On David Frum’s Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic
There’s an old Irish expression that says ‘Tis wise to know the tune the devil sings,” and on that advice — as far as was possible — I have sought to learn more about the views that are in opposition to my own, especially on something as transformative as the very strident opinions and often some very ‘fuzzy’ facts on which my fellow Americans in particular, have chosen sides in viewing our present situation, at-large, which in an article in The Nation, The Prodigal Frum, by Mark Oppenheimer; and encapsulated by Robert de Niro in these words, relating to his own take on the book:
“In the midst of all the Trump-fueled hysteria and Trump-related gossip, it’s a godsend to have David Frum lay out the case against Trump and his kleptocracy in this measured, insightful, and scrupulously researched book. He builds his argument with the precision of a prosecuting attorney, and writes about it in the riveting style of a thriller writer. This is an essential guide to the malevolent tragedy that is Trumpocracy.”
First, most everyone who pays any attention at all to this Administration’s interactions with the ‘outside world,’ knows that General Michael Flynn was “profoundly compromised” because he admitted to having falsified the record to the FBI; a situation which no doubt earned a more fortuitous ‘plea bargain,’ and his assuredness to speak truthfully in all further investigation relating to the interference of the Russians (to obfuscate, generally, to disperse intentional misinformation, and create discord, confusion, and — in particular — Distrust in our Justice Dept. and FBI and other Intelligence agencies among the American people, and the rest of the world, to the advantage of Russia and her allies and partners of convenience, and to the great disadvantage to the Constitutional system and the Rule of Law in the Democratice Republic of the United States, which is at her most perilously-fragile, ‘sliding center of gravity’ circumstance of so-called ‘governance’ in our Lifetime.
In his book, David Frum writes:
Kislyak, being no novice and no fool, would have conducted his conversation with Flynn by some modality he regarded as safe from American surveillance. In order to expose Flynn’s lie, the nine officials who talked to the Post also revealed to the Russians that the United States had cracked a link that Russian intelligence operatives had regarded as secure.
It had to be assumed that the Russian embassy would immediately alter its communications methods, denying the United States future information flows, at least for some period of time. To protect the United States from a compromised national security adviser, nine senior intelligence officials agreed to burn an important American national secret.
On the subject of Hillary Clinton’s liability for her having had no evidence of ‘criminal intent, in presuming (as a ‘non-technical’ user) that the same private server that her husband had used while he was in Office — and that had no evidence of its ever having been subject to a “hack” as there had been evidence that the server at the State Department had been — and that she had demonstrated no ‘intent to breach national security via her use of her husband’s private server.
Furthermore, the only instances of her having questionable dispersal or storage were more than justified through her explanations that the Classification of one of the document emails did NOT have the “C” notated in the Subject line, but was found to have had it in the body of the email, by the sender, in error.
In the case of the 30,000 email that were ‘lost’ (covering the period between her having served as Secretary of State and her serving her 6-year term in the Senate) through No Fault of her own — and copies of every one of those emails for both of those positions were Also to have been retained (as she had fastidiously sent copies, herself, to those respective Departments).
Director Comey rightfully concluded that there having been no evidence of ‘criminal intent,’ there would be no case to be brought under the Only set of facts similar to the controlling statute, no Court could find her Guilty. It’s a straight appliation of the law, ‘cut and dried.’
I strongly disagree with Brimelow. It is Not “surely impossible” to read the cozying-up to the Russians’ “tit for tat,” in sending Carter Page over to them with dispatch, in order to try to strike a deal in return, no doubt, for bargaomomg some sort of nefarious activities of DJT and his oligarchical consorts, (such as the large-scale ‘laundering of money or some other unlawful or immoral acts which the Russians may have had documented through other variations of ‘kompromat’ — which among other directives, is part and parcel of the ‘follow the money’ trail in this investigative drilling down in order to minimize, mitigate or eliminate their cynical and dastardly intervention in the Election cycle coming up again, at the end of this year and in 2020.
The pitiablly-unimaginative hardliners (not only Steven Miller in the WH and Peter King and Devin Nunes in the House) and presumably now, even John Kelly — an otherwise ‘straight arrow,’ who has evidently been ‘worn-down’ and psychologically ‘liminalized’ (as a frog in water, that’s ever so gradually fired up to the boil, so that by the time the frog realizes it’s boiling, it’s Too Late) poor man: although like one of those victims of the Stockholm Syndrome, I have hope that once he returns to his hearth and home at the end of this mission, (should he elect to see it through, he may also then gradually be brought back to a life ‘within normal limits.’
The fact of the matter is that the cunard ‘deep state’ is deep fiction, derived from a “reality-show” mentality, in which the plot is ‘the same old saws,’ revived in the telling only formulaically.
In truth, the most pitiful aspect is the focus on Darkness, Lies, Destruction and Death — very ‘low-hanging fruit — rather than the more Imaginative and Life-affirming prospects for Creativity, in the Light of Truth and Reason!
Extremists on both the Left of (what Should be thought of as “The Democratic Republicans”) and on the Right (of what Could be thought of, I suppose, as “The Tories,” are both more than Unhelpful and — frankly — are extremely Un-Imaginative!
If Dorothy L. Sayers (in The Mind of the Maker) and Madeleine L’Engle, and others are correct — as I believe they are — that we are most like ‘our Creator’ (as Thomas Jefferson took pains to make clear in the reference to the source from which are “Rights and Responsibilities” were derived:
“… We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — Declaration of Independence, 1776. …
Individual Liberty
Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood. — John Adams, 1765
Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness. — James Wilson, Of the Study of the Law in the United States, 1790
In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example . . . of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its history, and the most consoling presage of its happiness. — James Madison, Essays for the National Gazette, 1792
— From the website of The Bill of Rights Institute
When we are Creative, then, it would seem self-evident also that Creativity springs from the engine of Good-heartedness,’ and that the stoking of Hatred and Ill-will — and above all, the kinds of disruption made evident in the actions of the Trump Administration at every turn — a malignant Mistrust of one another and of our sacred Instututions that numberless soldiers and diplomats, and law-enforcement officers and first-responders, and in the sacrifices of all sorts by ordinary men and women every day— especially through the engagement of lawful enterprise in trade relationships and promisory bonds where “Trust” is also the ‘coin of the Realm’ generally — and the reliance in this Administration of relentlessly stoking up the Fear of the Unknown, and all other devices to cause confusion and Mistrust are Tragically, merely the ongoing engine of Death and Desstruction as a rule of Nature before men were Civilized. Trust in one another is the ‘reason for being’ for the Moral influences that underlie the Rule of Law and the ‘Social Contract’ we each enter into as we reach the age at which we are entitled to sign any other form of Contract) as a participant in a system which has been proved to be the greatest guarantor of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, for One and All!
