Étiquettes
Since Attorney General William Barr’s “summary” of the report by Robert Mueller was issued, there’s been a lot of hand-wringing among progressives about what went wrong, and a lot of gloating from conservatives, and of course, from Donald Trump himself, about how Trump has been “exonerated.” Sean Hannity has talked of taking down Trump accusers one by one; Trump has called his opponents treasonous and “evil.”
This is, quite simply, utter nonsense. First off, Barr’s memo is so brief and cryptic, so cherry-picking in its use of quotes, and so devoid of the broader context in which Mueller presumably placed those quotes, as to be next to useless. We don’t know how much corruption, if not collusion, Mueller discovered, or how many spin-off cases were forwarded to other prosecutors. We don’t know where the Southern District of New York investigations are now heading, or which members of the Trump inner circle are likely to face prosecution down the road as these other investigations gather steam. Until the full report, or at the very least a comprehensive summary, is released, which I have no doubt at some point will be the case, these questions remain open.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s say that all of these end up being legal dead-ends, and that none of the people closest to Trump end up being convicted of any crimes.
If such were the case, none of the horror of the Trump administration would be diminished in the slightest.
What makes Trump so bloody awful was never simply the possibility that he may have conspired with a foreign government in his pursuit of power. What makes Trump so awful is how he wields his power now that he has it.
Whether or not Vladimir Putin and Trump colluded, and whether or not the Russian government blackmailed candidate Trump, since taking office the president has, time and again, made it clear that he admires strong-men leaders and their ability to silence dissent, to break the free press, and to politicize the judiciary to go after opponents. Trump has shown admiration for (and even aspirations to imitate) the world’s most dictatorial leaders: from Putin to Xi Jinping, from Mohammed bin Salman to Kim Jong Un to Rodrigo Duterte. Even as he has taken a more confrontational approach to China as a geopolitical rival, he has made it clear that he approves of many of Xi’s methods – including his being essentially made leader for life by a recent Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. He likes leaders who are worshipped and who render dissent treasonous. He likes despots who are unafraid to play violent, dirty games, to preserve and expand their personal power. He is clearly working to be such a leader himself.
Trump has used his platform, the vast reach of his Twitter feed and the huge audiences that his presidential speeches command, to demonize immigrants, including refugees, asylum seekers, unaccompanied minors fleeing drug gangs, and those so poor they walk hundreds of miles, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, to find succor in the United States.
He has instituted a travel ban against residents from five majority-Muslim countries, as a result of which no Syrian or Yemeni refugees are being allowed into the country, effectively condemning huge numbers to death in the most violent war zones on earth, and in Syria in particular, he has made it clear that the U.S. doesn’t care how much life is sacrificed. Under Trump, the language of human rights is entirely off the table. Last year only 11 Syrian refugees were admitted into the United States. Not a single one was admitted from Yemen. This horrifying reality alone ought to be enough to shame any internationalist GOP politicians who, for opportunistic reasons, continue to hold their noses and go along with this administration’s nativism.
Trump’s bureaucracy has put the U.S. government in the business of kidnapping thousands of children from their immigrant parents. It has turned the border lands into a vast military encampment laced with concertina barbed wire. It has fetishized the creation of prison camps to lock up tens of thousands of migrants while their asylum claims are held; and it has, against both U.S. and international law, bottled up tens of thousands of additional asylum seekers in camps in Mexico.
Groupe Gaulliste Sceaux 