He must go

"It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it's very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I said -- and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said, "What system are you going to be-- "Sir, we're staying with digital." I said, "No you're not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it's no good," Trump said.

This is the Commander-in-Chief discussing the aircraft catapults aboard the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier. You see, the USS Gerald R Ford incorporates an electromagnetic launching system to replace the steam catapults that have been in use since the 1950s. As is often the case with new technology, the new system has had its share of failures in early tests. And as is also usually the case, improvements are underway.

 Trump heard of the early failure rates and jumped to uttering the words quoted above. I’m not surprised but I am horrified.

Forget (if you can) the lies, the misogyny, the racial bigotry, the playground-bully attitude toward anyone who incurs his wrath. Set aside his demonstrated belief that it’s okay to mock persons living with disabilities or other challenges. Give him a pass, if you must, for the nepotism and cronyism that brings a wide circle of incompetents and malefactors into his sphere of advisers and employs a cadre of liars and frauds to provide a defensive ring around this Klown Kar collection of self-righteous nincompoops.

At the bottom line, this is a person who has no sense of his own limitations, which are profound. And this is a person whose reactive temperament has already created a rift between our nation and our longtime allies. He is the embodiment of the old saying about ‘he who knows not and knows not that he knows not.’ This is a man (term used loosely here, but that would be another whole essay) whose deficits are both legion and utterly unimportant to him, so long as he can continue to feel powerful.

This is a person who knows no more about electromagnetic propulsive technology than he knows about international diplomacy but who makes and tries to enforce his decisions with the confidence of a fool. And there is no buffering effect to be found in the people around him. He surrounds himself with sycophants, the same crowd of nodding, guffawing buffoons who can be seen in photos of the worst despots of the modern age.

He must go. But for the moment his position is protected by the calculating, agenda-focused enemies of the people who have taken over the Republican Party. Now, many of you know me as a lifelong, fairly conservative Republican. I don’t apologize for that – you vote where and when you find yourself with the information then available. But my allegiance has been to ideas, never to the party. And the party has become a cabal that put Donald Trump in office and continues to shore him up so long as he provides cover for their agenda. And make no mistake, they are using him as a stalking horse – the true horror is in the machinations of the party power brokers.

I’m not a fan of many of the actions of Democrats over the years. But I do consider myself a pragmatist. And I always go back to my first aid training when responding to a crisis: breathing, bleeding, bones. Concentrate first on the things that can kill. In this case, that means depriving Trump-Ryan-McConnell-Breitbart of their stranglehold on policy.

I don’t like either party having total control. We have a lot of repair and rebuilding to do – in our social policies, education, infrastructure, international relations and our treatment of the environment in which our grandchildren will live their lives. The Trump-Ryan-McConnell cabal has done obscene damage to us as both state and symbol. We have to fix this, for ourselves and for the world. And we can’t make a start when one party shamelessly deprives all others of a seat at the table. We can’t make things better for all when the people who decide who gets a seat and what gets discussed are driven by selective, misinterpreted readings of the Constitution and the Christian Bible.

As a recovered former Christian and a recovering Republican I readily admit to having my own agenda. But whether we agree or not as to policy, surely we can agree that the current trajectory is not leading us in a direction the framers envisioned or that we should embrace. In the 2018 Mid-term elections, 33 of 100 Senate seats and ALL 435 House seats will be filled by the voters. Please, if you’ve a soul and a brain, vote Democrat in the next round of congressional elections. Deprive the evil giant of his legislative power and Ryan-McConnell of their rubber stamps.  

And whether you agree with me or not, keep in mind Trump’s own words: “What is digital?” This guy has the launch codes.