Hit! Playing Battleship With the POTUS-Child
Reflections on Week Four
It comes down to this: Given our rogue administration’s increasingly authoritarian bent — its disregard for the rule of law, its steady delegitimization of the press and the judiciary, its disregard for institutional checks on its authority and its rapid consolidation of power — how will our constitutional system respond? Will our checks and balances be capable of checking what increasingly feels like a soft coup? Will a determined press be enough? Will the courts hold the line? Will popular outrage somehow carry the day? And what if they don’t? What if a disgraced administration simply refuses to relinquish power? How long before we have cause to recall Chairman Mao’s dictum that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun?”
For all those pinning their hopes on the administration’s Olympic incompetence, anticipating that magical ‘one outrage too many,’ this was, on the whole, not an encouraging week. Oh, there were outrages aplenty, but none seemed too many. The Mar-a-Lago fiasco came and went, taking its place atop the ever-growing pile of impossibles, and nothing really happened. By which I don’t mean that the resistance was quiet, just that it didn’t seem to matter.
In the few weeks since the inauguration, millions had rallied in the streets, organized community opposition nationwide, signed petitions, rattled their representatives’ cages, and the surreal circus rolled right on. Nothing seemed to slow its momentum. A vast segment of the American public, outraged by this gang of liars with their signature blend of aggressive cravenness, was standing up on its hind legs and saying ‘No, not in our name!’ and nothing happened. Facts were disregarded or declared fake, poll numbers ignored. Disastrous nominee after disastrous nominee — individuals so flawed they seemed part of some nihilistic joke — slouched into office, eager to swing the wrecking ball, and all we could do was watch.
It wasn’t easy. Hypocrisy is a particularly nauseating form of injustice to bear witness to, and here we were being treated to the spectacle of congressmen and senators who only a few months ago had been eager to jail Clinton for her careless use of a private e-mail server, entirely unbothered by the POTUS-child holding a NSC meeting in a room full of tourists with phones. And why should they care? They were getting what they wanted. You could see it in their faces: We’ll milk this cow for as long as we can, and when it falls over, we’ll switch the channel. Or we’ll gaslight our way out of it: ‘Can you believe those godless Democrats, palling around with Putin? Thank God we got here in time!’
What would it take? The nation seemed to seethe like a pot of water about to boil, but nothing happened.
And then it did. This past Tuesday, February 14th.
Think Battleship — that game you used to play as a kid. You fire, you miss, fire again, miss, fire a third time, miss. And then you hit. Flynn wasn’t the aircraft carrier, but he was something: a National Security Adviser forced to resign. That afternoon, sailing in like a valentine to the nation, came The New York Times report that members of Trump’s campaign staff had been in contact with senior Russian intelligence officers at the same time Russian intelligence was working to swing the election in Trump’s favor.
Who needed roses and chocolates when you could have this?
There’s blood in the water now — a big, fat drop, arterial red — and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t take it back. Of course they’ll spin it, lie — when have they not? — and listening to them will make you want to emigrate . . . to another planet. Still, spin or no spin, I’ll take it. If I can’t get the destroyer, I’ll take the PT Boat. It’s something. And so far, we’ve had nothing. I’ll take Andrew Puzder’s withdrawal — hit! — grateful that we have one less bastard to worry about thanks to smart, relentless organizing, and keep going.
This is what I believe: That we’ve taken a turn; that the battle for our democracy — and make no mistake, it is a battle — entered a new phase this week. How it will turn out, no one can say for sure; this is far from over. But this much seems clear: That the press is at long last doing its job.* That they’re refusing to be distracted by the POTUS-child’s latest trick or tweet and that they’re being aided by leaks from what’s known, in countries like Egypt, as the “deep state,” that is, the nation’s governing institutions, which find themselves in conflict with the nation’s leader.
This, too, seems clear: That the real battle now is between a rogue executive branch and the intelligence services, and it’s going to be both ferocious and beyond our control. The puppet-masters in the White House will try to hamstring the services before they’re able to deal the decisive blow, and the services will use every means at their disposal (and they have a great many) to make sure that blow hits home. Though I’d have thought one life was too short for me to find myself rooting for the CIA, I’ll confess the times have brought me to just that. As suspicious as I am of their role in a democratic society, as aware as I am of their occasionally criminal past, I despise our new leader with every fiber of my being, and because they increasingly seem to share my view, I welcome them to the fight. And man, are they motivated! Resignation in disgrace or impeachment will be acceptable, prison preferred: To quote Shakespeare’s Richard III, they’re not “in the giving vein.”
Our role in all this? If I’m reading it right, it’ll be to keep the pressure on Congress, particularly the Republican part of it, which has seemed content to play the role of the cowards that form circles around schoolyard fights, waiting to see who goes down first before piling on.
Our job is to make sure they understand that the POTUS-child is an anvil around their necks, and they can either cut themselves free now (Offer expires in ten days!), or go down with the ship.
* You want the truth — or at least a vivid example of what it means to fight for it? Read Charles Blow in The New York Times. Read The Washington Post. Read Dan Rather. Turn on the TV and listen to CNN or the entire line-up at MSNBC, from Chris Hayes to Brian Williams. You may not agree with everything you hear, but most of it will be rooted in demonstrable fact. It will be, generally speaking, fair.
Looking to do your part? One way to get involved is to read the Indivisible Guide, which is written by former congressional staffers and is loaded with best practices for making Congress listen. Or follow this publication, connect with us on Twitter, and join us on Facebook.
