Nickolas Silver
Aug 28, 2017 · 3 min read

CONTEMPT OF COUNTRY

Although nearly eight in ten republicans still support President Donald Trump, most sane people are at their wits’ end by now, sleepless with fear that the dubiously-elected POTUS might start a nuclear war when they’re not looking or that they might have to choose between #antifas and neonazis in the civil war office pool.

Most us sane people simply can’t understand why Trump still has squatting rights in the people’s house, that dump otherwise known as The White House. Hasn’t he done enough already to be evicted?! What’s taking so long? we wonder. The entirety of the American intel community agrees that Russia endeavored to tilt the election in Donny boy’s favor; there are numerous confirmed reports of contact between Kremlin apparatchiks and the Trump campaign; the unseemly charges included in the Steele dossier — the laundry list is long and tawdry. And, what of obstruction of justice charges? Trump tried on three separate occasions to get former FBI Director James Comey to drop the investigation into short-lived national security adviser Michael Flynn’s ties to Russia before firing him for failing to do so; like some foul scented orange candle, Don did a slow burn that part-time Keebler elf and full-time racist, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, recused himself from investigations into Russian meddling in the presidential election, thus leaving POTUS’ left ass cheek exposed to the wind; and, most recently, in the aftermath of the Joe Arpaio pardon, we learned that Trump pressured the elfin country lawyer to drop the case against the self styled toughest sheriff in America, a bigot who once proudly referred to Tent City, his makeshift outdoor jail ten minutes outside downtown Phoenix, as a concentration camp.

Although conservative pundits like Scott Jenkins and Alice Stewart assure us that this is all confined within the ken of the president’s executive privilege, pardoning Arpaio has raised the hackles of patriots on both the left and the right, as it represents an astonishing contempt for the judiciary and the rule of law and order. Kindly Sheriff Joe had been ordered by a federal court to stop racial profiling latinos in 2011. His impudent disobedience of the order led to his conviction for contempt in July; sentencing was to be in October.

Generally speaking, presidents grant pardons — typically at the end of their terms — only after consultation with Justice Department lawyers and when the proposed conferee has shown sufficient contrition. But, Trump consulted no one before granting pardon, and Arpaio has never sounded less than defiant; indeed, he’s made it clear that he’s prepared to help the divider-in-chief julienne the republic in ever more narrow strips.

The contempt here lies not just in Arpaio’s defiance of a court order, but, in a greater and far more pernicious sense, in a rogue president’s contempt for the very principles of governance he is supposed to embody.

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Nickolas Silver

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Twitter.com@royalviking04 Instagram.com@nickolas_silver16

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