again the presentation retained its remarkable high standard with virtual discussions. One that stood out was the high regard and affection that his former presidential opponents held him in. It was notable that nearly all his opponents featured in the mini series as did the contenders for the Vice Presidential slot. There was the charming discussion with the NBA star, Stephen Curry’s family where his young daughters showed an awareness of what was happening around them There were the interludes of celebrities like historian John Meachem, comedian Sarah Cooper and performances by the Dixie Chicks and John Legend. There were the tributes from the Biden children, Hunter, (whom Trump will be running against), Ashley and posthumously Beau whom he had leant on for support. The grandchildren chimed in moving the narrative onto the next generation.

The evening’s vignette that would go viral was the testimonial of a thirteen year old young man who bravely paid tribute to the kind soul, Joe Biden, who empathized with his stuttering disability. “We stutter - members of the same club”, he confessed. This interlude alone has had over eight million hits on social media.

It was left to former opponent Michael Bloomberg to share what he knew about Donald Trump as he had done four years ago. At the Clinton nomination he warned he was a bad guy now he could point to the bad things he had done. Bloomberg who is the epitome of the centrist hailed Biden’s record and achievements and exhorted Joe and Kamala, “To go get him for all of us”.

Then came Trump’s worst nightmare as Biden emerged as the charismatic unifying leader the country was yearning for. In a career defining high stakes oration he “embraced the light” while “the current President had cloaked America in darkness for far too long”. He offered hope over fear, facts over fiction and fairness over privilege. Then focussing on what he knew best, creating consensus, he announced that, “It was time for WE THE PEOPLE TO COME TOGETHER”. He would be the President of all America. His was a message of hope another New Deal to Build America Better. He mercilessly attacked Trump, never by name, for the deaths and the economic crisis he had refused to avoid. Then there was the POTUS’s evil campaign to take away health care that had been provided by the Affordable Health Care Act,,,, 

He laid out his agenda - first he would comprehensively control the virus. Then he would move to his economic plan to create jobs addressing the crippling infrastructure and climate change. No one would be without health care, child care and elder care. He would change the tax code. He would address racialism. He would have Kamala by his side to help him. Character, compassion, decency, science and democracy was on the ballot. “We are a good and decent people - This is our moment. This is our mission.”

This was Biden’s answer to the refrain that he was hiding in the basement, This was “Slow Joe’s” challenge to history’s cruelest self serving President who countless members of his Administration testified that he had run America for his own personal account,

To cap it all there was a dramatic end to the evening as lit up cars with their flickers flashing to the accompaniment of a fireworks display greeted Biden and Harris. The Wilmington Delaware crowd had watched the evening on a giant monitor and hooted like crazy when the nominees and their spouses acknowledged their cheers from the outside podium. An imaginative end to a highly creative production. 

The bottom line outcome a one hundred and twenty - five million viewers and seventy million dollars in small contributions. Needless to say Donald’s comment was what they said about Biden wasn’t true and he would produce light to counter Biden’s dark vision.

TRUMP’S DESPERATION WITH EIGHTY DAYS TO GO

Any belief that teflon Trump has a deep-seated carefully thought out plan on how to hang onto power is profoundly misplaced. That doesn’t of course mean that he is working on his concession speech either! Rather every action he takes is for the purpose of hanging onto power and is made as the mood takes him.

Trump grows more and more desperate each day as the polls remain firm that he and his Republican Party are about to be badly beaten in the 2020 election. His management of the pandemic has hit a record low approval rate, thirty percent. Reflexly he presents nightly streams of consciousness supposedly on the Covid crisis. These unsurprisingly have no impact on his numbers. His survival efforts are becoming more and more ill thought out and on their face dangerous to the nation and ironically counterproductive to his own re election chances. 

One fact is for sure in the week that was, Trump did not spend much time on his vision for a second term. Rather he indulged in wishful thinking, and concentrated on diversionary narratives as the coronavirus pandemic smoldered on. 

WHERE TRUMP IS NOW

The POTUS is still reliant on the GOP legislators to back him as well as his new fixer, Head of the Justice Department, Bill Barr. Trump has not the power of a Putin, a Kim Jong Un or Xi Jinping to declare himself President for life. If his enablers were to finally fulfill their oaths and cry “no mas” it would be game over but for the moment they are still singing the refrain, “Yes, we will all go down together”. 

But to repeat, there is no grand plan. He has lashed out with naked racism focussing on Biden’s Vice President pick Kamala Harris. He reintroduced his “birther” strategy. In the teeth of nation wide “Black Lives Matter” protests he abused his office to show that he is the Law and Order President, He has withheld resources to the States and individuals who are victim of the coronavirus pandemic. His most recent gambit is to castrate the United States Post Office thereby warning those who wish to vote by mail that their votes won’t count. All the aforementioned together with his preferred tactic character assassination - smear Biden off the face of the earth and blame him and Obama for the “Russian Hoax” is what he is focussing on. For good measure he throws in Hillary’s e mails - “Russia are you listening. Wikilealks I love Wikileaks”. 

All his strategies and whether they will help him or not will be dealt with below. But first his public image.

TRUMP: WHEN BAD PUBLICITY IS JUST THAT - BAD. 

As his character becomes more and more exposed through devastating best selling books like his niece’s inside look into his racist, amoral, dysfunctional family life and John Bolton’s detailed description of his self serving decision making, “The Room Where It Happened”, he attempts to persuade the nation that all is normal. In the teeth of gross mismanagement of an ongoing pandemic he proclaims that all children should go back to school, that sport should resume and that with nearly a hundred and seventy thousand dead and over five million confirmed cases he has, on behalf of America, managed the pandemic better than anyone else.

 The court rulings are becoming nearer and nearer to breaking through his thick skin and penetrating his inner naked souless workings. There are two more best sellers in the immediate offing. One by his former fixer Michael Cohen who will detail how Trump ran his world like a mob boss and the other by Bob Woodward, who has impeccable credentials and inside sources second to none. Apparently Woodward has copies of twenty - five letters to Kim Jong Un. These exposes will add to the litany of revelations that have followed his candidacy and his Presidency, not he least of which was the best seller, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” which  included the assessments of thirty - eight psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts.

Needless to say the more psychotic his behavior veers the more he smears Biden for being not quite all there……..

RACISM NOW, RACISM THEN AND RACISM TOMORROW

To Trump’s and America’s shame the call of racism still has a significant following. Besides his usual staple slants on the subject Trump injected three new variations of the theme that has divided the country since its inception. In so doing he hit rock bottom in a manner that would have shamed George Wallace and made Robert E, Lee fall of his horse, Firstly, he took a tour back to the Wallace playbook by issuing an executive order in effect allowing segregation in suburban housing. What was even more telling was the accompanying tweet. Trump escalated his earlier prophecies about a “suburban invasion that would undermine the safety of the suburban housewife”. He informed that the “invasion” would be led by Cory Booker, the Black Senator from New Jersey.

Then it was a trip down memory lane to “birtherism”. In answer to a question as to what he thought of the argument that because Harris was the daughter of immigrants she was ineligible to run for the Vice Presidency, Trump, whose mother was also an immigrant, hunkered back to the obscenity that started him off on his Presidential run. He claimed that, “He had heard that she doesn’t meet the requirements. I have no idea if that is right…. I would have assumed that the Democrats would have checked that out…”. He then added that the lawyer that had made this preposterous allegation, in the teeth of the Fourteenth Amendment, “was brilliant”. 

The third new call out to racism was on its face even more ludicrous. He endorsed the victory of Majorie Taylor Greene in a Republican Primary hailing the latter as, “A future Republican star”. Ms Greene is a card carrying member of the openly racist and anti semitic cult known as QAnon. The latter hero worship Trump and designate all Democrats as evil child abusers. They have condoned violence and the FBI have labelled their adherents as a domestic terrorism threat.

So in this and other ways Trump has nailed his theses to the Confederate Flag and tripled down on racism to make America Great Again.

“LOCK THEM UP”

Another pillar to “Making America Great Again” is to criminally charge Biden and Obama and debunk the work of Mueller, the whole Intelligence Establishment, the Inspector General of The Justice Department, all of whom detailed the Russian assistance to Trump in the 2016 election. Historians will reflect on the energy and effort Trump pumped into creating revisionist history.

No issue has totally dominated the attention of the current POTUS more than the “Russian Hoax”. This topic with eighty days to go still is central pillar in what he is offering his cult to help them get through rough times. In this endeavor he has been assisted by William G. Barr his Attorney General. The latter has not flinched from reinterpreting the Mueller report and was not at all stopped in his tracks when a Bush appointee, Federal Judge Walton, bald faced told him he had used his office to distort the special counsel’s findings to politically favor Trump. 

Barr also made it his central mission to confirm the Trump narrative by arguing that rather than Russia intervening on Trump’s behalf in 2016, the cause celebre in that year was that Obama and Biden spied on the POTUS. Barr dropped charges on those found guilty in the Russian scandal. Initially he intervened on Michael Cohen’s behalf but when the latter ratted on the President he had him locked up again because he was writing a book describing Trump as a mob boss. Barr appointed a special prosecutor to investigate those who dared probe the Russian interference. He was even mentioned with Giuliani as the man the Ukrainian President should contact with the dirt on Biden. 

For all the Consiglieri did for Trump he was praised. But that was then and this is now. With eighty days to do to the election, Barr has not delivered indictments against Obama and Biden, in spite of utilizing a ton of tax payer money on the effort. Donald as is his wont is furious. This lead to Trump pouring his heart out to Fox News Anchor Maria Bartiromo. He confided to the Fox faithful that he hoped that Barr and his special prosecutor would not play this by the book. “Bill Barr”, he maintained, “has the chance to be the greatest of all time, but if he wants to be politically correct, he’ll just be another guy, because he has all the answers, he knows what they have, and it goes straight to Obama, and it goes straight to Biden”

Even Barr knows he can’t continue to go into court and talk utter garbage. Not that he hasn’t tried. Trump hasn’t even thanked him for arguing in the Supreme Court that he is above the law and he was entitled to shoot someone in Fifth Avenue. Sixty - five Faculty Members of his alma mater, George Washington Law School, have called for his resignation because he has betrayed his oath. That is the last fact that one would want to put on a resume. 

Well Trump has also been reliant on the Republican controlled Senate to deliver Obama’s and Biden’s heads on a plate. The two Committee Chairman thus fair have shied from doing his bidding. Senator Johnson, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, says he still will send out subpoenas in spite of pushback from Republicans while Senator Lindsey Graham, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the POTUS’S  strongest ally, has not as yet produced the goods. Graham has to be reflecting why he is tied in the polls against an African American, in a red state that Trump won by fifteen percent. 

So for whatever reason Trump believes he should make locking up Obama and Biden a central issue in 2020. Even his Consiglieri has given up and the Republican Senate do not believe it is a winning strategy to retain the Senate.

A CORONAVIRUS FINANCIAL PACKAGE AND VOTER SUPPRESSION VIA THE POST OFFICE

Trump has hung tough on compromising on a financial package to redress the economic damage evinced by the Coronavirus pandemic. Negotiating from the position of a one million dollar package versus the three million dollar Democratic offer he refused the latter’s compromise to meet him halfway.

Trump’s belief that making the electorate suffer will hurt the Democrats led him to reinforce his other recent voter suppression thrusts. He neutered the Post Office through the appointment of a major donor as Post Master General and getting him hobble the ability of the United States Post Office to manage the vast mail voter surge that is expected in November with the pandemic still raging. The new appointee  literally dumped scores of voter sorting machines, removed post boxes, axed twenty - three top managerial positions and then wrote to forty - six States that the Postal Service couldn’t guarantee delivering the postal votes in time to be counted. The rationale behind this subtlety was that polls showed that seventy percent of Democrats expected to vote by mail while only twenty percent of Republicans did. 

Trump smugly proclaimed that the motive for the Post Office decision was “voter fraud” and that the failure of Covid19 package was Pelosi playing games. 

WILL ANY OF THIS WORK? - FIRSTLY RACISM?

The race card certainly will mobilize his core but will it win back the 2018 voters that deserted him? His sexist appeals o suburban white “housewives” to return to the fold because of the Cory Booker invasion is mind boggling in 2020. The suburban women switched for a host of reasons which have only worsened. They are hardly likely to think that Trump’s warnings overrides their real problem of whether their children should go to school or not and the failure of leadership to put in place a rational plan to cope with the ravaging pandemic. 

Then the “birtherism” strategy in 2020 has to border on political bankruptcy. In case he hasn’t noticed it the country as a whole support Black Lives Matter. The latter from being a fringe movement have gained the centrality of the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. Corporate America are behind it vocally and with money. Sportsmen even in Europe are wearing the slogan. Again it will serve notice to his base that he hasn’t lost the faith but it cannot move the needle. In fact the race talk is damaging Trump. His approval rate for handling of the Black Lives Matter protests was thirty percent.

As for QAnon which has about two hundred thousand adherents and whose importance has been magnified like so many others by the internet he has already had a backlash from Republican legislators, all of whom are going to be asked where they stand on Trump created issues. 

THE CHARACTER ASSASSINATION  OF OBAMA AND BIDEN - A VOTE GETTER?

This again will make the faithful happy but with eighty days to go and even if it was announced that Biden and Obama were about to be charged it would more likely mobilize the Democrats then the convinced cult. Trump faces bigger legal problems himself with the Supreme Court agreeing to the subpoenaing of his financial records and the myriad of litigations proceeding.  Barr will have to cope with an embarrassing defense as to why he must let twice guilty pled Mike Flynn off the hook.

THE  VIRUS FINANCIAL PACKAGE AND THE POST OFFICE CRISIS - CAN THEY HELP TRUMP?

Any seasoned politician will tell you that in any governmental hold up regardless of which side is allegedly right or wrong the blame goes to the Administration. So Trump and the chaotic Republicans in the Senate need resolution. Pelosi by offering a pandemic package three months ago and then being prepared to meet Trump halfway placed herself on the side of the angels. Trump idiotically believes that he can spin the blame onto Pelosi. As each day passes and the checks do not arrive from Trump, and remember that he insisted on having his name on them for the first relief package, who is going to get the lion’s share of the blame? Probably not “Nasty Nancy”. 

The Post Office shut down is reflective of Trump’s unawareness of the role that the latter plays in the country’s, psyche and day to day life. Trump has made it quite clear that his dismantling of this crucial institution is to diminish the vote against him. America’s expansion has been dependent on this service. The entity is written into the Constitution! The egalitarian nature of its services angered Free Market Milton Friedman, to whom the Republican economists pray each night. The father of American trickle down economics posited that those who lived in the outer reaches of the country where the cost of living was far less should pay far more for postal services as the cost of servicing these areas was astronomical. One of Trump’s last remaining bases, the rural folk, will be hit most by the this folly.They are more dependent than anyone else for their prescription drugs, social security checks and maintaining contact with the world.

Needless to say the POTUS claims it is the Democrats that are to blame. However Nancy included the moneys for the Post Office in May and now is prepared to bring the House out of recess to pass legislation to solidify the Post Office’s role.

NEXT WEEK

One cannot imagine what Trump will dream up next week when the Democrats get four days full Press coverage for their convention. Kamala has exited beyond expectation and Biden has put together a broad coalition including Republicans to address the urgency of exiting Trump. The latter has but eighty days to turn it all around.

If his coronavirus briefings were a Reality show the run would be ended by now.