4 More Years? Really??

One of the perennial posters that can be found in pretty much any workplace in the land is the one that reads “You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps.” I don't know if this poster is hanging in the Oval Office, but it should be. Imagine a job where – depending on your political party – you take the blame for literally all of the world's problems, and get credit for nothing. Or, on the other hand, it must be tempting when someone with Oval Office dreams sees the royal treatment presidents like Barack Obama get; in those cases they get credit for anything good that happens on the planet, and blame for absolutely nothing, even things that are a direct result of their misguided policies and programs.

The present situation fits into the first case, needless to say. And I imagine no one is more surprised than Donald Trump by how little a president can accomplish if he (or she) is opposed by Congress, the judiciary, the media, the entertainment industry, academia, the unions, multinational corporations, the E.U., globalists, and pretty much any other entity you care to name. The presidency is only as powerful as it's allowed to be, in other words; the president has no absolute, unconditional power. Even war powers, which come close to absolute, can still be thwarted if Congress withdraws funds from the military.

Now some will say that this is exactly as it should be – “balance of power” and all that. But again, it's conditional and arbitrary. With sufficient opposition, a president cannot even exercise the most basic powers explicitly set down in the Constitution, as we see in Trump's case. But with sufficient support, a president can become, for all intents and purposes, a dictator, tyrant, and war lord. This might be considered a kind of balance in the long run, but I doubt if it's what the Founding Fathers had in mind. They envisioned a system that would be self-correcting without frequent trauma and without all-out war between the president and the Congress or between the president and the judiciary. So what we have now is, in effect, a post-Constitutional system which is based on raw power and not much else. Even the Supreme Court – the ultimate arbiter of Constitutional questions – has decided that pretty much anything can be read into, or out of, the Constitution, which thereby renders it no more than a symbol or fetish.

With these thoughts in mind, consider the position of Donald Trump, who inexplicably remains in office despite the most fervent efforts of people in the Executive Branch, i.e. the branch he's supposedly in charge of, to get rid of him. It's enough of a problem when a president is at knife points with the other two branches, but it's downright grotesque when members of the Executive Branch try to pull off a coup, and the madness increases all the more when we find that a significant portion of people who work in the White House itself are in on the game. It's like something right out of Shakespeare (except without the exalted language).

So far Trump is campaigning as though he really does want a second term. Maybe in his heart of hearts he has come to the realization that it's a lost cause, but he'll never admit it; that's not the way he operates. He will go down fighting, of that you may be certain. And yet he talks about the second term as though it's a real possibility. But consider – what would a second Trump term be like? Would it be an improvement on the first term, where he's been thwarted at every turn? Lest we forget, for his first two years the Republicans were in charge of the House of Representatives as well as the Senate, and what good did it do? The “never Trumpers” opposed and undercut him in every way they could. And things got even worse when the Democrats took back the House in 2018. Then it was full speed ahead on impeachment for... well... it's hard to say. Just “stuff”. Just for being Donald Trump.

So it's been rough going for Trump so far, but what happens next year if the Democrats hold on to the House and take the Senate out of the weak, hesitant, palsied hands of the Republicans? If, in spite of that, Trump is somehow re-elected, he will instantly be a lame duck (worse than now, that is). For starters, Congress will have free rein to reverse, cancel, and nullify everything that Trump has managed to accomplish in his first term – as little as that is compared to what he was hoping for. The judiciary will be no more sympathetic to his cause than they have been up to now. Then we have “the usual suspects” – the media, the entertainment industry, academia, etc., who will continue their all-out war on Trump, and in fact ramp it up. And don't forget, a second impeachment was in the works until the pandemic came along, and I'm sure that it's all ready to dish up at the earliest opportunity. That, and who knows how many more wild, delusional accusations directed at Trump, his family, and the members of his administration. (Surely you don't think Trump has managed to “clean house” at the FBI, Justice Department, and State Department? The process has barely begun, and it continues to falter because the Deep State is... well, deep.) Plus, a second defeat for the Democrats would turn what has, up until now, merely been Trump Derangement Syndrome into full-blown psychosis and mass hysteria. It will not be a pretty sight. (I'm not sure how much more outfits like CNN can do other than commit mass harakiri in Lafayette Square, but I'm sure they'll think of something.) (Maybe Nancy Pelosi will tear up her birth certificate; that would be “cancel culture” at its finest.)

But wait, there's more! Don't forget the new players on the scene. The corona virus isn't going anywhere very soon – recall that the Spanish Flu lasted for over two years. And who knows what else the Chinese have up their sleeve? Corona may have been just the beta version. Then we have riots breaking out across the land, fueled by racial grievances, economic distress... infiltrated by home-grown anarchists, provocateurs, and Marxists... and aided and abetted by various governors and mayors who are, at this point, refusing offers of help from the Trump administration for the simple reason that they like the chaos; it offers all sorts of new opportunities. (And those are the same governors and mayors, by the way, who led the shutdown of the economy. Coincidence? I don't think so.) (And do you think the riots are going to end the minute Joe Biden takes the oath? Dream on. Will the Antifa hordes go back underground, saying “mission accomplished”? Right. Their mission is just getting underway.)

Then you have the U.S. military, which has taken to “murmuring” against Trump with increasing frequency. Surely they can't see him as an existential threat; he takes great pride in supporting them. What's more likely is that they have their own theories as to how foreign policy should be conducted with “force projection”, and no orange businessman with crazy hair from Manhattan is going to convince them otherwise. (In this they resemble the State Department, which considers itself above Trump on the foreign policy totem pole.) So there is great grinding of teeth whenever he's referred to as Commander in Chief; I'm amazed they haven't started picketing the White House with signs that say “Not My Commander in Chief”. (And BTW, do they really expect that life will be better under Biden? What if “Defund the Police” morphs into “Defund the Military”? Does anyone remember what happened to the military when Carter took over from Ford?)

The economic recovery (assuming there even is one) may take even longer. Then we have the new globalists – not the stodgy old bunch in the E.U. and their American collaborators, but all of the international corporations who have now cast their lot with China. Think about the visible Chinese ownership of American resources, both in China itself and in the U.S., and then imagine the magnitude of the invisible ownership; there are countless ways in which to conceal the real owners of a company, and thus to conceal its agenda above and beyond mere business. Why worry about a metaphorical tsunami racing eastward across the Pacific when there are already Chinese geysers and volcanoes bubbling up in the American heartland? And that's only on the business/economic side; whoever is president will also have to deal with Chinese military adventurism – that's assuming that said president doesn't decide to come to an agreement of some sort with China (in which case, sayonara Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc.). (We fought with Japan for control over the Pacific and eventually won, at great cost. Are we up for a repeat performance with China? My tendency is to doubt it.)

So yes, you would have to be crazy to want that job in these times – either to be re-elected or to be elected. And yet we have Trump, and Biden, and any number of Democrat also-rans who can't wait to cozy up to Old Uncle Joe, figuring he'll be carted off to “the home” not far into his first term and that will be their chance to take over. So rest assured, no matter who you vote for in November you'll be voting for someone who is at least delusional, if not an outright lunatic.