Donald Trump was posterized by the DC Appeals Court yesterday. For those of you who are not basketball fans, his corpus citrus was so comprehensively and totally slam-dunked by the Court that the moment could be immortalized—in basketball, the image made into a poster (Michael Jordan soaring, dunking is the ultimate NBA poster). In real life, it is a hinge point of history; in this case, it may be the moment when the Trump fever broke—when sanity prevailed over crazy. The Court found:
“It would be a striking paradox if the President, who alone is vested with the constitutional duty to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,’ were the sole officer capable of defying those laws with impunity.”
You can’t get more definitive than that. Every sentence in the ruling is written in scalding, plain English. This is not about the nuances of what he said or did on January 6; it is about the actions he took prior to January 6, especially the false electors scheme. The man tried to overthrow the U.S. Government. According to last weekend’s NBC poll, only 25% of the American people know what the charges against Trump entail. Amazing, that. And depressing. But maybe it will change now.
You can feel the noose tightening. The Supreme Court is about to have a defining moment. It will decide whether Trump stands trial for treason. It can decide that actively or passively. It can hear Trump’s appeal or simply let the DC Court’s ruling stand. I suspect it will be the latter. I suspect these Justices, especially the three appointed by Trump, will not want to go down in history as political hacks who enabled the crippling of American democracy. (The Court has chosen to hear Trump’s objection to the suits barring him from the ballot in Colorado and Maine—but that has basic Constitutional import, involving the intention of the 14th Amendment, which is very much in the Court’s purview) I further suspect that the majority of Justices are pissed off by the defiance of Texas Governor Greg Abbott in the Rio Grande razor wire case, a direct challenge to their authority. Taken together, Trump and Texas are an affront to the rule of law. A Roberts-led majority will not let that stand. I hope. But then, I’m a romantic.
The question is, does this change the zeitgeist? Does the air start leaking from the Trump balloon? An eternal question, it seems. It will not change his cult: they will support him if he shoots E. Jean Carroll in the middle of Fifth Avenue. But it may well change the current media wisdom, which is that Trump is marching inevitably toward a victory in November. He will not seem so inevitable now. And there are other signs of the Trump cult crumbling as well, like the failure of the attempt to impeach Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on the basis of nothing yesterday. Indeed, the Appeals Court elegantly turned one of Trump’s defense arguments on its head, that he had already been exonerated by the Senate when he was impeached on the insurrection charge:
“As a result of the political nature of impeachment proceedings,” they wrote, “impeachment acquittals are often unrelated to factual innocence.”
Which brings me to…
Mike Gallagher, Republican of Wisconsin, who cast the crucial vote to block the Mayorkas impeachment and was screeched at by the harpies of his caucus as a result. Here is what Gallagher said:
“Creating a new, lower standard for impeachment, one without any clear limiting principle, won’t secure the border or hold [President] Biden accountable and will set a dangerous new precedent that will be weaponized against future Republican administrations.”
I’ve been watching Gallagher for a while now. He’s a member of the For Country caucus, a bipartisan group of post-9/11 veterans serving in the House. Many Sanity readers will recall that I’m an advisor to the With Honor PAC, which helps fund the For Country members’ campaigns, so I’m not unbiased here. These are people—30 of them, at the moment, Democrats and Republicans—who actually try to serve with honor. They are an inspiration, an avatar of an American political resurrection. Again: I hope.
Gallagher, a former U.S. Marine intelligence officer on General David Petraeus’ staff, reminds me of former Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who was also a member of For Country. He is way-smart, deeply conservative in an old-fashioned way—he is an internationalist not an isolationist, he voted to send F-16s to Ukraine. He’s obsessed with China and co-chairs a special committee on the Chinese Communist Party. I’ve heard him speak several times and he is no-frills, no-baloney eloquent. He walks the very thin line between Trumpism and integrity, as do all the Republican members of For Country do. Iowa Rep. Marriannette Miller-Meeks, another member, was censured by several of her district’s Republican County Committees for the vast crime of voting against Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House. Gallagher will suffer for this vote, too, perhaps not to the extent that Adam. Kinzinger and Liz Cheney did. But to break party discipline now, in the midst of Trump’s rising tide, is an act of political courage.
The Republicans completed their trifecta of embarrassment by trashing their own Border Security bill yesterday, with Mitch McConnell pulling a full Mitch McConnell, doing as he did with the Trump impeachment, favoring the bill until it became apparent that Trump’s opposition would kill it. The cynicism and hypocrisy is so gaggingly obvious than even Joe Biden was able to make a strong statement about it:
“If the bill fails, I’m going to be absolutely sure about something: The American people are going to be aware of why it failed. … Every day between now and November the American people are going to know the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends.”
And Speaking of the Border…
Did you see this on Sixty Minutes last Sunday? A steady flow of illegal immigrants—mostly Chinese, some flagrantly middle class, crossing through a hole in the border wall in California. A cartel taxi service—$400 per ride in a fancy SUV—drives new arrivals from Tijuana to the gap in the fence every thirty minutes or so. The Border Patrol duly “arrests” them and takes them to a court in San Diego, which releases them. Thousands come through every week. The owner of the property—a legal immigrant himself—fires a gun in the air to get the migrants to stop cutting down his trees for firewood and is arrested himself by the Border Patrol. This seems a flagrant violation of the spirit of the refugee approval process. These migrants—well dressed, cell-phoned, some dragging Tumi roller bags—do not seem oppressed, huddled masses…but they are yearning to breathe free. (Again, the border crisis is a sign of our success as a nation.)
I’m a huge supporter of legal immigration—I’d like it to be doubled, and unlimited for people bringing skills (like many of the Chinese)—but this is a joke. It is impossible to imagine a majority of Americans voting for a President who allows this to happen, even if he happens to be running against a seditious criminal. Indeed, the hottest topic of conversation among Democrats I know, some of them prominent, is: Why isn’t Joe Biden doing something about the border?
A few weeks ago, I proposed that Biden take action immediately—declare a national emergency, temporarily stop all refugee applications at the Southern Border (except for those from Iraq and Afghanistan who supported our troops), send elements of the U.S. Army to guard the border, in force, and close the gaps in the wall. Given the emergency, he could even use defense budget funds to close the California hole.
How to explain his inaction? Is it classic Democratic litigational paralysis? (There would be lawsuits challenging his actions.) Or is it classic Democratic obeisance to interest group activists—in this case Latino groups who don’t reflect the views of their constituency (of whom half now support Trump, with many of the others in danger of slipping away)?
I don’t know, but New Jersey Senator Bob “Gold Bars” Menendez is using the border legislation the same way Trump is, opposing it, from the other side, in order to direct attention away from his alleged (but pretty obvious) criminality. All of a sudden he’s a Latino activist!
Which raises a question that’s been irking me: Why are so many political extremists crooks and moral reprobates? The right is rife with them—sex-trafficking Matt Gaetz, insurrection-enabler Lauren Robert, perve-enabler Jim Jordan, the immortal George Santos…and on, and on.
The number of right-wing religious charlatans is…legion. Find me a televangelist and I’ll show you a crook. There is a sordid history of phony right-wing POW hunters. (All those black POW flags should come down; there aren’t any POWs anymore, there haven’t been for decades.) There is QAnon and the utterly corrupt National Rifle Association. But the left has more than a few, too. There is Black Lives Matter, riddled with corruption and support for the Hamas terrorists. There are racial mountebanks like Cornel West and Ibram X. Kendi. There is Putin-stooge Jill Stein of the Green Party and the free-range goofballs of Democrat Socialists of America. The Squad is squalid:
The ever-mouthy Cori Bush of Missouri is being investigated for misuse of funds.
Ayanna Presley of Massachusetts cries racism when a Walgreens in her district is forced to close because of crime (Black Crime Matters); indeed, she cries racism whenever anything she doesn’t like happens.
My Congressman, Jamaal “False Alarm” Bowman is caught having written idiotic conspiratorial 9/11 doggerel—and accuses his primary opponent George Latimer of being a tool of AIPAC, when 93% of Latimer’s contributions come from within the district. Apparently, only 9% of Bowman’s do. (caveat lector and no surprise: I am supporting Latimer)
Ilhan Omar of Minnesota has made anti-semitic comments in the past (though she’s innocent of recent mis-translated comments about being a Somali First, Muslim second).
Rashida Tlaib of Michigan seems an out-and-out Hamas supporter.
I’m not sure that Fani Willis in Georgia is a left-radical, but her affair with her lead prosecutor in her case against Donald Trump was not exactly morally sound.
I have no problem with honorable lefties in politics. I support more than a few liberal policies—careful environmental and financial regulation, higher taxes for the wealthy, diplomacy above military action overseas unless we’re attacked, equality (not equity) under the law. I was a huge fan of the late, lovely Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren has done valiant work on behalf of consumers. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a talented politician and shows signs of growing past her infantile leftism. Progressive Caucus Chair Primila Jayapal of Washington often says absurd things—she thinks Joe Biden has bowed to “extreme views” on immigration—but she has a right to do so.
And yet. Crooks and phonies tend to overpopulate the darkest, most extreme clutches of the political forest. Why is that?
Bret Stephens…
had a really good column today, as usual, taking apart the left-wing notion that Israel is a colonial imposition:
It’s odd, to say the least, that the ethnic group that is today most vociferously accused of settler colonialism is the one that can unmistakably trace its language, culture and religion to the same places from which it was long exiled and now inhabits and governs. Whatever else it is, Jewish nationalism — that is, Zionism — is the oldest continuous anticolonial movement in history, starting well before the Romans sought to de-Judaize the area by calling their Levantine colony Palestina. Hanukkah, the festival of lights, is one such reminder, celebrating the recovery of Jerusalem from colonizing Greeks in the second century B.C.E.
This is not to condone the Israeli offensive in Gaza, which has become, well, offensive in the extreme. I’m coming to the conclusion that this was a purposeful bludgeoning, not a sophisticated plan to destroy Hamas—and it has become a tool for the loathsome Netanyahu to remain in office. Which should add no credence to the disgraceful left-wing anti-Zionism abroad in the land, which is Jew hatred with a fig leaf.
Sic Semper Trumpus
Liz Cheney’s book Oath and Honor keeps yielding nuggets of outrage. It turns out, Cheney writes, that Ronna Romney McDaniel, the RNC Chair “had been involved in helping to facilitate President Trump’s and John Eastman’s fake-electors scheme” in Michigan. In other words, McDaniel surrendered a proud Romney family tradition of political integrity in the service of Orange Jesus. And her reward for that? You guessed it: Trump kicked her to the curb this week. According to the New York Times:
In a sit-down interview with the right-wing news network Newsmax, Mr. Trump was asked whether Ms. McDaniel, whom he first chose to lead the party in 2017, should step aside given the party’s lackluster fund-raising and electoral results in recent years.
“Well, I think she knows that,” Mr. Trump answered. “I think she understands that.”
Of course, the Republican Party’s problems have nothing to do with its obeisance to a seditious felon, who keeps endorsing toadies and assorted moral reprobates for high office. It wasn’t Donald’s fault that Republicans lost in 2018, 2020 and 2022. It never is. In the next edition of our podcast, Night Owls, John Ellis has crunched the numbers and finds that Trump’s ceiling is about 45% of the electorate. And that’s now, at high tide. Would it be too much to hope that King Orange is heading for a fall?
And in the spirit of this First Anniversary of Sanity Clause, I’m keeping the window open on this special subscription offer. Give the gift of Sanity:
A basic quibble, Trump is not on trial for treason, Matt Gaetz, whatever he has done, has not been convicted of human trafficking and so on. The right to be considered innocent till proven guilty is being disparaged and ignored way too often these days. We all hope we will never use it or need it, BUT life throws things in our path, and even with those one exceedingly disagrees with, should be granted that issuance of innocent till proven guilty.
Trump exaggerates enough, we don't need to copy him.
Joe-thanks for the shoutout to Congressman Mike Gallagher. Even though I disagreed with him on the impeachment of Mayorkas, he is a man of impeccable character, highly intelligent and an all around cool dude. (He’s a Marine with a PHD!)…his work on the select China committee is absolutely vital.