The Sinatra Farewell

I know I said I was taking a break but, FAKE NEWS, and if it’s good enough for Sinatra to say goodbye more than once, it’s good enough for me. Charlottesville, Virginia has intervened and I feel obliged to write a few words. I have visited this small, university town, close to Thomas Jefferson’s ‘Monticello’ home. TJ founded the university. Now, TJ was a slave-holder but I doubt he would have defended Nazism.

The events of last week will remain shocking for many a year. Two things occur to me. I see no reason to tear down statues. The American Civil War is a fact of life and the statues do not honour so much the causes espoused by the likes of Robert E. Lee but their places in history. However, I see every reason to arrest those on the right who came armed to demonstrate, armed with assault rifles and the like. How can this be part of an allegedly peaceful demonstration? The right wing protesters had no intention of keeping the peace. And what, may I ask, caused the police to stand by and watch the mayhem that ensued?

The President, true to himself and his tradition, managed to say the wrong things and upset everyone. How can Nazism or the KKK play any respectable part in American life? In an effort to balance the situation, Trump equated the Nazis with left wing sympathisers. Go ask Bernie Sanders and his followers if they agree. Trump’s posturing was ill-reasoned and disgusting.

However, I say to those who would have Trump removed from office, show me the diminishing support in his political base after Charlottesville. There is no evidence of white, right wing voters walking away from him. Indeed, his followers continue to lap up what he says! Far more important, where are the 67 US Senate votes needed to convict on impeachment. By my count, the President is safe by more than 10 votes. Daily, I receive or am referred to a plethora of anti-Trump articles but no one can jump this final hurdle. The vipers’ nest that is Congress has no interest in an impeachment route, at least for now.

This is not to say Trump has no serious problems on the horizon. So far, Congress has been his main adversary. The Budget is not agreed, nor is a Continuing Resolution, thus the much vaunted tax cuts are not available. The infrastructure works are stuck in Congress, as are changes to healthcare law. There is no sign of a resolution of the North Korean crisis.

Soon the President will be caught in a pincer movement when the other government branch, the Supreme Court, makes its power felt. In the new term, cases relating to partisan gerrymandering, the Muslim ban executive orders, gay rights and religious liberties are scheduled to be heard, all of which will impact on the Presidency. If the decisions are adverse to Republican interests, I doubt Trump will be able to contain his bile, in which event he will open himself up to serious charges of abuse of the Judiciary.

Justice Bader Ginsburg says the gerrymandering case is perhaps the most important of the term. The question is whether there are constitutional limits to gerrymandering, the practice of drawing district lines to maximise one party’s chances of electoral success. Both parties indulge in what I suspect are illegal practices. With the mid-terms looming, the ruling will be crucial.

In the dispute over Donald Trump’s executive order halting the refugee program and freezing travel from several Muslim-majority nations, the plaintiffs allege the unprecedented ban on the entry of millions of foreign nationals has no basis in national security and is fuelled by unconstitutional prejudice toward Muslims. Several district courts and two appeals courts blocked the order. A Trump loss will be another severe blow to Presidential powers, especially as Trump has based his argument on national security and safety.

Over the past century, the Supremes have not shirked when it was time to be a thorn in the side of the Executive. It lashed Roosevelt’s New Deal program to bits, requiring the Executive to pass a Second New Deal into law. Eisenhower did not oppose black civil rights but he wanted to deflect them. He argued: “You can’t change people’s minds by legislation.” The Warren Court didn’t agree. The landmark 1954 ruling in Brown v Board of Education not only ended lawful segregation in public schools but was the harbinger of black civil rights change in many areas of American society. Recently, the Court split 4-4 on immigration issues, putting President Obama's deferred deportation plan on hold.

My point is that there are three power centres in Washington. The President has found he is not all powerful. Congress has already given him a bloody nose. I suspect the Supreme Court will deliver a right hook. But at the end of the day, if the mainstream media is right that people want to see the rear end of this bigoted, opinionated, misogynistic, racist, sexist, linguistically challenged man kicked out of the White House, it won’t happen unless a significant number of US Senators in his own Party believe there will be a massive loss in the 2018 mid-terms. This is politics at the coal face.

 

Have a good rest of the summer. I plan to be back in mid-September when politics will not only relate to Mr Trump.