GET TRUMP

GET TRUMP

Democrats were devastated in November, 2016, and would not accept that Donald Trump, an outspoken and well-known New York City real estate developer, TV star and non-politician interloper could actually defeat the vaunted Clinton/Obama/democrat political machine and be elected president of the United States.  “Resistance” and obstruction efforts were immediately launched by the defeated leftists, to denigrate and negate Trump’s election win and to polarize the country against Trump.  In fact, this effort turned to street demonstrations and violence in major U.S. cities, ostensibly orchestrated and paid for by such leftist backers as George Soros and his minions.  From this early effort emerged violent street groups such as Antifa, black lives matter and others.  The democrat left’s refusal to accept that Trump was a valid elected president, and their refusal not only to legislate normally, but also to obstruct meaningful governance and to push the limits of the cultural war now raging, has literally thrown the country into political and emotional chaos. Divisiveness and violence are approaching that in the mid nineteenth century over state’s rights and slavery.  Political positions have taken on the mantle of strong, almost  religious faith, rather than being a subject for rational discussion and compromise.

The first legal actions aiming at not only condemnation, but also, impeachment of President Donald Trump, as soon as he was elected, were concerned with conflicts of interest and the emoluments clause of the constitution.  Trump has good lawyers, and these actions were eventually dismissed by an appeals judge. This was an early strike against the leftist “get Trump” crowd. This link refers:  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/us/politics/trump-hotel-emoluments-constitution.html

Concomitant with emolument were efforts to subpoena Trump’s tax returns, again aiming at impeachment, and again countered by Trump’s legal advisors.  Another failure to “get Trump”.  There is an action still pending in California initiated by Governor Gavin Newsome to pass a law requiring tax returns from anyone running for president in the primaries of the State of California.  https://www.apnews.com/5f3e937786e6421f81ee62297d48e349

Impeachment of Trump for ill-defined “crimes and misdemeanors was attempted in the congress from the moment Trump was elected.  These efforts never came to fruition, but the anti-Trump mainstream media efforts maintain the noise and exacerbate the divisions that had emerged in the country.  These efforts were rekindled after democrats gained control of the House of Representatives in 2018, along with the speakership and chairmanship of the many House committees. https://impeachdonaldtrumpnow.org/blog/

Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.  Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee resisted the nomination, as they would with anyone that Trump nominated, but Gorsuch was confirmed since he was replacing Scalia, who was an iconic conservative on the court.

The next anti-Trump effort came after he fired FBI Director James Comey in May, 2017 for leaking confidential information and failing to take action against Hilary Clinton and other democrats who allegedly committed crimes.  All we heard about for weeks was about Trump’s “illegal” firing of a recalcitrant employee.  This later led to a special prosecutor being chosen by the Justice Department to investigate collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign in 2016. (More later)

Soon after this came the Stormy Daniels affair.  The allegation was that Trump had an affair in the past with this porn star, and paid her hush money to keep it quiet with a non-disclosure agreement.  The claim was that this hush money was paid illegally from campaign funds.  All that was heard on CNN, MSNBC, and read in the New York Times and Washington Post and the mainstream media in general, for months, was “Stormy Daniels, Stormy Daniels, Stormy Daniels” and the certainty that this would bring down Trump.  Daniel’s suit against Trump in California to revoke the non-disclosure agreement was thrown out by a judge.  Her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, after a brief stint as a mainstream media darling, was completely discredited and arrested for committing fraud.  Still another attempt to “get Trump” fizzled out. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/us/politics/trump-stormy-daniels-lawsuit-dismissed.html

Then came the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh was reputedly conservative, while Kennedy was traditionally the “swing” voter on the court, who many times was in the liberal camp.  It would take a tome to describe the unscrupulous efforts by the leftists on the Senate Judiciary Committee, in congress and in the media, to destroy Judge Kavanaugh and his family, and to keep him off of the Supreme Court.  This included accusations of lurid and egregious behavior on Judge Kavanaugh’s part while a student 25 years ago, false and obviously almost comic false witnesses slandering Kavanaugh, street violence to punctuate the left’s displeasure with the nomination, congressional offices and members of congress accosted in their homes and in restaurants and weeks of turmoil caused by activist leftists violently demonstrating against a good and decent judge of the law.  The leftists failed again to “get Trump”, and Judge Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to SCOTUS by a partisan senate, but not after subjecting the country to a lurid and inexcusable period of social upheaval.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Kavanaugh_Supreme_Court_nomination

Changes in the law by congress are necessary to address the convoluted issues of border security and illegal immigration.  Congress has not been willing to discharge their constitutional duties in this regard.  President Trump’s efforts using executive powers to address the situation have been met with derision and obstruction by the leftist democrats and “never-Trumpers”.  Separation of children and “families” at the border, which are normal criminal processing practice, were represented as “cruelly putting children in cages”.  Separation of children at the border started and was much more prevalent under the Obama administration’s border activity.  Pictures, purporting to show children kept in cages by Trump's policies, and widely disseminated by the mainstream media, were actually dated from the Obama administration.  Leftist activists, represented by obsolete Hollywood personalities and “flavor of the day” politicians visited the border and heaped invective on Trump and his administration, forgetting that Trump was trying to assuage a situation that existed under Bush, Obama and other prior administrations.

Trump’s efforts to fund a “wall” along parts of the southern border, to curtail illegal immigration, were rebuffed by the democrat led congress, so Trump used his executive powers to divert funds from the Defense budget for the purpose.  This precipitated a “balance of powers” dispute.  The Supreme Court ultimately found in favor of Trump’s diversion of funds.  Another example of anti-Trump action failing.  
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/26/us/politics/supreme-court-border-wall-trump.html

The Ninth Circuit Court affirmed the Trump administration’s policy of sending certain migrants back to Mexico pending immigration court hearings in the U.S., after an Obama appointed lower court ruled against the practice.   Another “win” for the Trump forces.  https://www.lawfareblog.com/asylum-update-trumps-remain-mexico-policy-can-continue-ninth-circuit-rules

While all of the above negative activity was proceeding against him, Trump continued what appears to be positive governance, albeit interspersed with ‘direct to the people” tweets, which sometimes were downright stark and inflammatory.  Tweets notwithstanding, Trump’s revoking of many of Obama’s regulatory orders, his support of the energy industry and his generally positive attitude toward business resulted to a much stronger economy than that during the Obama years.  Internationally, Trump flexed America’s muscles, and basically said “no more sucker and patsy for Europe, Russia and China.”  He talked down the North Korean dictator, withdrew from agreements inimical to the U.S., and imposed strong sanctions on North Korea, Iran and Russia.  His speeches in Saudi Arabia and Poland were masterful.

There were increasingly vociferous wails against Trump and his “in your face” policies and diplomacy.  American, European and international leftist elitists increased their hatred of Trump with a passion for his unapologetic, businesslike pragmatism in government and his outspokenness.

The democrat leftists were finally going to “get Trump”!  From May, 2017 to March, 2019, the Mueller special prosecutor investigation was in full force.  Several Trump associates, General Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and others were tried and sentenced for “process crimes”.  It would only be a matter of time until Trump was frog-marched, in an orange jump suit, out of the white house, and into a holding cell.  So the hatred-filled left thought, and the mainstream media and internet waves were filled with these dire “criminal Trump” allegations.  The talking heads on CNN, MSNBC and pundits in the New York Times and Washington Post outdid themselves predicting just how incriminating the final Mueller report would be.

What another disappointment!  Quel dommage!  The Mueller team, comprising 13 democrats and several unaffiliated lawyers, found no collusion between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and the Russians, and found no chargeable crime of obstruction of justice.  However, the Mueller report waffled and said it “could not exonerate Trump”, and this latter obfuscated and confused the issue for the public.  Of course, exoneration is not in the purview of a purely investigative body like the Mueller team.  It required a real Attorney General to clarify this issue, and William Barr did this accurately and expeditiously.

This was not enough for Nadler, Schiff and other leftist democrats.  They had to haul Robert Mueller, now a private citizen, before their committees and before the country to provide TV coverage of his report.  Clearly Mueller was not up to the task and it quickly became evident that he was not an active participant in its production.  He was just a figurehead whose good name appeared on the report that was actually produced by his 13+ democrat minions.  His answers over eight hours of questioning were ill-informed, halting and frankly, embarrassing.  The vaunted Mueller was an aged and tired old man, and not the answer to the democrat’s quest to impeach Trump.  Another major loss and disappointment for the democrats.  https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/24/20708503/robert-mueller-testimony-winners-losers

Committee chairs like Nadler, Schiff, Cummings, Maxine Waters, and newcomers like AOC, Omar, Tlaib and others, still have not given up on the push to impeach Trump for alleged “crimes and misdemeanors”, and because they hate him so vehemently.  Also, the democrats are no longer the rational party of opposition.  They are now increasingly socialist democrats as somewhat naively led by Ocasio-Cortez and the radical leftists, and who follow the tenets of Marx, Saul Alinsky and other revolutionary radicals. 

After all of the continuing impediments against Trump and his administration, the current crisis manufactured by the left reverts back to the culture war raging in the country, and threatening to tear the country apart.  The latest accusations against Trump and the bulk of American, normal middle of the road people of the country relates to “RACISM”.  Trump is an equal opportunity “criticizer”, and he has recently criticized “the squad” of young, democrat congresswomen, who happen to be of color and ethnicity, and also Elijah Cummings the corrupt, (but black), congressman from Baltimore.  Trump has also, and many times criticized corrupt “lily-white” politicians and others, (most recently Anthony Scaramucci), but this falls on deaf media ears because very little “color” is involved.  So all we hear these days is RACISM, RACISM, RACISM, just like RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, and STORMY, STORMY, STORMY, and on and on and on.  In nearly ever instance, Trump either prevails directly or through the legal system, notwithstanding the left’s sharpened pikes against him.

Presumably the “RACISM” issue will run its course and news cycle until the next anti-Trump item surfaces, and the mainstream media takes up a new chant, perhaps guns, or some other burning political/social issue.

Ray Gruszecki

August 12, 2019