CSotD: Fiddling with the dials while Rome burns
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Darrin Bell's familiar metaphor suggests solving the current situation is more difficult that we thought.
Or not.
But it doesn't make it any easier.
The notion that, by slowly turning up the heat, you can boil a frog without it trying to escape isn't true, but it's a useful concept, particularly if you add a little Orwell to explain what happens when the frogs start to wise up.
In any case, Bell is correct that this disaster did not simply drop out of the sky in 2016.
Any remedy based on the idea that Donald Trump sprang fully formed from an otherwise functioning democracy is doomed to failure, because, while he may have lost the popular vote by a slight margin, an awful lot of people wanted him to be president and they won't go away when he does.
He will go away. For one thing, he'll be lucky to make it through this four-year term simply from a medical standpoint. He's already showing signs of not being up for the long trips and continual appearances required of the job and it doesn't help that he spends his down time watching TV and tweeting instead of either studying up or sleeping.
Assuming he's still alive and fit in 2020, he may not want another four years anyway, and he has demonstrated that he does whatever he wants and has no concept of "party loyalty" or of loyalty to the de facto cabal that, simply by virtue of his office, has formed around him.
Which is to say, we've had some hapless, compliant figureheads in the White House, but this ain't one of them.
The other is that, because he not only won't go along with the program but also won't STFU and quit making unforced errors, it's possible he won't be asked back and, as suggested in (conservative) cartoonist Gary Varvel's latest piece, he may not even make it through this inning.
Varvel puts a Gomer Pyle smile on his fellow Hoosier, but I've heard a lot of progressives moan that Pence is worse than Trump.
That's an excellent opportunity to use the "Suck it up; you lost" argument.
It's not like the GOP placed a moderate in that slot, nor was Pence an obscure, unknown figure. And his name was right there on the ballot.
Nor was there any shortage of people warning of what would happen to the Supreme Court if these guys got into office.
In fact, the Republicans promised what would.
And America chose the Trump/Pence ticket.
So the only relevant answer to "What if Pence gets in?" is "What if he doesn't?"
Meanwhile, there's some comfort for moderates and progressives in watching Captain Chaos make a hash of things, as depicted in Robert Ariail's cartoon, because the more slack the GOP gives him before they start the eviction process, the worse the condition of the presidency when he's finished with it and the more clean up and fix up they'll have to do before they can get back in gear.
Another encouraging factor, as Jim Morin points out, is that it's not like the Republicans, having been handed the Executive Branch and both houses of the Legislature, are making any progress with their agenda, assuming they actually have one.
What they've managed to accomplish so far is to show all the flaws that were brought up and ignored during the campaign. They've still got the deplorables behind them, but the other half of that basket is starting to empty out.
There's absolutely no reason for their lack of accomplishment: For all his shortcomings in every other respect, Trump is clearly willing to sign anything they pass, simply for the pleasure of holding the ceremony. And yet they can't manage to put anything substantive on his desk.
If this whole thing is a cunning plot, it's one of those scams where you play the fool in order to make your opponent overconfident, and, if that's the case, it's time for them to get the bets down before they get tossed out of the casino wearing naught but wooden barrels.
All that said, and getting back to Bell's frog-boiling metaphor, turning off the heat is not as simple as getting rid of this crew of rascals.
If nothing else, Watergate revealed the depth of corruption not in the White House but in our vision.
When Ford pardoned Nixon, he did it believing that a horrified America was prepared to simply wipe the slate clean and go forward with decency and honor, and, indeed, there were reforms passed, under him and under Carter, in order to do that.
I agreed, and still feel, that an extended trial of Richard Nixon would have simply accentuated our divisions. But Ford (and I) underestimated the nation's resolve.
Because here we are again, as Nick Anderson points out, with a secretive, paranoid president hiding from his critics and from the public, and this one is incompetent, which Nixon was not.
I don't just mean that Nixon could pull off a criminal enterprise. I mean he could create the EPA and open doors to China and do other competent presidential things, in concert with a Congress that had the best interests of the nation in mind.
Well, it was a long time ago, the old man said, shifting his dentures as he rocked on the porch.
But now here's where Watergate and our current crisis are the same: If Donald Trump ran for president today, he'd lose because a frightened, horrified and angry electorate would make sure he lost.
And then, as in the post-Watergate period, they'd pass laws to make sure nothing like this could ever happen again.
And then, as before, after a few years had passed, they'd slowly start dismantling those laws again. Read the dials on Bell's rangetop.
A popular button in the Sixties said "We are the people our parents warned us about."
And now you are.
So here's your moment of zen futility:
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