Day 883: Warmongering, humanitarian crises, credible threats of rape against a sitting president: US cedes moral high ground
For generations, the world has looked to the United States on issues of morality. While never perfect, the U.S. has tried to be a leader on freedom, democracy and a host of similar issues.
Most recently, the grasp became tenuous amid lies leading to the invasion of Iraq and a nearly two decade stay in Afghanistan. While Barack Obama tried to reinstill those values from a place of leadership during his tenure, Donald Trump has quickly erased them all and more.
One example was late Thursday when the U.S. nearly engaged Iran in airstrikes before calling off the attack at the last minute. Trump seemed to indicate just how chaotic the situation was despite the absence of any real emergency.
Trump’s tweets are an unbelievable amount of garbage — such as the fact that the deal Trump ripped up was working by all accounts or Trump blatantly ignoring the fact that the U.S. repaid Iran money it owed Tehran for decades as part of the deal — but there is at least one terrifying tidbit that Trump revealed: he didn’t understand the gravity of the strike, including the loss of life, until “10 minutes before the strike.”
This is an admission that Trump failed to consider the ramifications of a strike until minutes before it was set to begin. He had already given the approval to set it in motion. He was quite literally acting first and thinking second with no real understanding that a strike would substantially escalate tensions between the U.S. and Iran.
The U.S. — specifically Trump and his advisers — began this entire scenario by withdrawing the U.S. from a nuclear deal that was not only working, but was signed on to by China, France, Russia, the U.K., Germany and the E.U.
For his part, Trump was satisfied with his own performance in nearly bringing the U.S. into yet another war.
While all that was going on, the U.S. continues to engage in deplorable policy as it relates to migrants in detention camps. Just a day ago, Trump’s administration argued that there is no obligation to provide soap and other hygiene supplies to detainees while they are packed in like sardines.
Somehow even worse than that, children — some of them preteens — are being forced to look after and care for toddlers.
“I did talk to kids who were taking care of very tender age children themselves. There doesn’t appear to be child care there,” Long said, describing the Clint facility. “They’re left to fend for themselves. Older kids are taking care of the babies.”
There is a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, largely due to Trump’s policies, and the answer from the administration has been to shrug and pretend everything is fine. That’s true even as the death toll mounts for those in border patrol custody.
Finally, a journalist, E. Jean Carroll, credibly accused Trump of raping her in the mid-1990s in a lengthy piece for New York Magazine.
The moment the dressing-room door is closed, he lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips. I am so shocked I shove him back and start laughing again. He seizes both my arms and pushes me up against the wall a second time, and, as I become aware of how large he is, he holds me against the wall with his shoulder and jams his hand under my coat dress and pulls down my tights.
I am astonished by what I’m about to write: I keep laughing. The next moment, still wearing correct business attire, shirt, tie, suit jacket, overcoat, he opens the overcoat, unzips his pants, and, forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me. It turns into a colossal struggle. I am wearing a pair of sturdy black patent-leather four-inch Barneys high heels, which puts my height around six-one, and I try to stomp his foot. I try to push him off with my one free hand — for some reason, I keep holding my purse with the other — and I finally get a knee up high enough to push him out and off and I turn, open the door, and run out of the dressing room.
Trump has already been accused of sexual misconduct by at least 16 other women.
With all of this going on — warmongering, prison camps with children living in squalor, credible accusations of rape against a sitting president — those in power have largely ceded that power and remained silent.
Republicans, by and large, are too afraid of their next election to utter a single thing beyond expressing general concern about various issues. They invoke the names of Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton to try and throw reporters off the scent. They run and hide from questions. When cornered and pushed, they defend and excuse Trump because they feel they must protect the GOP. Meanwhile, they ignore the nation.
For their part, Democrats haven’t been much better. While they frequently lambaste Trump and his policies, they continue to be walked all over by the Trump administration, who ignore the law, subpoenas and every norm in the book. Democrats seem to believe civility and sanity will seize the day on its own while extending deadlines and courtesies. The Robert Mueller report was published over two months ago and Democrats are still publicly and privately hemming and hawing about what to do with pretty clear obstruction of justice issues by Trump. They have ignored emoluments clause concerns and have failed to produce Trump’s tax returns after six months in power.
Things are currently rotten inside and out, and it predominately starts with Donald Trump. He is the one common thread between all these dire issues, political and personal. And every day, the U.S. cedes more and more morality and stains everything the nation once stood for.
883 days in, 579 to go
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