The White Frat House

In the whirlwind that is Trumpworld, with one jaw-dropping outrage after another, I keep thinking of Joe Welch’s 1954 live television interrogation of Senator Joe McCarthy. “Have you no sense of decency,” he asked. From the president’s tasteless speech to young scouts to his new communications director’s foul-mouthed phone call to Ryan Lizza, the Welch question just kept popping into my head again this past week. Most presidents would have withdrawn their appointment of “The Mooch” on the spot, but not the man who seems bent on robbing the highest office in the land of any decency or dignity. Some attribute this all to the New York way. I resent and dismiss that suggestion. Having lived there for the better part of my adult life, I know these crass con men to be shrill outliers. Moreover, even were this characterization true, it would be no excuse for their current behavior, for how they discredit our great, yes still great, country.
Among the hard to follow events of late, was a multi-day tweet attack on the Attorney General. Let’s weep for the office, but not for Jeff Sessions. It’s ironic, and a mark of his disloyal character, that Donald Trump has unleashed this vicious attack on perhaps the one man in the Justice Department who is most in his corner. Sessions didn’t tell the president that he would recuse himself, because the issue never crossed his mind. Only after he was outed for having neglected to disclose meetings with Russians was the already Attorney General forced to recuse himself. He had mentioned recusal during his confirmation hearings but regarding a hypothetical investigation of Hillary Clinton, not Trump. So, the accusation that the president made to New York Times reporters suggesting Sessions may have known before he accepted nomination or was confirmed has, big surprise, no basis in fact.
Jeff Sessions, the earliest Trump supporter there, was perhaps the senate’s most conservative member — more than Ted Cruz et al. He remained so to his last day and is certainly among most rightist Attorneys General in our history. Since taking office, he has been hard at work undoing any and all if the department’s forward-looking policies. Just a day after the President tweeted his decision to ban transgender members of the military, Justice gratuitously submitted an amicus brief challenging the coverage of gays under the Civil Rights Act. Such action conforms to Sessions’ life-long rightist ideology including opposing that landmark legislation.
I say don’t cry for Jeff Sessions, but that we all should for an independent Justice Department under siege. As former Deputy AG Sally Yates wrote in a recent Op-Ed, “The president is attempting to dismantle the rule of law, destroy the time-honored independence of the Justice Department, and undermine the career men and women who are devoted to seeking justice day in and day out, regardless of which political party is in power.” Seen along with his continued attack on a free press, it’s hard not to wonder about the administration’s agenda relative to democracy itself. Do we have our own Nickolas Maduro in the Oval Office?
And where is the opposition, where is the outrage, moral and otherwise? Aside from some tepid critical lip service, the Republicans seem totally okay with the goings on. Not one serious voice was raised asserting that a man like the Mooch had no place in the White House; none demanded that he be ousted. Mitch McConnell, with no legitimate proposal for improving our healthcare system, led the senate and the country through weeks of charade, claiming widespread public support when just the opposite — 12 % — is the case. Does he seriously think that his ridiculous claim adds credibility to the effort? Meanwhile, the Democrats who, in Nancy Reagan’s tradition, have spent the last six months just saying no, have unveiled a blueprint for going forward. Time for the pop quiz. Do you know what that initiative is called much less what it proposes? Let me take you out of your misery. An awkward lineup of usual suspect House and Senate leaders stood shoulder to shoulder in rural Virginia to roll out their inventively and inspiringly named “better deal”. It was a stilted milquetoast formalistic response when, to use a Biblical reference, an inconsumable burning bush call to action was required.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that 74 year old Joe Biden is seriously thinking of 2020 and, for sure Bernie (75) has similar thoughts and urgings. Very good men both, but neither is doing a service to a party that desperately needs new blood, leaders who can be expected to take us into the next decades and beyond. They also have to be women or men who have a real taste for the nitty gritty of politics. Barack Obama, whom I miss sorely not only every day but every moment, had no stomach for the required glad handing and we are paying a high price for that neglect. The better deal announcement was made in the “white working-class world”, an obvious appeal for Trump voters. But Democrats, once they have a more urgently compelling story and leader in place, had better spend serious early time rebuilding their and Obama’s natural constituency. Trump wasn’t elected by a majority of eligible voters, but Clinton was clearly defeated by those votes not cast by the party’s usual base, especially people of color. The kind of building, rebuilding, required has yet to start much less take hold. An avalanche of emails asking for contributions won’t cut it. People have to feel attracted and committed before they’re willing to shell out even the modest $10 requested.
The continuing saga of Washington, including the outrages of this past week, speak not for simple resistance no matter how heartfelt. We need purpose, a substantive goal grounded, among others, in a clear moral compass. We need to stop saying a predictable no — Nancy’s dictum didn’t end our drug problem — and start saying what we’re for and what we will do to address fundamental needs and real frustration. If the GOP’s dismal performance regarding healthcare tells us anything, we should understand that just saying no is a slippery path to failure. We and the country can’t afford that. Beyond all else, we need a sense of urgency because, rather than making America great, the White Frat House, is putting the nation in crisis. If it succeeds, we surely will have to share some of the blame.