“Say, that’s a nice Senate you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.”
Don Trumpleone The Gobfather (2017)
As Monty Python used to say, “And now for something completely different”. And this is different my friends. Over the last 7 months, we have by necessity become used to a lot of goofy shit from this White House, in some cases we have become dangerously inured to it, but this feels different. Is it possible that the fatal breach could occur before the kids even get back to school?
Trump is a small, mean, petty pocket tyrant. He got elected on the premise that he wold run the United States government like his business. The Problem is that Trump never ran his organization like a business. He ran his business like Manuel Noriega ran Panama, except that Manuel Noriega never ran the Panama Canal into bankruptcy. Trump ran his business like a pocket dictator, and he has brought all of the attendant intrigue, intrigue, back door dealing, fear, and intimidation to the White House and administration that he could pack into one of his Trump branded, Bangladeshi made schlock steamer trunks.
I told Teri last night that right now Trump is a wounded grizzly. He is backed into a corner, and he will swing his claws wildly at any movement to try to save himself. There’s one major problem with that form of self defense, all that swinging eventually tires you out, and you start to make mistakes.
We have deluded ourselves for over two years that every time His Lowness opens his mouth and says something so outrageously stupid that it can hardly be typed with a straight face, that he has forded some mythical political Rubicon, in a boat with more holes than a wheel of Swiss cheese. In other words, he’s sunk. And now only has he survived, his thoroughly kowtowed congress has meekly defended him. But this time it just feels different, and for one good reason.
They don’t call the US Senate “The Boys Club” for nuffin. They consider themselves an exalted group, the “adults in the room”, and they stick together. Up until now, they have meekly submitted to Trump’s frequent tongue lashings and blandishments because he has attacked them as a group. But this time, at least at this early stage, he may have stepped over a line.
Jeff Sessions is a 20 year veteran of the US Senate, with all of the privileges that entitles him to. Up until now, members of both chambers of congress have responded to Trump’s offensive buffoonery in the same way. With a sad shake of the head, like a parent looking at a young child that missed the bowl again, and bland excuses like “Well, he’s new at this, but he’s trying, although I wish he’d work a little harder at it”. They will not defend him, but they will not damn him either.
Not this time. With his incessant public humiliation of Sessions, Trump has finally touched a nerve. Not only are Senators not defending Trump for these attacks, GOP Senators are overtly threatening their own President with dire consequences if he takes final action against Sessions. I noted the absolute absurdity of this in an earlier diary, only Trump could manage to turn a vicious, racist asshole like Jeff Sessions into a sympathetic figure. But it just feels like we have reached a breaking point.
Never before has either chamber of congress, or pretty much anybody else publicly and emphatically threatened The Orange Julius with direct consequences for one of his actions. Chuck freakin’ Grassley even put Trump on notice in the one way Trump is certain to hear it, by Twitter, telling him he could forget about getting another Attorney General confirmed this year if he cans Sessions, or Sessions quits under pressure. GOP Senators are rallying to Sessions in a way they have never rallied to Trump, and I don’t think that has gone by him unnoticed. Trump may have finally overreached.
Trump’s apparent political ignorance, and even worse indifference, has placed him in serious danger here. The GOP Senate isn’t just rallying around KKKeebler the Elf because he’s such a lion of the chamber. Trump may not have noticed, but Sessions is not the same as him, Sessions is actually a severe, hard right wing conservative, and more importantly, he is pretty much the only one in the administration that is actually following through on the conservative agenda Trump espoused. He is gleefully trying to roll back civil and voting rights, he is taking on sanctuary cities, he is pushing ICE to round up anyone darker than George Hamilton. He should be having East Room ceremonies in his honor, not shit being dumped on his head.
The ball is now in Trump’s court. What does he do now? To borrow a line from Kenny Rodgers, Trump has gotten this far by instinctively “know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em”. Trump never backs down, he hits back harder, remember? Will his ego allow him to back down just because a bunch of puny Senators dare to defy him? But does he take the political risk of following through and firing Sessions, or belittling him so much that the Senate believes he forced his resignation? Does he force a confrontation with one of the only groups that can stand up to him just to keep his persona intact?
And if he does dispatch with Sessions, does the GOP Senate stay true to its word, or do they fold like a poker player with a pair of noting? Personally, I believe they’ll stand solid on this one. Trump has belittled them too, first as a group, and now as individuals, like Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake, and Dean Heller. He is forcing them to cast their votes in stone on a healthcare vote that is basically political suicide for them. In a word, they’re getting sick of his shit. Even if he doesn’t get rid of Sessions before the delayed Senate recess, I don’t find it beyond the realm of possibility that McConnell wouldn’t pull the same parliamentary trick he pulled with Obama and not let the Senate be considered on official recess, just to prevent Trump from a recess appointment. I think McConnell wants to teach Hair Furor a lesson that every other President has learned one way or the other, you don’t change Washington, Washington changes you.
The public spanking of El Presidente Pendejo has already started even before the Sessions debacle. The GOP led congress has passed new Russia sanctions that will hamstring his ability to remove sanctions without their approval. And he will sign the bill, or suffer the indignity of having it rammed down his throat with a veto override by his own congress. The indignity of his first major signed piece of legislation being a bill that ties his hands on Russia will sting, and it will sting for a long time.
I owned a house once, and I know how it goes. Once you see a crack in the foundation, you can cosmetically fix it by slapping some plaster over it, but the crack is still there, it’s not fixed, only covered up. And sooner or later, you’re back down in the basement with the plaster, cuz the crack just keeps getting bigger. The only question is does Trump add another floor to the house, and worsen the crack until he risks the foundation crumbling, or does he just slap the plaster on and hope nobody notices.
In this case, it really doesn’t matter which path Trump chooses, the crack is already there. Even if he backs off on Sessions, congress has won. They have already chastised him with the Russia sanctions bill, and they will either chastise him harder if he fires Sessions, or they will confirm his weakness if he backs off. Just like the Russians, they now know his weakness, and they have it held right over his stupid, orange tufted head. And just like any kid who got all the way around the block without falling off of his bike, they’re gonna want to take that sucker out for another spin before dinner. Trump is no longer giving the congress orders, they’ll do what they want. And in doing so, they’ll find out in about 15 months just how big of a factor the Trump “base” really is, because Trump is not going to go down without a fight. And whatever the end result of 2018 is, it will emphatically shift the dynamic for the whole 2020 campaign, on both sides. Don’t touch that dial.