What is going on in Washington? The Democrats are going ape shit trying to tie Trump to either an obstruction of justice charge or colluding with the Russians to throw the 2016 election into Trumps lap. Or, anything else they can come up with.
All this actually started back during the primaries with Trump charging through the process like a bull in a china shop. He insulted everybody in sight and left a trail of blood behind him. A lot of that ill will was directed at members of congress and the Republican establishment. Groups that he would need later to govern effectively.
He was caught on a recording making some disparaging jokes about women. It actually wasn't anything that hasn't been said in a thousand locker rooms when the boys get together to brag about their real and fictional conquests. But, his remarks were not helpful to him or his image. He became a man who hates women and holds them in low regard. In spite of the fact that he has hired women to high positions in his company and his daughter is one of his closets advisers.
Central to his campaign was his position on illegal immigrants coming over our southern border. Of course he didn't just say that he was going to build a wall, but more than implied that the illegals coming into this country were mostly rapists and criminals. That didn't do him any favors with a majority of the Latinos living in this country who were the children and grandchildren of illegals themselves. The platform of securing our borders would probably have been enough for the vast American heartland and Rust Belt folks who sensed that we were loosing our heritage and jobs with the huge influx of foreigners into the country. As a result Trump was labeled a racist and bigot.
To add fuel to the fire he announced that he wanted to ban all Muslims from entering the country for a period of time until the vetting process could be strengthened due to the rash of terrorist acts that had happened around the world by radical Islamist in recent history. Of course the mainstream media and the liberals only heard the ban part and immediately labeled Trump as a religious bigot. He later modified that to just seven countries, but that isn't flying either. When Hillary trotted out the parents of a Muslim soldier killed in action, Trump couldn't just keep his mouth shut. He felt he needed to insult the parents. Not a good move.
He was very critical of the trade deals and agreements reached by the Obama administration with Iran, Cuba, Mexico, China and other countries. He contended that Obama had weakened America and cost American jobs in middle America while the cats on the coasts were getting rich on the backs of the middle class's sacrifices to the global economic and political philosophy. In that argument he had the position that appealed to the great swath of working people in the so called rust belt and the people of middle America. Of course the people living well of global trade and fraternization with China and other foreign nations didn't much like this approach. That of included the media which are almost universally liberals and Democrats.
So candidate Trump had little in the way of friends in the main stream media or even among the traditional Republican Party members.
As we all know he won the election against all odds and the polls which assured the Democrats of a victory. They still haven't got over that defeat and many of them still will not accept the results of the election. They are motivated to bring Trump and his administration down, no matter the harm to the constitution in doing so. They love to trot out the popular vote as proof that the American people favored Clinton. But, because of a number of reasons, including the Constitution, the popular vote isn't what elects a President. Why that particular statistic is mostly meaningless under the current conditions is something I might address in another posting on my blog.
Trump is not free of royal foo paws in all of this. In many ways he has only himself to blame. All one has to do is follow his pronouncements and tweets to understand that fact. He never saw or heard of a negative remark that he doesn't feel the need to fire off a quick reply, many of them ill thought out before sending. He also tends to say whatever comes into his head when asked a question, no matter how ill conceived the answer might be. He's even been known to contradict himself because on any given day he may feel different about something.
When Trump entered the White House (figuratively) he came in with huge ego and the same attitude he had as the head of Trump Enterprises. I believe that he thought he was now the CEO of the new Trump Enterprises, otherwise known as the US government. I don't think he quite understood, at first, that he was entering the snake pit of Washington politics, which is a far different animal from business. He came in with a promise to drain the swamp and is finding out that the swamp is full of very angry alligators that they love their swamp just the way it is.
Now let's get to Comey. It is clear to me that Trump considered the head of the FBI as part of his team and he expected a certain degree of loyalty from all his department heads. That's what he demanded from his business employees and he expected the same thing here. It's the only way to run a large business successfully. It did not seem to occur to him that the law enforcement branches of his government must be seen to remain independent of politics and influences from other government bodies. After all the head of the FBI worked for him and served at his pleasure.
The FBI had opened an investigation into two charges that involved Trump and his team. One was concerning the involvement of the Russians into our election and the other the situation of the National Security Advisor.
Members of his team, including his son in law, who he greatly admired, attempted to tell him that meeting with Comey in a private session, considering everything that was going on at the time, was a bad idea. But Trump, being Trump, thought he needed that meeting. This was only a few days after the President was sworn into office. It is reported that Trump stated to Comey that he hoped the he could see his way to close out the investigation into General Flynn. That the general was a good man who had served his country and he had been fired anyway due to lying about meeting with the Russian Ambassador to Vice President Pence and that he, Trump, would appreciate it. Comey apparently made no response in that conversation at time but took no further action because he didn't feel that Trump was bringing undo pressure on him to actually end the investigation. The Democrats, of course, have jumped all over the firing and Comey's statements as reason for a charge of obstruction. But, Trump had the right to fire the head of the FBI for any reason. Something the Dem's don't want to admit.
The Russian investigation was moving forward and Trump felt it was being directed at him. The Democrats were using this investigation to bolster their claim that the election had been stolen from them by nefarious actions and collusion by the Trump team with the Russians. This in spite of there being absolutely no evidence that there was any collusion between the Trump team and Russians about the 2016 election. But, that isn't stopping the Democrats and the left wing media from throwing charges around at random. If you turn in to CNN you would think that there isn't anything going on in the world except Trump's collusion with the Russians to steal the election from Clinton.
The investigation was not only an embarrassment to Trump but he felt that it was interfering with the ability to pass his agenda. He met with Comey and asked him about the Russian investigation and if he was a loyal member of the team, or words to that effect. Apparently Comey only answered that he would be honest. Apparently Trump never asked for Comey to squelch the Russian investigation. It's clear now that from that point Trump considered Comey as not loyal and not to be trusted. But, again Comey didn't feel, at the time, that Trump had crossed the line into obstruction. I think that in Trumps mind you are either with him or against him, and Comey wasn't with him.
Then Trump fired Comey. It is clear to me that there were several reasons for the firing, among other things, the Russian investigation. But probably the main thing was his feeling that Comey was not his friend. The best thing that Trump could have done at the time was keep his mouth shut and let his team spin the firing as best they could. But no. Trump stated in an interview on television that Comey was fired because of the Russian investigation. Not smart at all. In other tweets and interviews he gave different reasons. But, he had fired Comey and in a way that wasn't very respectful. Now Comey felt free to release his notes and recollections on the meeting with the President. It was payback time.
Immediately congress, which was already involved in hearings concerning the Russian hacking of the election material and it's release through Wikileaks, opened up the investigation into possibility of the an obstruction of justice charge against Trump.
So now we have a special counsel who has opened up a can of worms for Trump. The rumors have been floated that he would like to fire the special counsel but, he really doesn't have authority to do that. Those rumors have been denied a number of times, but the media, especially CNN, love the story to much to let it pass. To make matters worse, he can't stay off the social network. He continues to tweet, insulting the new special counsel, along with everybody else he senses is against him. He just can't back off and let his legal team handle the issues. They must be tearing their hair out as Trump makes their job harder and harder. He is really digging his own grave deeper and deeper. In the mean time Mueller is stacking his investigation team with people that contributed to the Obama and Clinton campaigns and are Democrat supporters.
I'm afraid, unless the special counsel gives Trump a clean bill of health on all counts, and considering the makeup of the special counsel staff, that is seeming more and more unlikely, the Senate Democrats could very well try to open up impeachment proceedings. Maybe they will to that even before the investigation is even complete. The Democrats certainly want his scalp and I'm afraid he has gored enough Republican Senators that an impeachment might carry. I can think of a couple of Republican Senators that might be tempted to have Trumps scalp. I doubt that it would happen, but you never know.
It isn't clear that the President has actually done anything wrong, except acted rather foolishly at times. He got caught up in a system that he didn't fully comprehend and made some moves and statements that left him open to criticism. What has been said is all that happened was the Trump was being Trump. The things he is trying to do through Executive Orders and legislation are, for the most part, the things that needed to be done. He killed the pact with Iran, is retrenching in relationships with Cuba, is asking NATO members to pay up their agreed to portion of member defenses, cutting some of the most bloated bureaucracies in Washington, submitted a budget to congress that moves the nation toward a balanced budget, is moving battle field decisions back to the soldiers on the ground and making positive moves to keep jobs in America. He's asked for a complete review of the massive set of regulations that are job killers.
Of course he's going to have a fight on his hands with entrenched special interests that control so many of the bureaus. One of Trumps problems, and a big one, is that the bureaucracies are riddled with people that a not his friends by any stretch. In fact they would work tirelessly to bring him down, to the point of damaging the country if they have to.
The frantic move toward all the "green" initiatives and the environmental lobby has spawned a huge industry, with lot's of money. Of course the environmental lobby only exists with the help of huge investments of the taxpayers money. At this time and in the foreseeable future, it is not able to stand alone economically.
There are whole industries tied up in keeping globalization of the economy alive and well. But, trade agreements negotiated by the Obama administration with the Pacific rim, Mexico and China among others, do not work in favor of the working classes of America.
It isn't clear where all of this is going. Based on four special elections, it doesn't seem that the issues which are captivating Washington have any relevance outside of the beltway. Republicans just added to their majority in the congress. Not a single Democrat victory.
But, the future will be interesting, to say the least. And the band played on.
