Among the outrages committed by Trump during his 4 year infestation of the WH is the damage he did to the US’s global standing.  Not only did he turn against centuries-long alliances and quit global cooperation (the WHO, Paris Climate Accord, Iranian nuclear deal), he ceded global trade positions to China.  Oh, he talked tough and launched a disastrous trade war, but the real damage he did was allowing China to get a giant leg up on global trade, diplomacy, and even defense.   When Trump was boasting about his “America First” policy, other countries were moving into the vacuum and moving quickly.  After a smaller increase last year due to the pandemic, China announced today an increase in its defense budget of 6.8% as it modernizes and increases its military capabilities.  Xi Jinping, facing no real political opposition, has jumped into the void created by Trump’s bungling cementing not only China’s dominance, but also his own.

Xi saw Trump’s bungling as an opportunity for China, and he took it.  He let Trump think he did the “biggest deal ever”, when, in fact, he pantsed him in front of the entire world, and the only people who didn’t see it were MAGHats and Lindsey Graham.  His trade war and “deal” with China used his crack negotiating skills – he gave China everything it wanted.  The Brookings Institute put it best just before the 2020 election:

“Despite Trump’s claim that “trade wars are good, and easy to win,” the ultimate results of the phase one trade deal between China and the United States — and the trade war that preceded it — have significantly hurt the American economy without solving the underlying economic concerns that the trade war was meant to resolve. The effects of the trade war go beyond economics, though. Trump’s prioritization on the trade deal and de-prioritization of all other dimensions of the relationship produced a more permissive environment for China to advance its interests abroad and oppress its own people at home, secure in the knowledge that American responses would be muted by a president who was reluctant to risk losing the deal.”

Trump’s paper tiger presidency allowed bad actors like Iran, Russian, and China to actually do the opposite of what he boasted would happen.  These countries, without the vigilance of the allies lead by the US to hold them to account, increased their global dominance.  Russia has expanded its cyber operations targeting all global democracies, China stepped into the void to dominate Pacific trade, and Iran is once again expanding its nuclear capability.  Worse, our own allies have backed away from us, and Biden’s aggressive re-engagement has not calmed fears about who the US will elect in 2024 and simply return to Trumpism.  This problem is not going away any time soon, especially with a Senate that can’t even pass a bill that will provide some relief to our long haul misery caused by Trump’s incompetence that was magnified by politicians terrified of his violent supporters.  Remarkably, it seems that Trump’s greatest accomplishment was creating an environment in the US toxic enough to enable domestic terrorism to rise from the shadows out into the light of day for the entire world to witness.  Domestic terrorists espousing fascist ideology and violence doesn’t give our allies confidence in our long term viability and most certainly takes away our moral authority as the biggest proponent of democracy around the world.

The damage Trump did will be long lasting and far reaching.  Republicans, trying to protect their own hides, refuse to acknowledge the problem, and this problem can’t be fixed with more executive orders and the efforts of only one party.  I’m not hopeful.

Note:  Yesterday, I dubbed him Cancun Ted, but social media’s name, Fled Cruz, is better and seems to be sticking, so what the hell, I’m going to use that, too.

Politico is reporting this morning that the quaint tradition of shaming misbehaving politicians seems to be returning.  That’s pretty much amazing coming out of the last 5 years of Donald Trump’s malfeasance and immorality out in plain sight.  When caught at something awful (kids in cages, bribing porn stars, screwing porn stars, extorting foreign leaders, inciting insurrection, etc, etc.) Trump would just say, “Hell, yeah, I did it, and there’s nothing you can do about it.  Up yours.”  He did it repeatedly, numbing many Americans’ sensitivities, and pleasing the hell out of millions of his supporters who cheered him on.

Well, with the Felon in Chief back at Mar a Lago beating the crap out of the little white ball all day, things are changing, if only a bit.  You’re already up to speed with Fled Cruz’s stupidity in taking the family to Cancun in a trip conjured up by his wife.  Characteristically, he lied that it was his daughters and their friends who wanted to go, then lied again to cover that up, lied again to cover up that lie, and then finally came clean.  Texans, normally very tolerant of Republican malfeasance and gross negligence, weren’t that tolerant this time, and I would posit that when his supporters are the ones suffering and not just the little people who don’t count 99% of the time, they get narrow minded.

Cruz is getting crucified on every social media platform.  The memes are just writing themselves, and if his arrogance wasn’t so perpetually galling, this whole episode would be funny.  This time, though, when people are freezing in the dark, bodies are now being discovered, and millions still don’t have power, water, or both, he’s actually paying a price for acting like a dumbass.

This is what happens when you elect people who don’t believe in government to manage your government.  Three of our four most visible politicians in Texas have made fools out of themselves this week.  Abbott blamed the nonexistent Green New Deal for gas fired power plants shutting down. Rick Perry crawled out from under his rock to stupidly assert that Texans would rather freeze in the dark rather than be subject to big, bad, federal regulation.  And then there’s Fled Cruz, who was doing Jack Shit sitting around his house while other politicians were out working the phones assisting with food and water distribution and checking on senior citizens.  The only one of these four, John Cornyn, while being virtually invisible, at least didn’t show is ass to the entire world.

We’ve talked about it before.  What we’re seeing here is the logical result of failed Libertarian ideology.  Libertarianism doesn’t work, has never worked, and never will work.  Period.  Yet we continue to elect politicians who spout Libertarian nonsense and make policy around it.  That’s how you get public policy that establishes voluntary compliance with clean air and clean water regulations.  That’s how you get the PUC to establish voluntary weatherproofing and maintenance requirements for power generators.  Voluntary standards for industrial safety and health are just as stupid as the SCOTUS actually saying that money equals speech and that money doesn’t corrupt when it destroyed limits on political spending in its idiotic Citizens United ruling in 2010.

Perhaps we’re finally turning the corner here on response to malfeasance.  I’m not all rainbows and unicorns here, but we had moved so far away from those quaint times when politicians like Gary Hart and Al Franken had their careers completely destroyed for really obscure and/or overblown misbehavior that a return to shaming that works is a breath of fresh air.  As we’ve said before, Fled Cruz, doesn’t care if you live or die.  He doesn’t give a shit about doing his job as a US Senator.  He doesn’t even believe in a federal government.  He didn’t give one single thought to how it looked for him to jet off to Cancun during a power crisis where people are actually dying.  The ONLY reason he came back to Houston was that social media blew up when pictures of him on a United flight exploded on millions of feeds on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.  When it hit mainstream media, even his tin ear could hear it.  That’s when he scampered back to Houston lying all the way.

Maybe we do have a light at the end of the tunnel, but we’ve got a long way to go.

As JJ talked about on Saturday, Moscow Mitch voted along with 42 other Republicans to acquit Trump, which was expected.  What wasn’t expected was that after the vote, he got up in front of national television and then excoriated Trump for his incitement of the crowd to insurrection and even said that he could be prosecuted by state and federal authorities.  He also said that it was unconstitutional for the Senate to try him, since he’s already out of office.  Never mind that history, precedent, and over 200 legal scholars disagreed, this was the tree he hid behind to excuse his immoral vote to acquit.

We also have to keep in mind that McConnell always plays the long game, always focused on his own position and power.  He was never going to vote to convict because doing so would start a loud mutiny and he’d be ridden out of his minority leader spot in a nanosecond.  Also, politics comes first; everything else comes second.  Everything.  McConnell’s strategy is to create a political dilemma for Biden.  McConnell always had control of the process here.  He now says it was unconstitutional to try Trump after he was out of office, but HE’S the one who refused to take the case before the election.  He created the problem he says in unfixable.  That’s classic McConnell.  Second, he says that the criminal justice system should prosecute Trump – and guess who’s shoulders that falls on?  None other than Biden, who has already nominated Merrick Garland as AG.  The moment Garland would dare move against Trump, McConnell would rush to the microphone to decry “criminalizing politics” and “Biden “politicizing the DOJ,” which, by the way, Trump had already done.

It’s the long game.  It’s always the long game.

As Ted Liu put it today, this is the best opening paragraph ever for a lawsuit:

One of the constant threads that wound through Trump’s infestation of the WH was poor grammar, poor usage, and careless misspellings.  Bringing this characteristic to the end, his lawyers’ answer today to the single article of impeachment filed by the House, Trump’s lawyers, in the introductory paragraph, actually misspelled…wait for it…United States.  That’s right, folks, in the very introduction of his defense of the indefensible, United States was spelled Unites States.  These are supposedly high dollar lawyers with deep experience, and they are so careless in carrying out their responsibilities that they didn’t even bother to spellcheck.  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

The AXIOS team has done it again, this time led by Jonathan Swan, telling the tale of the craziness in the WH in Trump’s waning days of infesting the Oval Office.  It’s a stomach turning must read, full of quoted expletives.  Key quote: “When Rudy Giuliani is the voice of reason, you know the meeting’s not going well.”