Can a Senate Democrat

Can a Senate Democrat call a fellow Senator from across the aisle to testify about bribery in Trump’s Impeachment Trial if it is one of the Articles?

Trumpian Wrecking Crew

The propensity for Donald Trump to pick from the bottom of the barrel for his cabinet position and cabinet-level appointments, a vote for the Democrat in the 2020 Presidential election is also a vote to retire most of these Toadies. They constitute the most conservative cabinet ever in the annals of the US Government. Many of them are squarely on the membership list of what has been named the Wrecking Crew. That is people whose sole purpose is to dismantle the agency they were chosen to lead.

Mike Pompeo, Sec'y of State
Steven Mnuchin, Sec'y of the Treasury
Mark Esper, Sec'y of Defense
William Barr, Attorney General
David Bernhardt, Sec'y of the Interior
Sonny Perdue, Sec'y of Agriculture
Wilber Ross, Sec'y of Commerce
Eugene Scalia, Sec'y of Labor
Alex Azar, Sec'y of Health and human Services
Ben Carson, Sec'y of Housing and Urban Development
Elaine Chao, Sec'y of Transportation
Rick Perry, Sec'y of Energy
Betsy DeVos, Sec'y of Education
Robert Wilkie, Sec'y of Veterans Affairs
Kevin McAleenan, Sec'y of Homeland Security
Mick Mulvaney, Director of the Office of Management and Budget
Andrew Wheeler, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
Joseph Maguire, Director of National Intelligence

These Presidentially appointed and GOP Senate confirmed people are doing generational damage to the air, land, water, education, and social services which had been built up over decades of strife. Retire the Wrecking Crew.

We Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.

Donald Trump seems wholly unprepared to stand against the questioning of his authority. The House of Representatives Impeachment Inquiry currently being played out in the Autumn of 2019 itself is an indictment of this President, in his mind, even before they come to the conclusion that there are sufficient grounds to Impeach.

This man cannot stand even to have a discussion of his orders and policies among his own staff and inner circle. His decisions issue from his head fully formed, such as they are, and perfect in his assessment. Anyone who dares to suggest otherwise risks his wrath, being disparaged, fired and disavowed on the Twitter-stage as someone who always was inferior and not up to the job.

As the House investigations continue to gather evidence he has grown more radical and defensive. He has called for impeachment [sic] of the lead Representatives and Speaker of the House for treason, and generally bullying him. He has gone as far as to characterize the inquiry as a lynching. The madness of his methods grows more extreme by the day.

If the President feels the inquiry is unfair, fraudulent and capricious now, wait until the indictment is issued.

The President has reached a level of crazy and recklessness not before seen in a US Chief Executive. He is "on the ropes" as they say in boxing. He is in the corner and being pummeled by the world, not just a few Democrats in the House. He is like the black knight of the Monty Python skit where the knight gets his limbs chopped of even as he hops around declaring "tiz only a flesh wound." It would be funny, but he can salt the fields as he is being forced into retreat. We have not seen the worst he can do.

There remains only 13 months until the 2020 elections either rebukes his Administration or reaffirm it. A sizable portion of that time will be spent with the House moving forward with the Constitutional impeachment process and the President conducting nearly weekly #StopMyImpeachmentRallies.

As he flails and grapples for a hand and foothold to stay afloat, we will see the escalation of impeachable behavior and acts that are calculated to make the otherwise orderly process into chaos. At this point in time he has nothing more to lose that he hasn't already lost in the political arena. He can only be removed from office once. The evidence already known is sufficient for removal if the GOP Senate doesn't become complicit in his misdeeds and refuse to remove.

We haven't seen anything yet.

Three Word Messages

It is fortunate that the American public has a short attention span. If you want an idea to persist it must be reiterated over and over lest a thousand competing messages displaces it. Propagandists know this nature very well. Message mavens know to that three magic words are all that can be successfully conveyed at any one time. “Where’ the beef?” became a viral catch phrase long before things going viral was even a thing. Millions of people still recall Carl Sagen saying “billions and billions” even if they don’t remember or ever knew who Sagen was. Google capitalized on “Don’t be Evil” in their earliest days of existence. “Just do it.”

The problem is… actually the saving grace as I am going to explore… is multiple messages cannot exist in the same time and space. This is why “lock her up” was displaced by “send her back.” The message of Make America Great is alternated with Make America Safe by the orator at his bi-weekly rallies. He cannot afford to pause or stop his rhetoric lest the heat dies down and the momentum be lost.

Social media has become a boon to such propaganda first because it is free. Second, eager listeners can parrot the message to an even wider audience. And Third you can pay someone to create auto response bots to make the message look more widely spread than it really is. The repetition of the simple message echoes for days or even weeks as the bot and the faithful followers retweet the messages. At some point the radius of that social media network reaches its limit and the message is only bounced back and forth within that radius. The impact of this phenomenon is not to be dismissed, but echoes do die out. In Pentecostal services, the minister makes The Call and the congregation makes the Response in what is referred to as Call and Response. Imagine that. The minister quotes a Scripture and asks “can I get a witness?” a half dozen or so eager parishioners stands up with arm up stretched and shouts Hallelujah and/or Amen. And the cycle repeats like the instruction on a bottle of shampoo: Wash Rinse Repeat. Again, the three words. However enthused is the congregation, as soon as the minister stops the calls, the responses cease too. Until the next service.

Donald Trump employs such a protocol in his regular rally gatherings. He doesn’t need to initiate the first “Send her back” chant. He has already primed that pump with tweet for the few days leading up to the rally. There is always a few zealous people in the audience who are more than willing to show their leader that he has a loyal following. The whole process is an exercise in Stochastic manipulation. He never has to start the chant, thereby being able to show it was spontaneous. His reactions are certain proof that he approves and is pleased with the behavior.

He has the ability to schedule as many rallies as he wants to further his agenda and attempt to be reelected for a second 4 years. Even though no other President in US history has ever used his office in this manner, he is not above doing anything he wants to without regard to the consequences. It is as I often write, a Tuna! Scheme, one where the buying and selling of everything in paramount and without concern for the consequences.

Donald Trump acts like the CEO of a large corporation (actually he is one) where everything outside the core enterprise is an “externality” to be ignored. Mining corporations consider injured miners and retired miners as external to their purpose of mining. They are to be discarded when their usefulness is depleted. Trump’s political base will be likewise jettisoned at the moment they do not serve his goal of attention seeking and aggrandizement. He loves himself more than any other thing. This probably stems from not being loved by anyone before.

His adoring base are the useful idiots referred to by economist Ludwig von Mises and put to practical purpose by Vladimir Lenin. The Useful Idiots have their place but are completely expendable in the end.

At some point, either on January 21, 2021 or 2025 the natural processes of the succession of power will wipe Donald Trump from the Oval Office, if not before due to infirmity or impeachment. Very quickly his base will return to football and beer. Many of them will have died of their own decay. The short attention spans will be following other irresistible mantras. They will hold no sway in America much longer.

What will persist is the Federal Court appointments. They will have the longest lasting influence on American society. Even all Wrecking Crew appointment to cabinet positions and to heads of Federal agencies will soon be turned over to people who will act consistent with the purposes of their agencies and that of the President.

While the political landscape appears to be quite bleak right now, the human behaviors which have allowed this perversion the great ideals of America will also be the ones that swing the pendulum back the other way.