I will present to you a link that believe you should watch.
It is of Donald John Trump bidding us farewell as he prepares to leave Washington, D.C. His time as president of the United States is about over.
He speaks of the “triumphs” he scored during the past four years.
I’ll insist only that you watch it and I will just get out of the way. Spoiler alert: You won’t hear one name mentioned during his soliloquy … Joe Biden.
The farewell address makes a passing mention of the suffering from the pandemic and of the riot that Trump incited. Contrition? Personal responsibility? An apology for mistakes?
Donald John Trump didn’t get one when he became president.
My hope is that Trump’s successor, Joseph R. Biden Jr., is able to reap a benefit usually bestowed to shiny new presidents of the United States: a honeymoon period with Congress and with the public.
To be sure, President Biden will take office after arguably the bitterest, angriest and contention-filled election in U.S. history. He ran against a relentless liar to then, after losing the election, fomented the Big Lie — that the election wasn’t free and fair, that it was “rigged” by “widespread vote fraud.”
The Big Lie resulted in what occurred on the Sixth of January, the attack on our nation’s Capitol Building by terrorists egged on by Trump, who now awaits a trial in the Senate after the House impeached him a second time, this time on a charge of incitement of insurrection.
I know what you’re thinking: That is hardly a backdrop conducive to a honeymoon period for a new president.
I am going to remain hopeful nonetheless.
Joe Biden inherits a government in crisis. He will speak to us Wednesday about unification, about healing, about restoring our national soul. Yes, we have a killer pandemic that has killed 400,000 Americans. Our economy is in free fall. Our nation continues to struggle with deep divides among the races that comprise our diverse population.
Is a honeymoon even possible? I believe so. It could commence with an inaugural speech that tries to tamp down the fiery rhetoric that exploded after the election and culminated in the riot that sought to overturn the democratic process. President Biden’s success in seeking that unity will depend in large part on the receptiveness of Republicans, a majority of whom swallowed Trump’s Big Lie about the integrity of the election; tragically, many of those GOP Big Lie believers serve in Congress.
A new era is about to dawn over a capital still reeling from the terrorist onslaught. May it produce at least a glimmer of a honeymoon period with a new executive branch team working with the legislative branch in searching for a way out of the mess the predecessors left behind.
As we Americans have come to learn to our dismay Donald Trump was anything but a “normal” president of the United States.
He led a chaotic, corrupt, incoherent administration. He governed that way and is governing that way to the very end of his tenure.
I never, ever thought I would say this but I am looking forward in just two days to the start of a “normal” presidential administration led by a man who knows how to govern, knows how government works and is capable of taking the time to learn what he doesn’t know already.
President Biden likely won’t set the world afire with soaring rhetoric. He pledges to seek unity as he takes the reins of power. He will take his oath of office on Wednesday and will start the unification process immediately.
He won’t blast out an incessant stream of Twitter messages. He won’t demand Cabinet officials demonstrate undying loyalty to him. Biden won’t pit Americans against each other, or pit this country against our neighbors to the north and south of us.
I doubt seriously we’re going to hear President Biden declare, if we are faced with the kind of violence we saw in 2017 when Klansmen and Nazis were lifted to the same moral equivalence as the people who were protesting against them.
No, all he’s going to do is govern the way presidents of the United States traditionally have governed. That he is succeeding an individual who never grasped the principle of compromise or ever understood the complexities of governing with two other co-equal branches of government only heightens the anxiousness many of us feel as return to a “normal” president.
These past four years have seemed like a lifetime to many of us who like following the twists and turns of government.
Speaking metaphorically, it is clear that Donald John Trump is being dragged kicking and screaming from the presidency he liked to claim as his very own.
He isn’t leaving quietly, or peacefully, or like anything approaching a gentlemanly manner. He will jet off Wednesday morning to Florida. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will take their oaths. The nation will turn an important page.
But … here’s the deal. We’re going to keep talking about Trump. Bloggers such as me will keep writing about him, at least for as long as he is standing trial in the U.S. Senate — for the second time! After that? It’s anyone’s guess. It will depend, I suppose on whether the Senate convicts him of incitement of insurrection and then determines he shouldn’t ever seek public office.
Regardless of what the Senate decides, I feel confident in suggesting that Donald Trump’s political career is over. The Capitol Hill riot and Trump’s exhortation of the terrorists has guaranteed Trump’s political demise.
President Biden has an ambitious agenda awaiting him. He will put his signature on a number of executive orders out of the chute. The president will seek to turn the corner quickly on that killer pandemic. He wants to jump-start an economy that has been crippled by the virus.
Many of us, though, will keep talking about Donald Trump. He will command our attention in ways that no one in their right minds desires.
One measure of success for President Biden might make itself known the moment we no longer are thinking consciously about Trump. I await that moment in time. I am anxious for a time when Donald Trump simply disappears from public view.
That day will arrive. Eventually. I want it to arrive much sooner than later. Take my word for this notion, too, which is that I take no pleasure in commenting negatively on Donald Trump. Critics of this blog believe I relish it. I do not. I want to move on and I intend to move on at the appropriate time.
When will we know when Trump drops off our screen? I cannot describe how it will be made evident. We’ll all just know it happens when it does.
Yes, that’s right! He managed to elevate one lie above all the thousands of other lies he told during his term as president. I will call it The Big Lie that incited the terrorists to storm into the Capitol Building on Jan. 6; they sought to stop the counting of Electoral College votes that produced Joe Biden’s election as president.
The terrorists sought to do physical harm to the speaker of the House and the vice president of the United States, for God’s sake!
The Big Lie that Trump fomented was that the 2020 election was “stolen,” that Biden got elected on the basis of “widespread voter fraud.”
Well, we saw the result of how terrorists react to The Big Lie. They presumed the worst even though there isn’t a shred of evidence to support The Big Lie.
Trump has gone silent in the final few days of his term in office. That means he isn’t lying. The Washington Post tabulated a running count of Trump’s lies. The last I heard the Post had counted more than 30,000 of them.
This one, though, is an epic lie. It’s even more critical of a lie than Trump’s previous Big Lie, which was that President Obama wasn’t constitutionally qualified to run for the presidency because of his place of birth. The former Big Lie didn’t result in the violence that the voter fraud lie produced.
So that lie stands as the winner of the unofficial title as The Big Lie. It is one for the history books. I didn’t think it was possible for Donald Trump to lift one lie above all the mess of lies he told.
Millions of us are aware of all the norm-busting practices of Donald Trump’s administration, starting with Trump’s refusal to receive “daily presidential briefings” aimed at alerting him to national security needs and potential crises.
Here’s another norm that needs shattering into a million little pieces. Former presidents often are given national security briefings from their successors. Donald Trump should not get anything of the sort from President Biden’s administration.
Trump has demonstrated repeatedly, through his reckless use of Twitter — prior to it being yanked — to say things that could jeopardize our national security. He had that infamous meeting in the Oval Office with Russian visitors and blabbed about security issues relating to Israel’s defense posture.
I have noted several times that Trump is unfit to be president. He’s only got two days left before he hightails it to Florida. He will stand trial in the U.S. Senate for the second time. This allegation deals with incitement of insurrection.
Does this clown need to know the nation’s top secrets once he becomes a private citizen? Not a chance!
Giving former presidents intelligence briefings is not a requirement. It has been a common practice. Former presidents at times are given those briefings to alert them of what might lie ahead and also to solicit advice on how they might handle a situation that could arise.
U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Trump is untrustworthy and must not be allowed access to anything regarding national security.
I could not agree more. Keep this individual as far out of the loop as one possibly can do.
It occurs to me that I owe Donald John Trump a debt of thanks.
Not a huge debt, but one nevertheless that compels me to mention it here. So I will.
Trump will be president for just two more days. He has for more than four years given High Plains Blogger ample grist on which to comment. For that, I am saying “thank you” to Donald Trump.
I’ll be candid. Once we get past this man’s shenanigans and chicanery I might find myself hard-pressed to keep the blog going at the pace it has kept up during Trump’s term in office. I will do my level best.
To be sure, I am not done with Trump just yer. He will be out of office, but he will undergo that Senate trial after being impeached by the House for the second time. That in itself is a record. What’s more, he is set to issue more pardons on his last full day in office; that will occur Tuesday, reportedly, and my gut tells me we will get to witness in real time once again this individual’s venality.
I have chronicled fairly thoroughly over the course of his first campaign for the president, during the Trump presidency and his failed bid for re-election why I believe he is profoundly unfit for public office of any sort … let alone for president of the United States.
This blog features commentary on public policy and politics. Therefore, it is imperative that I maintain that focus given that Trump occupied the most visible and revered office in the land. He will surrender that office to Joseph R. Biden Jr. in just two days (thank God in heaven!).
At one level I look forward to commenting on policies put forth by the new president. I also am going to miss — maybe for just a little while — the opportunity to spill my guts over the idiocy, lunacy, chaos, confusion and controversy that Trump relishes.
I hope to get past my Trump-dumping soon.
Donald Trump issued many new eras into the American political scene. One of them is how his presence poisoned so many relationships among Americans. I regret that differences of opinion over Trump’s conduct have ruined some of my friendships. I am happy to report, though, that many longtime friendships have survived the tumult.
I am even happier to report that I still love my family members who voted for Trump and who stuck with him through it all; I hope they still love me. I’ll have to ask them.
So, with that I am looking forward to heralding in a new era. It’s all yours, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
As for Donald Trump, thank you, Mr. President, for giving me so much material with which to work.
So help me I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
The New Yorker magazine today released a video from the Jan. 6 invasion of Capitol Hill by the horde of terrorists. It sent chills up my back; it made the hair seemingly stand up. Videos such as this provide ample and graphic evidence of what Donald Trump incited that morning while exhorting the crowd gathered in front of him.
Oh, and then we had Don Trump Jr. saying something like “coming after you” those who don’t turn from “zeroes to heroes” and Rudy Giuliani calling for “trial by combat.”
It just gets more repulsive daily, it seems, as video after video surfaces to show the world — yes, the entire planet — what kind of moron this nation saw fit to elect as its president four years ago.
The latest video shows terrorists busting through windows at the Capitol Building. They are marching under Old Glory, wearing those hideous MAGA hats, yelling “Where’s f***ing Nancy (Pelosi)!” They chant “Hang Mike Pence!” The video shows rioters pulling a police officer into the crowd and beating him within an inch of his life with flagpoles.
And they scream “USA, USA, USA!” while attacking the very seat of our national government!
How in the name of decency does any of this make any godd*** sense?
The House impeached Trump one week later. He now will stand trial in the Senate. Trump will be out of office. Following true to form Trump said his conduct was proper. He takes no responsibility for the “incitement of insurrection” that he clearly and without any serious question is guilty of committing.
A Senate conviction won’t remove him from office. It can bar him from ever seeking public office again. That punishment would be good enough for me, even though I preferred a conviction during the first impeachment a year ago would have prevented all of this tragedy from unfolding in the first place.
Three days to go before President Biden takes the reins.
Here is a request that in reality isn’t as modest as it might appear.
I direct it to President-elect Joe Biden. It goes like this:
Please refrain from the personal possessive pronoun when referring to our government, the team you assemble to work with you in the executive branch of government.
Donald Trump was fond of referring to “my generals,” and “my attorney general,” and “my Cabinet.” To be candid, President Barack Obama did it, too, and it annoyed me even then as I generally supported the policies that Obama espoused. President Obama would refer to Vice President Biden routinely as, um, “my vice president.”
The Cabinet does not belong to the president. Nor do the generals and admirals who wear our nation’s military uniform. The Justice Department is our DOJ, and does not belong to the president. Nor do any members of the Cabinet or senior staff members who comprise the presidential leadership team.
I get the perception we all had that, for example, the attorney general too often covered the president’s backside. For instance, AG William Barr infamously reported falsely the findings that special counsel Robert Mueller released regarding his lengthy and exhaustive probe into the Russian collusion matter.
Trump himself would talk to us about what “my generals” were preparing to do enemies of the nation.
My message to President-elect Biden is a simple one. Don’t take personal possession of the government. It ain’t his. It’s our government. In fact, the new president needs to understand something that the lame-duck president never got … that in a representative democracy such as ours, we are the bosses.
If you could list all the key policy issues that went ignored by the Trump administration, you could say that human rights was arguably the most critical unattended issue of them all.
You see, Donald Trump once called North Korean murderer/despot/tyrant Kim Jong Un a “smart cookie” and professed to “falling in love” with the Marxist madman. Trump’s fealty to Russian strongman Vladimir Putin has been chronicled on this blog countless times. Indeed, he has given a pass to the conduct of despots all around the world, from Saudi Arabia to Turkey to the Philippines.
So … with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris set to take office in four days it is good insist that they return human rights advocacy to the top of their agenda.
President-elect Biden has heralded the return of the United States to the family of nations, by re-engaging in international treaties and pacts to stem climate change, to fight international pandemics and to prevent rogue nations — such as Iran — from obtaining nuclear weapons.
It is imperative that as president, Biden insists that all nations work toward adhering to basic principles of decency and humanity when governing their own citizens.
Donald Trump never spoke to the nation about those issues in a forthright and authentic manner. He was too busy taking undeserved credit for matters that had nothing at all to do with advancing human rights abroad, let alone at home.
Human rights has been the linchpin of many previous presidential administrations. It is time to restore the issue to the place of prominence at the White House … where it belongs.
Joe Biden has pledged to restore our national “soul.” He contended during the campaign that Trump had inflicted heavy damage on our image abroad, if not at home as well. The quest for adhering to human rights issues should become paramount as part of President Biden’s soul-restoration project.
The first place he can start is by ending the coddling of murderous dictators that infected Donald Trump’s foreign policy.
