Here Lies Donald — — — Trump
On his first day in office he defiled the institution of the Cabinet of the American presidency by having its members, one-by-one, avow obeisance to him like a newly annointed king of a pathetic underdeveloped country.
He desecrated the literal office space itself of the presidency by yukking it up with apparatchiks of our decades-long nemesis, Russia.
He completed the utter debasement of the Republican party by encouraging at every single opportunity the extreme factionalism of which George Washington warned us in his farewell address:
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism….In governments purely elective, [a spirit of party is] not to be encouraged.
He broke federal law 52 CFR 30121 by soliciting campaign help from a foreign country, extorting the president of the Ukraine by withholding military assistance.
He terrorized immigrants who are here solely because of the supply-and-demand of American businesses — yes, we literally demand those workers to be here to fill our menial jobs — by imposing a campaign of unannounced arrest. This outrageous hypocrisy of the American business world is one of our greatest ongoing embarrassments.
He tortured refugees at the border by separating children from their parents and making people sleep on concrete floors.
He killed refugees by not affording them healthy conditions while in detention.
He caused the unnecessary death of countless thousands of citizens of all ages by failing to bring the full power of American science, industry, and government to bear against a deadly pandemic.
He encouraged Naziism and racism.
He cultivated like a farmer, the hatred innate to our basest animal heritage, for those unlike ourselves, and divided the People to the greatest extent possible, for his own benefit.
He undermined or eliminated the protections, accrued over decades, built into agencies that support the environment, social justice, education, healthcare, poverty prevention, and workplace safety.
He promulgated an anti-science and ignorant worldview to an extent possible only by someone who is stupid enough to stare into a solar eclipse.
He obstructed justice in the pursuit of evidence into his election wrongdoings, by lying to Congress, hiding evidence in a software system that has the highest-level of security, and preventing others to testify.
He used every opportunity of his office, after declining to divest himself of his businesses, to enrich his wealth by directing expenditures to those businesses, violating the ‘Foreign Emoluments’ clause of the Constitution.
He surrounded himself with liars, cheats, and convicted felons.
He ingratiated himself to barbaric dictators while alienating and insulting our greatest allies and their leaders.
He conducted private conversations with America’s enemies, without the usual transcriptions and diplomatic witnesses.
He relentlessly attacked one of all modern societies’ greatest institutions, a free press.
He insulted and disrespected the military by offending its current members, its veterans, and even those who made the greatest sacrifice and their loved ones, the Gold Star families.
He orchestrated a non-stop propaganda campaign against America’s (nearly?) unique contribution to civilization, the peaceful transfer of power.
He did everything he possibly could to interfere with America’s third most sacred institution, free and fair elections.
He destroyed America’s second-most sacred moral institution, the rule of law, by having an attorney general who repeatedly applies the power of his office for the benefit of the President at the expense of the People.
He deprived protesters of the most sacred moral institution of civilized democratic societies, the right to due process of law, by abducting them off the streets in unmarked vehicles by unidentified military personnel. (If you were to strip away from a society one institution after another until there was only the one most important thing left, that thing would be ‘due process.’ One could have a society with total anarchy and danger, but if there were still due process, you might still recognize it at least as a free society.)
Rest in peace, you…
And when it comes time for the American people to deal with the memory of this person as its president, let me suggest a model for it. It’s the way the city of Venice, Italy handled a disgraced governor (called a ‘doge’) in the 1300’s. In their city’s palace where the paintings of the doges ring the ceiling, the spot where that doge would appear is replaced with a painting of a drape with the words “This is the space reserved for Marino Faliero, beheaded for his crimes.”
But perhaps there will be a silver lining. Perhaps when people ask, in the future, “When did we institute term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court, eliminate the Electoral College, and move the Justice Department to the judicial branch of our government?” the answer will be “after Little Donald.”
