TRUMP’S LAST STAND: FOX AND HIS FRIENDS FORCE HIM UP THE WALL

Get ready for a long drawn out battle as America and the world witnesses the last stand of the self declared greatest general of all time - General Donald Trump. The maven who is also the finest deal maker in all history has allowed his fantasy of a wall to escalate into a government shutdown while he is threatening to declare a national emergency if he doesn’t get his way. How he imagines that any or all of this is going to change the reality of the mess he is in is unclear. If anything his actions will accelerate his demise.

So every sign points to Trump coming to the end of his lollipop - put another way he is losing it and throwing off whatever few cautions he previosly exhibited. He has every good reason for digging in for his last stand - Mueller’s report is supposedly coming out in two to three months which his TV lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has confided is going to be “horrific” and “collusion” is obvious to all but the diminishing faithful. His Congressional cover evaporated in the midterms so a Mueller report could be subpoenaed if the latter is fired. Added to the methodical dismantling of the Trump criminal world by the Special Counsel, his whole sordid financial history and association with Russia is about to be surgically exposed by Nancy’s Chairpersons of the House’s oversight committees.

It is worthwhile recalling that Trump had agreed to bipartisan motions to fund the government without money for his wall when his new unelected branch of government, Fox and Trump’s other friends, vetoed Congress’s decision thereby triggering Trump’s last stand.

THE NEW BRANCH OF GOVERNMENT - FOX NEWS AND FRIENDS LIKE RUSH 

The Donald’s alter egos, Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity among others have decided that the issue on which the POTUS should fall on his sword is the “great great beautiful” wall that Trump promised that Mexico was going to pay for. The Fox and other friends intervention resulted in Trump backtracking on deals he made with the Republican Senate to finance the government. In so doing Trump created a disastrous bohaai by shutting down the government which has now become the issue with nearly a million Federal Workers without a paycheck. He now has several other self inflicted fires to put out. He argues for example that the Federal Workers agree with his decision and are only to happy to take “one for the team”. The fact that seventy - eight percent of them live from pay check to paycheck and that they are not confirming his streams of consciousness in the media does not fuzz the POTUS, he just carries on. 

A question that has yet not been asked is, “What is the end game of Limbaugh et al other than pushing up their own ratings?” In other words if Trump can or cannot get his wall what is their follow up advice to him?  As Trump only thinks and acts in the moment this dilemma does not bother him. Trump believes his fake news crew are more important to him than the Congressional Republicans because he thinks his base will desert him if Rush and company criticize him. Donald should think for a moment, if that is possible, who will they support if not him? They are a collection of unelected nonentities whose importance has exponentially increased because they have the ear of the President. Their significance has magnified beyond the imagination now that they are the only constituency that actually can instruct the world’s most powerful leader on how should act.

As the noose becomes tighter and tighter Trump’s only solution appears to be to declare a national emergency and second the money for the wall, from the department of defense. This would show the base he was delivering on his beautiful wall come hell or high water and Limbaugh et al would shout rah rah rah. The problem with that move was everything thing that the Republican Party stood for was against this Executive grab for power. They crucified Obama for far less. Even more significantly several of the Republican legislators have let the world know their discomfort. Trump’s actions is exacerbating their peeling off of support.  Already eight Republicans in the House and six in the Senate have registered their opposition in one form or another. 

If the POTUS has forgotten, Mitch McConnell shouldn’t have, the late John McCain’s dramatic lambasting of the President when he criticized Trump’s “half baked spurious nationalism cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems.” 

TRUMP’S NEW LEGAL FIRM

Digging in for the endgame the WhiteHouse has hired seventeen new lawyers in preparation for the legal battles that the President is going to face. The WhiteHouse Counsel Pat Cipollone has now increased his team to thirty - five counsellors with a goal of forty. The urgency is due to preparation of arguments that no documents or testimony that could damage Trump should see the light of day because of “executive privilege”.

Added to the lawyers’ problems is that they would have to fight a possible subpoena the President might face in the light of his TV lawyer’s statement that they would no longer cooperate with Mueller, even to answer any more questions. Rudy Giuliani has threatened that Trump would go to the ends of the earth not to cooperate with Mueller. This will be a tall order bearing in mind the Supreme Court precedents forcing Nixon to deliver his tapes and Clinton to be deposed in a civil case. Even Ronald Reagan had to bow to the inevitable that the President was not above the law in the investigation of the Iran/Contra scandal.

Cipollone’s  small sized legal firm will also have to argue that the army of Trump’s current and former administration members need not appear before Congress because of executive privilege. Bearing in mind Trump’s legal jeopardy, he is facing seventeen separate legal challenges two of which he has all but been labelled an unindicted co conspirator, perhaps Cipollone has underestimated the legal manpower he needs in this humongous task. Why stop at forty lawyers - the taxpayer is footing the bill?  

TRUMP ADDRESSES THE NATION, VISITS THE BORDER AND DISHES OUT ADVICE AS TO HOW TO SURVIVE WITH NO PAY

Following his advisors’, (guess who), prompting, he went against his gut in holding a lackluster Oval Office address to the nation. Trump who has bragged, as often as he has promised that the Mexicans would pay for ‘that beautiful wall”, that he is a “ratings machine” was beaten on his big night by Nancy and Chuck. The no nonsense Democratic duo hardly set the world on fire with their response to Trump’s argument that there was a national emergency at the border. Never the less more viewers watched the mundane Democratic pair than the much vaunted TV star. 

Trump also followed up his pathetic TV performance with a tour of the Southern Border which, as Trump predicted, would not move the needle one jot. He spent most of his time repeating that he never said that Mexico would have to pay for the wall and blaming the Democrats for the impasse. He had to have noted that half the armed forces that he sent to the border as an election stunt had returned to base in San Antonio. Unbelievably the day ended with him siting down for an interview with a leader of his kitchen cabinet, Fox News’s, Sean Hannity. Maybe Hannity should have questioned him on the logistical problems of building a wall in the Rio Grande and where he was going to get the money to pay for the eminent domain. Instead the Fox echo chamber reinforced the fact that they were dealing with a national crisis. 

As more and more Republican legislators registered their discomfort at the ongoing closure of the government and the impact it was having on close on a million unpaid Federal employees, Trump registered his total lack of empathy at their plight. The Trump administration was issuing inane, insulting and ludicrous advice to those who had to meet their financial commitments such as they should hold garage sales, babysit, dog walk and turn their hobbies into money…  Nancy Pelosi had the final word on the insensitive Trump’s advice when she said that those afflicted did not have fathers to give them money to bail them out. Every Republican Congressperson had to be receiving reports from their constituencies that their local nightly news was featuring the impact of the financial crisis that Trump had precipitated. Craigs list reported a rash of items that the victims of Trump’s delusions were urgently putting up for sale.

 THE ERSATZ CRISIS AND THE MEXICANS WILL PAY FOR THE WALL

One of the problems that Trump was facing was that there was no real crisis on the Southern border. The number of arrests was down dramatically as there were lowest number of illegal crossings in forty - six years. There were more Mexicans leaving America than coming in - presumably those exiting included a share of the rapists, drug dealers, murderers, and “some good people”. One thing about Trump is that he never learns. He forgets a few short months ago, that as an election stunt, ostensibly in order to stop an invasion he sent troops over Xmas to guard the border and stem the tide.The crisis apparently abated after the midterms only to be resuscitated as a result of Limbaugh et al negating bipartisan Congress resolutions to fund the government.

 Trump admits that there is a humanitarian crisis on the Southern boundary but omits that it is of his making. He also fails to explain how building a wall will alleviate it. 

To add to the tissue of lies surrounding this crisis Trump now denies that he promised that Mexico would pay for the wall. The Washington Post on January 10 produced a litany of the statements Trump had made where he claimed that he would get Mexico to pay for the wall. This included a memorandum that they could cough up in the form of a five orten billion dollar check. He now claims:

 “When during the campaign, I would say Mexico would pay for it, obviously I never said this and I never meant they were going to write a check. I said they are going to pay for it and they are. They are paying for it with the incredible deal we made, called the United States, Canada, Mexico and Canada - USMCA- deal.”

Another lexicon of fabrications - First of all as he admits he did say that Mexico would pay for the wall in the same sentence as denying that he said it. Secondly they cannot be paying for it via USMACA as the deal hasn’t been ratified by Congress. Thirdly the USMCA deal is substantially the same as NAFTA which Clinton negotiated and no money accrues to the State from it. Finally Mexico have stated again and again that they will not pay for whatever Trump maintains the wall now is. The transcript of Trump begging the Mexican President not to publicly state his denial because it would embarrass him is ignored by the mendacious President.

 HAS THE TRUMP DIVERSION SECURED HIS BASE?

From the get go there has been leakage from his forty percent solid approval rating. In three reliable polls the percentage of respondents that blamed Trump for the shutdown increased four percent from December 25 to January 8. The December polls indicated that 46%, 47% and 43% laid the onus on the President for the impasse. The January polls conducted by the same three organizations, Your Gov, Reuters and Morning Consult produced the following increased participants’ disapproval; 50%, 51% and 47%.

To emphasize the validity that these figures represent a base loss, blame apportioned to the Democrats decreased over the same period by three percent. The percentage of those polled blaming the Democrats has hovered in the low thirty percentage points range throughout the December and January assessments. If Trump’s base had held in the six surveys one would have expected that forty percent of the electorate would have blamed the Democrats

. 

This has to be cause for concern for Trump whose only way out of the escalating negative press, that will be heaped on him when the sagas of the unpaid workers start dominating the media, is to declare a national emergency. It is obvious that blaming the Democrats for the shutdown is not working.

NATIONAL EMERGENCY

The exit from this self inflicted embarrassment is to create more chaos by declaring a national emergency which of course will be contested in the courts. Trump should move very quickly to pay the employees lest there be an injunction against this action. The sieve that is the WhiteHouse has already leaked the preparations Trump is making to seize moneys for his wall. Unspent moneys in the Army Corps of Engineers has been earmarked. There is $13. 9 million that had been budgeted for victims of natural disasters such as hurricane and fire damage that Trump can commandeer. In effect he will be “stealing” money allocated to victims of natural disasters for his boondoggle wall.

Trump will then have to convince the courts that what transpired at the border was indeed a National Emergency. Those objecting, by definition, will have a high bar to reach in having Trump’s decision reversed as he ostensibly is entrusted as President in making these calls. However precedent will favor the Democratic plaintiffs.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

All the evidence points to the failure of Trump to consolidate his base with the escalating chaos that his decision to close the government has caused. The reason for his cataclysmic move being that the Democrats wouldn’t fund his wall is being met with the skepticism that it deserves. 

It bears reminding that the Republicans when they controlled all the arms of government did not rate the great great beautiful wall a priority and did not attempt to fund it. So McConnell’s argument for claiming that this issue is only between the President and the Democrats is pretty rich. McConnell could end this crisis immediately by bringing Pelosi’s motions opening the government to the Senate floor. Hopefully he will be on the receiving end of an unexpected challenge in the normally safe Republican State of Kentucky. He will have earned the ire of the electorate. 

The national emergency solution that this misadventure is heading for will only worsen Trump’s precarious situation.

Most significantly none of this will halt the Mueller and Democratic investigations into the Trump Criminal Enterprise.  

Maybe Trump should dump his new team of advisors from Fox and their friends.

TRUMP DIGS IN ON HIS WALL - HOME ALONE IN THE BUNKERi

  

Donald J. Trump, Forty - Fifth President of the United States of America, made a major personal sacrifice by not going to his Private Club, Mar - a - Lago, over the Xmas holidays. The reason he explained was that he was waiting for Nancy and Chuck to bring him his Xmas present, a 5 billion dollar wall. If his statements about his wealth were true, not that there is anything to make anyone believe that anything he says is true, then he could pay for it himself. But this was supposedly a matter of principle, not that anyone would believe that he had any principles…. 

Melania had gone down to Florida and would come back to spend Xmas day with him. She was obviously not persuaded that him staying in Washington was such a big deal as he had spent twenty - five percent of his Presidency on his properties anyway. Any rate he could tweet from anywhere which he did reflecting his sad plight:

“I am alone, poor me, waiting for the Democrats to come back and make a deal on desperately needed border security…..not wanting to make a deal will cost our country more money than the Border Wall we are talking about. Crazy”.

So spare a thought for the President as he watched the ball drop to bring in the New Year, a year which the LA Times claimed would be the worst year of his life. But as “poor” Donald reflected he had had very bad times in the past and had come out tops. The good news was that he had cleaned house, (the WhiteHouse that is), of all those traitors in the Administration who were trying “to save the nation from him”. 

THERE HAVE BEEN THE BAD TIMES WHEN TRUMP HAD TO GET INPUT

 There was a time when he listened to his father but in truth Frank had been his piggy bank ever since he was a child so there was a big reward to appear to be taking in paternal words of wisdom. In fact when it suited him he left his dad’s cushy job, against his advice, to venture into the real glitzy world of Manhattan to make a small fortune, where in fact he lost a big fortune. The New York Times investigative team gave the lie to his lie that Fred Trump of blessed memory had only loaned him a million when in fact he had coughed up over $400 million and even committed fraud to try and avert his son’s bankruptcy in Atlantic City. 

When Fred Trump was in his dotage his son Donald, the failed Manhattan property owner, conspired to lay his hands on all his aging dad’s money. He presented him, like Jacob did to Isaac, with a will to sign ensuring that all of the money would be his. The NY Times found that dad, unlike the biblical patriarch, had responded angrily and ensured that the money would be shared amongst all the siblings. Trump never one to bear a grudge joined with his sibs to syphon off Trump Senior’s assets thereby avoiding death duties. But that was then and this was now. He stopped himself he could not waste time reminiscing. He needed a miracle to bail him out of the escalating mess he found himself in and as dad and Roy Cohn were no longer alive he would have to get some other devotees to help make him whole again. He also had his uncanny gut that he would rely on.

DOES THE DONALD REALLY NEED ANYBODY WHEN HE HAS HIS GUT?

The pressure was really building and “poor” Donald who was all alone on New Year’s Eve because the Democrats wouldn’t help open the government that he had shut. This lonely period when even Fox was concentrating on New year celebrations gave the 45th President plenty of time to take stock. Donald hadn’t paused too many times in his life to get input. He mused that his gut was more on the money, (pardon the pun), than an army of bullshit experts and advisors.

As the POTUS has reminded again and again he was the biggest know all on everything and anything, so this was desperation to even contemplate counsel. After all he was more battle wise than his generals, more money wise than his economists, more worldly than his foreign policy experts, more balanced on trade than his secretaries of commerce and could build the best walls, “believe me”. The Donald mused for just a moment and compared what happened to the Trump Inc employees whom he fired. They shut up because they were scared of breaking their non disclosure agreements. Everyone he terminated now writes a book and makes a fortune! Nobody is scared of him around here. What Donald truthfully doesn’t fathom is why when he was head of Trump Inc he was above the law and now that he is head of the whole of America he isn’t?

The problem was who can he talk to besides the kids? Even with everyone gone the Fake News people still know what is going in the WhiteHouse. There is Giuliani and of course  Hannity. They will tell him that he is on the right track. But can he trust even them? Roger Stone has sworn loyalty but when push comes to shove won’t he sell out like Michael Cohen who said he would take a bullet for him? Lindsey Graham plays games  - he disagrees on Foreign Policy and then swears blind that the POTUS can do whatever else he likes. Maybe he like the rest he is secretly putting the brakes on him? KellyAnne has stuck by his side through thick and thin. But if she is so committed why does she let that fool of a husband of hers tweet his opposition to all his legal moves? Sarah Huckabee Sanders - now there is a star. Trouble is she is getting battle fatigue and always defers to him…..

When push comes to shove he has four allies in this struggle against the overwhelming odds that now face him which were in order of importance: His undying faith in his own bullshit that his gut emits; his base, Fox and his other friends and his ability to divert attention from his real problems.

THE SOLUTION - UNLESS HE GETS HIS WALL HE WON’T PLAY

So the Donald, gratuitously prompted by his self elected Chief Advisors, Hannity, Laura Ingram, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter and the like, resuscitated erecting his “Great Great Beautiful  Wall” and threatened that unless he gets the money to build it he would shutdown the Government. To the undisguised glee of Chuck Schumer and the wily Nancy Pelosi he announced to them and the world that, “He would be proud to own the shutdown”.  While this diverted attention   -  from Mueller, the Russian Thing, his fraudulent Charitable Trust, his bizarre support of Putin’s revisionist history that the USSR invaded Afghanistan because of terrorists, the scandal involving his clubs’ knowingly employing undocumented workers, the unprecedented legislative loss in the midterms, the seventeen legal  investigations including two criminal cases were he was an unindicted coconspirator, the fact that Romney was now the leader of the opposition in the Republican Party and the realization that he was about to be exposed with House Investigations up the ying yang,     - it was a proven political loser. 

So he would reassure himself by publicly holding a Cabinet Meeting with all his Acting Secretaries who always pledge undying loyalty. Then he would hog the media limelight by holding meetings with Nancy and Chuck to underline the fact that he was sticking to his guns and would shut the Government till 2020 unless he gets his own way. His base and his Fox and other friends would cheer him on in the hope that that will boost their waining Nielsen ratings. 

WILL IT WORK?

He then issued a hurricane of tweets where he trumpeted his achievements, cast aspersions on the Democratic motives, alleged that the Democrats’ objective was to impeach him and summed it all up in one grand tweet announcement: 

“How do you impeach a president who has won perhaps the greatest election of all time, done nothing wrong (no collusion with Russia, it was the Dems that colluded), had the most successful first two years of any President and is the most popular Republican in party history 93%?

Interestingly enough this rebuttal to reality was not the focus of media attention rather they were covering Nancy’s triumphant ascendency to the Speakership, Even the faithful hardly took notice of this defining tweet with only twenty thousand retweets and eighty -  five thousand “likes”. The Republican reaction or lack of it was deafening - Mitch McConnell disingenuously claiming that the shutdown had nothing to do with the Republicans - it was the affair of the Democrats and el Presidente.

THE NANCY AND CHUCK AGENDA

Now Schumer and Nancy had been collaborating since way back on their combined strategy should the Democrats retake the House. According to Chuck they confer over a half a dozen times a day. They had to maintain the balance of advancing a positive agenda while investigating Donald. There had been consultations with the possible future Heads of Committees to apportion chunks of the task to expose The Russian Thing as well. It was going to be responsible government from day one.

The first order of business was to open the Government. Their approach was sweet reasonableness. In effect what they were advocating had already been accepted by Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans and even Trump before he went rogue. They would fund all the other agencies that had nothing to do with the wall. With regard to Homeland Security that managed Border Security they would provide funds for it for thirty days so that a compromise could be worked out. 

THE RESPONSE TO THE NANCY AND CHUCK AGENDA

The Fox and Donald’s other friends mainly ignored the Democratic moves to end the impasse egging the POTUS on to stick to his guns. They discovered the new threat to the country in a couple of Democratic radicals. There were two Muslim women one of whom was irreverent enough to claim that she was going to “Impeach the Motherf…er”. Most of the attention was devoted to the existential danger that the eloquent twenty - eight year old Alexandria Ocasio - Cortez, who was a dissolute Commie, posed. Videos were released where she was a college student dancing on the roof. This event became the focus of so much media attention that even the BBC covered the ludicrous bohaai. These subversive revolutionaries were the tail wagging the Democratic dog was the message not the mantra that the Democratic actions were conveying.

However Nancy and Chuck were too professional to take the bait they rather watched their Republican colleagues squirm. Seven in the House of Representatives unprecedentedly voted with Nancy. There were stirrings amongst the Senate Republicans who were in the hot seat in 2020. Two came out publicly as supportive of the Democratic duo, Senator Gardner from Colorado and Senator Collins from Maine who both faced uphill reelections. Lindsey Graham who really is in such a muddle unconditionally backing the President one minute but now believing that he can come up with a compromise. He wants to link DACA citizenship to border wall money - a deal that Trump is not interested in and the Democrats who are in the pound seats are more focussed at the moment on reopening ninety five percent of the government. Graham’s vacillating has left him with no credibility with either side. Graham, recognizing the threat that Trump’s intransigence poses, obviously wants this all to go away and has been trying to pressure Trump to offer the Democratic duo a deal they cannot refuse. 

The real variable in this impasse would be Mitt Romney who has already put down his marker as not to be counted as a yes man to the Trump rantings by publishing an op ed in the Washington Post declaring Trump unfit to be President. The threat he posed has been lurking in the background ever since he announced his candidacy for the Senate a year ago. (Blog: High Noon: Trump versus Romney as Bannon Jumps Ship. 1/4/18). 

Romney is a shrewd establishment politician so if he decides this is the issue to put Trump in his place and he has the support to force McConnell to bring Chuck and Nancy’s motions to the floor, he will go for it. According to Schumer, several of the Republican Senators rage against Trump in private. If they feel comfortable enough to share their feelings with the Minority Democratic leader how much easier will it be to liase with their new de facto GOP leader.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

The Donald, for the moment, is deeply ensconced in the bunker and relying on his gut and his army of way out media advisors. He claims he will shut the Government till 2020 to get his wall, whatever version he is now touting. It will be an irony if this issue rather than the Russia Thing, the Trump corruption or his actions depriving Americans of health care will be his first major parting with the GOP legislators.

Meanwhile Trump ups the ante tweeting that he can constitutionally declare an emergency and get military money to build the wall…. all this while the chaos already emanating from a two week shutdown escalates - 800 thousand unpaid workers, trash piling up at the National Parks, food stamp payments halted, tax refunds stopped, courts running out of money to operate, farmers not getting their subsidies, unpaid Transport Security Agents calling in sick at airports causing long lines…….

To be continued.

TRUMP AND TRUST

As the Billy Joel song emphasizes, “It’s a matter of a trust”, trust being the key attribute that society lacks in the world of Donald J. Trump . Since time immemorial the American President has been thought to epitomize the nation’s values. He is relied upon as the leader that magically will protect and tell it as it is. As a rule his Office is respected and trusted regardless of his political persuasion. It is not for nothing that an anomaly to that paradigm, Richard Nixon, had his character encapsulated by the question, “Would you buy a used car from this man?”

Sadly it has reached the stage where it is common currency that you cannot trust what, Donald J. Trump the President of the United States of America has said, opined, offered as a deal, threatened or promised. The Washington Post keeps a meticulous record of his lies, misstatements and the like and has notated 7500 in his first 700 days of his inglorious term of office thus far. 

Trump’s inaugural started so darkly, miserably, negatively and crushing all hope that the Presidency might change him as he lied about the size of his inaugural crowd and gave a glimpse of what was to come by demanding that his administration echo his patent fabrication. As Donald’s legal woes escalate who knows where it will all end. It is fair comment that the dignity and majesty of the Presidency has not impacted on his mendacity in fact it appears to have magnified this destructive trait.

 ON TV EVEN THE BUSINESS CHANNELS DON’T BELIEVE HIM

Trump’s lies, deception and breaking of trust are the subject of virtually every TV program. Besides the political commentaries, the news and the nightly political satire which is saturated with his daily dose of dissembling, the lack of trust in what he says or does has permeated even normally apolitical venues. When you switch television channels to the stock market in order to escape the sterile political debate you will hear the following from the usually apolitical money managers: 

Manager A, “The market has the jitters as Trump has questioned whether he can fire the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.”

Manager B, “But the President has now said that he will never fire him”.

Manager A, “That means nothing he can change on a dime”.

Manager B, Laughing, “You are quite right. The market is hardly likely to be reassured by anything he says”.

TRUMP IS ENABLED IN HIS FANTASY WORLD AS HE BETRAYS TRUST TO “WE THE PEOPLE”

The Donald betrays trust and lies to “The People”. In this endeavor he still has his enablers.

While the majority of the American population have “got it” a stable forty percent of the electorate, an overwhelming majority of Republican legislators and his echo chambers Fox News and conservative radio hosts apparently support his approach as long as he delivers on their agenda. He can lie till he is blue in the face, they just don’t care. 

So America is saddled with a President whom you cannot believe a word he says. The forty percent who still support him argue, “Don’t listen to what he says, Watch what he does”. Even they know his verbiage is untrustworthy. They are hanging around, ironically, waiting for him to deliver on his promises. 

The current government shutdown crisis  is yet another example of the suspension of reality, Trump said again and again on the stump and it is fair to label it as his defining mantra: “I will build a great wall and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me. I will build a great great wall on our Southern border and I will have Mexico will pay for that wall”. This refrain became a feature of his Nuremberg style rallies and he would invoke mob participation, “And who is going to pay for that wall” to which the adoring assembly would screech in reply, - “Mexico”. Mexico from the get go categorically denied that they would pay for the wall so Trump is now demanding the money from the taxpayer, including those in the audience and they remain nonplussed. 

So the POTUS conveniently forgot about Mexico’s payment and even about the wall till his enablers in chief, Fox News and talk show host Rush Limbaugh, reminded him that “The Great Wall” was his defining priority. So the POTUS held a meeting with the Democrat leadership demanding money for the wall shouting, “ If  I don’t get what I want…..I will shut down the government. I am proud to shut the government for border security…I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down.” 

The Democrats wouldn’t deliver on Trump’s commitment so the POTUS perversely claimed that it was the Democrats that shut the Government not him. Amazingly, thirty - three percent of the electorate agree with him. At least seven percent of the flock, who have drunk the Kool Aid, have abandoned this particular fantasy. In the interim the enablers have also forgotten that what Trump defined would be a “great great wall” has morphed again and again to what Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi has characterized as being “a beaded curtain”. Lindsey Graham says the President now claims it is not a physical wall - calling it a wall is s metaphor for border security while his outgoing Chief of Staff says a cement wall was abandoned by the President a long while ago! 

In truth nothing Trump promises or says can ever be trusted which does not seem to bother his unquestioning followers. 

DONALD HAS NEVER OPERATED ON TRUST NOR EVEN FUFFILlED CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS

The Donald has for his whole career betrayed trust.

In his personal pre presidential life Trump was an unashamed defier of the conventions of society. He also learned to manipulate its checks and balances of the legal system. His earliest role model and lawyer was Roy Cohn who was the infamous Senator Joseph McCarthy’s counsel. Cohn operated on the principle that you never admitted anything. You responded to any charge by attacking the accuser, regardless of whether it was an individual or a governmental agency. The Donald although he fondly remembers his mentor abandoned him when he was not in a position to be of any use to him. Cohn died a lonely death from AIDS betrayed by Trump. He lamented that, “Donald pissed ice water”. Loyalty requires trust of which the POTUS is bereft.

The failure even to fulfill contractual obligations let alone trust has resulted in Trump being involved in 3500 litigations prior to his Presidential run. He used his resources to take on those who were vulnerable including homeowners. He failed to pay contractors in the full knowledge that they never had the wherewithal to take him on. He went into the nomination process with fifty legal matters still outstanding - the most notorious being his fraudulent Trump University where according to court depositions he instructed recruiters to prey on the most weak - the pensioners and out of luck students. 

In New York alone there were 5000 litigants who reflected on the litany of broken promises, lies and fraud which ranged from being duped that they would be photographed with Trump, (a cardboard cutout was used) to the promise that the secrets of The Donald’s success would be shared with them.  True to form Trump counter sued for a $100 million dollars boasting that he never ever settles a case. While not batting an eyelid he made this one go away by settling for $25 million.

HIS FRIENDS AND CHARITY ARE NOT IMMUNE FROM DECEPTION 

The Donald betrays the trust of his friends and charitable organizations.

It is difficult to handicap in which arena his lack of trust and his deceptive behavior is at its worst. However the manipulation of his Charity Trust has to be up there. It transpires that, as far as can be traced, he has not put a penny of his own money into that entity. His friends and associates are the major donors and he uses their money for his own purposes including buying memorabilia of his good self and paying off his debts. He also uses those in need of charity to further his own crass objectives. The tale of the raising of money for the Veterans Association on the campaign trail is illustrative of this gross unsociable and even illegal venture.

Trump in order to gain attention on the electoral trail held a rally to raise money for the VA. He said he raised $6 million. According to the New York Attorney General’s lawsuit against The Trust he raised $2.4 million which he handed over to the then Chairman of his campaign Corey Lewandowski to disburse to the VA. Some of that “largesse” was publicly dished out by Trump on the campaign.

Trump has had to close his Foundation down as it has been investigated for two years for all manner of illegal activity including IRS and Campaign Finance violations.

Nothing is sacred to The Donald - not his friends, charity nor those in need.

LOYALTY AND TRUST FROM THOSE HE WORKS WITH IS A ONE WAY STREET WITH THE DONALD: BUT WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND

The Donald betrays the trust of his friends, employees and administration while demanding loyalty from them. 

The Brookings Institute has tracked the administration turnover of the 45th President. They focussed on his ‘A Team” whom they defined as the senior members of his circle and noted that as of mid December 2018, sixty five had been through his revolving door. This is more than all but one of the post war Presidents’ replacements in their entire four years of office. The other stark difference between this POTUS and the rest is the abuse and humiliation he has heaped on those that make up his inner circle. Then he demands public slavish praise, flattery and sycophancy from those he has appointed.

Those in his Administration have responded to his treatment of them by leaking detail of any and anything related to his impulsiveness, ignorance, inner moods and rants. There have been a number of devastating exposes of WhiteHouse dysfuction, notably by Michael Wolf and Bob Woodward that are lavishly sourced by “White House” informants. Then there was the New York Times op ed piece that claimed that there was resistance to Trump within the WhiteHouse. The author claimed that he was one of many that were working from within the WhiteHouse “to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worse inclinations”. The inside source further confided that, “Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions.”

Even more devastating is the number of his inner circle that have caved and are singing like canaries to the Special Counsel. They include his Campaign Manager and his Deputy, his National Security Advisor, his personal lawyer and fixer, his long time financial chief, his close friend from the National Enquirer and a slew of lesser campaign members. Only two that matter are publicly remaining loyal to the President, Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi. They are the alleged connections of the campaign to Wikileaks. It is evident that they are banking on a pardon should the worst happen. They would be well advised to rethink their positions as Trump might, like Nixon, only think of his own skin when it all hits the fan.

The Donald is experiencing, but not learning, that fear and humiliation is no way to gain lasting loyalty. 

HOW LONG CAN REALITY BE SUSPENDED?

The question that hangs over this surreal scenario is how long can the lack of trust in what the the Commander in Chief and leader says or does be tolerated? There is no law that can enforce a  President to be trustworthy. To refer to just one pertinent issue of trust that is part of the American Presidential culture - candidates all reveal their tax returns to the body politic. There is no legal recourse to Trump breaking that trust. On the world stage America’s tried and trusted NATO allies cannot trust the American President to deliver on his commitment and has caused uncertainty and confusion. Again there is no law to prevent him from betraying America’s promises.

Donald J. Trump has always functioned in the anti social paradigm that his word means nothing and that gave him an advantage, Society relies on the grease of trust to function. It cannot legislate nor can the costly legal system enforce social behavior, fairness and equity. Armed with an army of lawyers Trump has navigated the world with his amoral philosophy. It remains to be seen whether as President he will get away with it. 

Whatever happens Trump’s endearing legacy will be that his word means nothing. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY

This President’s character can be encapsulated by the question, “Would you play roulette in one of his bankrupt casinos? One hopes that Trumpism won’t be forever as Billy Joel reminds, “Because its always been a matter of trust”.