The absolute lie that Republican Robert Mueller’s team — which has over 40 members — is composed entirely of Democrats may seem ridiculous. But so was Trump’s contention that Republican James Comey and the heavily Republican leadership of the FBI was all in for Hillary.
Trump’s series of attacks on Saturday evening and Sunday morning took time to attack McCabe.
And deliver a fresh swing at Comey based on statements made, where else, but on Fox and Friends.
And then tied them in to Mueller.
A section of the book How Democracies Die addresses what Trump is doing directly. In increasing their power, autocrats look for something that an opponent has done wrong — even if what that person has done was beneficial to the autocrat — and then use it to define that person as a crook and a liar. Repetition of “crooked Hillary” or “leaking Comey” or “lying McCabe” is meant to not just demean an opponent, but make anything they say in response easy to dismiss. If all your opposition is fixed in the mind of the public, or even part of the public, as criminal liars, then they’re crippled in their ability to impact the autocrat.
And if the autocrat can’t find any point on which to directly attack an opponent, they can always attack them for associating with criminal liars. For example, why would Robert Mueller staff his investigation with “big crooked Hillary supporters” and “hardened Democrats?” That the accusations are untrue doesn’t matter. All of Trump’s accusations are untrue.
But the direct attack on Robert Mueller’s investigation shows that Trump has cleared away one target and is ready to move on to the big prize. Equipped with the Republican memo drafted by Devin Nunes and blessed by Paul Ryan, Trump has the assurance that he can take any actions without reprisals on the part of Congress.
At this point, he appears to be looking at two outcomes, he can fire Mueller and face whatever results from that action, or he can wait for Mueller to submit his report and then face the results. If Mueller submits his report, Trump can likely count on Jefferson Sessions to sit on it as hard as possible, and he can count on Paul Ryan to ignore anything that leaks through. But there’s always the chance that a massive list of serious charges might actually encourage a few Republicans to pull their heads from the orange ass.
At the very least, Trump wants to position himself to fire Mueller. Just in case. And he’s not being very subtle about lining up the crosshairs.
.jpg)
Comments are closed on this story.