The Lawless Law and Order President
Angry little man rages at the press.
Donald Trump loves him some Twitter. He’s on there incessantly, obsessively, tweeting Fox & Friends talking points, retweeting racist crap that he ‘didn’t know’ was racist, attacking people and name calling, you know, all the things a president with any decency or integrity would not be doing. Anything besides working.
Lately the thing he’s been spewing out is ‘Law & Order!’ Oh, excuse me, that should be ‘LAW & ORDER!!!’ Because all caps makes it that much more serious. But, here’s the thing; how are we supposed to take that message seriously when it comes from the most lawless president to ever occupy the office?
Trump has turned the Department of Justice into the Department of Trump Justice, with Attorney General William Barr his personal lawyer, the ‘Roy Cohn’ he’s always wanted in that position. He has been manipulating the Border Patrol and federal prison guards into his very own secret police and using them against American citizens. He’s breaking laws without repercussion or redress, because he’s captured any organization that would stand against him; The Republican Party is now the Trump Party, and not the least bit interested in bringing him to account. The DoJ? Forget about it. The courts? There are enough good judges left, but Trump has been shoving as many far-right and unqualified people into every open slot he can find, so we might not have much justice there for long.
And that’s the way he wants it.
He’s been using these captured agencies to go after his perceived enemies, he sends his fellow Trumpublicans after anyone that doesn’t toe the Trump line, fires anyone that dares to contradict him, and has been ‘investigating’ those who had investigated his own shady and illegal actions, threatening political opponents with jail.
Today, we find that one of those political investigations has lost a head prosecutor. Nora R. Dannehy, member of the one of the Durham investigation, named after U.S. Attorney John Durham. Durham was appointed to investigate the people who investigated the Russia probe. While once thought of as a respected career lawyer, Durham is seen more and more as someone doing the will of Trump and Barr. Dannehy quit, citing political interference in the investigation, as Barr presses them to release their conclusions before the election so Trump can use them against his ‘enemies’. Lord knows he needs something else to talk about.
This is the sort of thing Nixon dreamed about; using the powers of his office to attack and possibly jail anyone who might dare rise up and tell him ‘no’. This is the Trump goal, the dream, anyone who has a cross word, anyone with an unwelcome thought will be destroyed. Not fired, not mocked on Twitter, but eviscerated, ruined, burned to the ground and the earth salted after. He is a scorched-earth authoritarian, burning his imagined foes to the ground even if it takes the country with them. As long as he personally doesn’t get burned, why should he care?
The country can burn, as long as he gets his way.
Donald Trump is a con man, a tax cheat, a pathological liar, a fraud, and that was before he got into office. Now that the spotlight he has been so desperate for has been burning him for nearly four years, and it hasn’t been good for his already sady reputation. These nearly four years have exposed Trump, reduced and defined him down to his essence. Pure rage and grievance. He and his supporters are burning the country to the ground with it.
And salting the earth after.
“LAW & ORDER” indeed.