Regardless of any last-minute official reports that may or may not come out in the next few hours (and it's doubtful there will be any, given that the Trump administration is sinking faster than the Titanic, with people at all levels bailing out like the proverbial rats deserting a sinking ship), there are some things that are now plain to see, and that will define the Trump presidency and this era to a significant degree.
And of these, perhaps the most striking is the role Barack Obama has played in all of this – starting on or about the day Donald Trump took that fabled escalator ride (down rather than up, and that's enough for a metaphor right there). Whether or not Obama was inspired by Hillary Clinton's custom-made Russia hoax is one question, i.e. would he have initiated a full-scale sabotage operation directed at Trump if it hadn't been for the tall tale of Trump's collusion with Russia? What I suspect is that he was already thinking seriously about the matter, and about strategy, but that the Russia hoax story was like unto a gift from above; it was tossed into his lap, and at that point he decided to go full-bore with the operation. And of course Hillary was out of office at that point, and technically a private citizen, so she could not readily call upon, and mobilize, the forces of the Deep State, and in particular the FBI and the Justice Department, the way Obama could.
But really, how badly did Obama want to render the 2016 election of Donald Trump null and void, and thus propel Hillary into her rightful place as Empress of America, of the Known World, and of the Universe in General? Did he really want her to succeed wherever he had failed? (Did he want her to turn Obamacare back into Hillarycare, for example?) What I suspect is that he knew the Russia hoax was, indeed, a hoax and that it would be exposed as such sooner or later – but that in the meantime it would serve to distract and hobble Trump and his administration, and any and all of his initiatives, both domestic and foreign, for, ideally, his entire term or the bulk thereof – which is, in fact, precisely what it did. And the instant the Russia hoax ran out of steam the impeachment (#1) went into high gear – seamlessly, with nary a bump in the road. In other words, turning Trump into an instant lame duck was more important than any sort of considerations for Hillary's health and well-being, so she was reduced to years of book tours and raving and ranting to anyone who would listen about how she'd been cheated (she being an expert in that area, as we know), while Obama proceeded to pursue more important long-range goals.
There's another nuance to all of this – subtle, I admit – speculative – but “what if?” We've seen how easy it is for an election to be hijacked if people have sufficient determination and the proper infrastructure. So what went wrong in 2016? And yeah, I know, they didn't have mail-in voting then, and maybe the voting machines were less hackable. But still – you'd think with all their resources the Dems could have pulled it off. Unless – and here's Obama playing the long game – he decided to let her get defeated. And why would he do that? Well, he knew who she was running against. Now, if she had won, Donald Trump would have been jettisoned off the political stage once and for all – a real one-hit wonder. Which means that the mainline Republicans would have remained in charge of their party and would have been ready to mount a campaign in 2020 with a “back to normalcy” theme that would have taken advantage of what would likely have been a disastrous four years of Hillary Clinton. And they might have won, and we'd be right back in the Bush era (maybe even with another Bush!). And Obama would have to finally retire from his position of influence in Washington. But! Allow Trump to win and then mount a campaign against him that rivals the Normandy invasion, and you can put the Republican Party in a permanent state of exile, and thus assure the Democrats perpetual rule. And this, course, is precisely what has happened. The good ship Trump is heading for the briny deep, and so is the Republican Party, at least on the national level – whether or not any of its members were on Trump's side. They will all be painted with the same brush. The Trump administration will be the bloody shirt that the Dems will wave in the air every time the Republicans start to show any signs of life; the Republican Party will be about as popular as the Confederacy. Mission accomplished! And if this is how it was played, you would have to admire Obama's political brilliance and insight.
But in any case, do you really think that once Obama helped get this whole Russia collusion process rolling he was going to just walk away and leave it to his minions? Get real. I'll bet he was right on top of this the whole time – overseeing, directing, prioritizing, providing guidance... not unlike the commander of a military operation. He had to make sure it stayed on track and paved the way for not only Trump's fall, but also that of the Republicans – not just in the 2020 election but in perpetuity. (His role came most prominently to the surface during the Democratic primaries, which I'll discuss in a minute. But it's not like he swooped down like a bird of prey that once time, and left things to take their course the rest of the time.)
(At this point you might say, wait a minute, the Mueller investigation was initiated during the Trump administration. Well yes, barely – but the groundwork had already been laid, and the investigation was staffed entirely by what were termed “angry Democrats”, so let's not quibble on that point. It was a Democratic operation from beginning to end.) (I used to think that if Trump ever tried to de-politicize the FBI he'd have to get down to at least the level of the third underassistant toilet paper replacement specialist in the J. Edgar Hoover Building.)
This all has to do with power, of course and as always – with the acquisition thereof and the perpetuation thereof. And Obama did have to leave the White House at a certain point, but that was a minor consideration since it seems very possible that he already, prior to leaving office, had assumed full authority over the Deep State and over its most powerful and influential elements. So, in effect, there would have been no real “transition” between the Obama administration and the Trump administration – the Obama administration hardly giving up a thing but continuing as before, but as a shadow government, and it was actually greater in number by far, in terms of people who were loyal to Obama and willing to follow his directives, than the administration of Donald Trump, where the most he could ever claim were the few appointees at the top of each pyramid. According to this theory, Obama had, all the time Trump was in the White House, his own bureaucracy, his own intelligence apparatus, and his own foreign policy. He certainly had sufficient appointees and friends in all the right departments; we know this from all the characters who came out of the woodwork to testify at the impeachment hearings. (And by the way, if there was no real transition in 2017, there was no need for one this time either, and all of the Democrats' whining about the Trump administration dragging its feet was mere show.)
So what does this all add up to? For starters, consider the possibility that Obama, for the first time in history as an ex-president, didn't give up any real power. In fact, he didn't even leave town! He just moved from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue not even a mile up the hill to a mansion in Kalorama – the new seat of government, in effect, until the Democrats could reclaim what was rightfully theirs. So Trump started out with a White House full of loyalists (but not all, as it turns out) and appointees scattered around D.C. as figureheads of various departments, agencies, and offices, and a handful of supporters in Congress, and his solid base among the citizenry – i.e. those who voted for him – but that was about it. “Draining the Swamp” does not come under the heading of “promises made, promises kept”. It couldn't, and it can't. You might as well try and levitate the Great Pyramid and plunk it down in the middle of Kansas.
So the next four years for Trump were an unending struggle to get the bureaucracy to cooperate – or even to appear to cooperate – or to at least not actively and blatantly resist and refuse to follow orders. And this was on top of unending challenges from Congress and the judiciary. Truly, it's a miracle the slightest thing got done in all that time.
So where do we go from here? Who's going to be in charge as of noon tomorrow? Joe Biden? The very thought is enough to inspire scoffing and derision. Bookmakers have already been taking bets on how long he'll last. Oh, you say that if Old Uncle Joe falters and is “25th'ed” Kamala Harris will take command? Sorry about that, but she's a figurehead too. I mean, think about it for a moment. For starters, who called in all of the Democratic contenders for the presidency at some point in the primaries – i.e. all the ones who had the vaguest hope of coming out on top? We know who, and it might have been a scene right out of Hollywood -- Don Barraco, capo di tuti capi, calling them, one by one, into his dimly-lit office and making them an offer they couldn't refuse. “This ain't your night, kid”, or words to that effect. All, of course, except for Uncle Joe, who, as it turned out, had been anointed all along. If only the rest of them had known, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble (not to mention money, like in Mike Bloomberg's case).
But what about Kamala Harris? She never lost a primary because she never entered one. (Smart move.) Was she promised the VP slot by Mr. Big way back then? Who knows? One thing is clear – she was, at a certain point, chosen, and certainly not by Uncle Joe. But why her, out of all the countless possibilities? Number one, and most obviously – her “diversity” qualifications, which are overwhelming. It's hard to find a minority she doesn't belong to. And she is a hard leftist, just a bit less noisy than The Squad. But most importantly, if Obama made her he can break her, so she has to follow orders. If she is directed to bow to, and play along with, The Squad, she will. If she's directed to tell them to stuff it, she will. Because she can be replaced.
What I'm saying is that she's a younger and flashier sock puppet than Uncle Joe, but is a sock puppet nonetheless. The Anointed One may still be in charge. So what we will be witnessing tomorrow may well be, in effect, the start of Barack Obama's fourth term as president, at which point he will be tied with Franklin Roosevelt, but hey – ties were meant to be broken, right? If the Republicans are permanent dead meat on the federal level, what's to prevent Obama from being president for life? But that would be in the tradition of guys like Stalin, Mao, Putin, Kim, Duvalier, Mugabe, and other sterling characters, so he might want to think again. But perhaps, now that democracy has been tried and found wanting, we are about to enter another age of the Strong Man – or, more accurately, return to it, thoroughly chastened, after a brief hiatus.
