When You’re President, They Let You Do It

Thanks to kottke.org for pointing me to a recent Ta-Nehisi Coates essay called "Donald the Great" (archive link of the whole thing here). 

Kottke's excerpts are here, under the headline "Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Consequence of Donald Trump." 

Coates, of course, does not think Donald is great, but rather that he is consequential for all the wrong reasons:

The example that Trump has set, the scope of what is possible should one embrace the dark powers of the White House, will not dissipate. It turns out that you can deploy secret police onto American streets. You can deport immigrants in defiance of the courts. You can have the Justice Department badger your enemies. And you can become very rich while doing it. And some of the most powerful sectors in America, those who most loudly extol their own love of country, will stand around and watch you do it. Asked why he was making deals during his second term, Trump gave a succinct and chillingly accurate summation: “I found out that nobody cared.” And to the extent that there is a genius to Trump, it is in his apprehension of this reality — so very few people who matter care. When you’re president, they let you do it.

In his post, Kottke also included a half-hour video from the Vanity Fair podcast of Coates talking about the essay, which is worth watching or listening to.

I saw Kottke's post after reading my morning newspaper, which included yet another example of the way Trump's regime does exactly what Coates says. It was so outrageous I laughed out loud.

It was a New York Times story, reprinted in the Star Tribune, so I can't link to it. The headline is "DOJ seeks to disqualify judge overseeing golf course suit." 

Not only is the regime wanting to destroy a Washington, D.C. public park. Oh, no. His Department of Just-Us is also now attempting to get the judge who wants to stop them to recuse herself. 

Why? Because her righteous indignation at their courtroom behavior "continues a pattern of animus against the Trump administration." 

The judge, Ana C. Reyes, had ordered the government not to do surprise work. You know, like they did with the East Wing of the White House. So what did they do after she gave that order? They went ahead and cut down more than 400 trees (including many large ones) with no notice over the weekend of Indigenous Peoples' Day. 

As anyone might imagine, that did not please the judge. On October 12, she ordered various people from the Interior Department and National Park Service to appear in her courtroom on October 19. 

Last Friday, October 16, the associate attorney general filed for Reyes' recusal, citing her very anger at how she was disobeyed as reason for her recusal. It's another example of the regime's upside-downism, when the DOJ is headed by an attorney who should be disbarred, and the president is a convicted felon who tried to overthrow the government. 

A college friend of mine, who lives in the D.C. area, posted this to Facebook today:

Never hated anyone in my life as much as this man [Trump]. Hains Point (East Potomac Park) was never about being a “world class” golf course. It was a tiny course for beginners and for folks sneaking away on their lunch hour. What it HAS been about — for decades — is cyclists riding the 3.1 mile loop; picnickers enjoying a lunch by the water; fisherman angling off the railings; and walkers out for a stroll. It has never been a place many tourists went. Rather, it was a secret park for DC locals.

Today, the orange loser announced he was annexing the park for a golf course for himself. 

Like the Kennedy Center, the East Wing soon-to-be-ballroom, the non-Reflecting Pool, the gold-swizzled walls of the Oval Office and White House portico, and who knows what else we haven't even heard of, he stamps his ugliness on everything, mirroring the vileness of his inner life. Someone, please, stop letting him do it.