Imagine if you will... that politics was a sport. And I'm talking about American/Canadian politics here. It's a sport with only two teams. Oh, sure, there ARE other teams, but they're pretty much perennial expansion teams. They don't ever compete, they have a much lower salary cap, there are fewer games in smaller stadia, blackouts are in effect across the country so most fans are forced to watch the same game every time between the top two teams. There is a great fan base and a lot of love for the fringe teams, but most folks know they'll never win, so they have their favourite team, which isn't one of the top two, and the team they vote for in the championship, which IS one of the top two. There were a couple seasons when the captain of a third team was traded to one of the top two teams. It wasn't expected for him to become the most popular player but he did! Why, he even became the captain of one of the top two teams! What happened the next two seasons was shameful! For the first season, he was stripped of the captaincy and just to punish the fans who were perceived as disloyal, his team purposely lost the championship game. The next season, even though the fans still favoured him for captain, the team chose someone else. They won the championship that year, but most agree they would have done even better with the captain the fans supported. He was given a good job as chief talent scout after he retired, but only as a kind of apology appointment. The fans will never know what a superstar he could have been.
What the fans DO know is that this is one pungent hangover-lamb vindaloo-diarrhea SHIT sports league, but... it's better than nothing/at least it's sports/so hwak haeng/toxic positivity/don't drag your negativity into this blog post! If you don't keep your blind faith in the league, you start to realize that both of the major teams are owned by the same people and those people really don't care who wins the championship every year, so long as the fans keep supporting the league and believing it's genuine sport, not WWF wrestling.
Okay, analogy over. But why do I make this analogy? What is my topic for today? Just about the best illustration of how completely disingenuous politics and politicians can be. It's an example that would get you a lifetime ban from a sport like using steroids or fixing games to cover the spread you bet on. It's such a heinous example of political rhetoric that the people who secreted it can't possibly have any more respect for their participation in the politics of their country than a game of shinny at the local outdoor hockey rink or some pick-up hoops. After you hear it, you'll think of about a hundred other examples exactly the same. And those examples will not be confined to one or the other of the two parties either. And you may wonder why anybody would have as much interest in politics as they might have for the fake sport outlined above. It's a question I find myself asking almost every day. You know it's not real, you know your team can never really win, why do you keep buying tickets?
Okay, now I promise the analogy is over. Anyone ever heard of the Unitary Executive Theory? It's a theory of United States constitutional law that amounts to, "If the president does anything, it must be legal, because, why, he's the president!" (Incidentally if I were talking about VICE president, I would have typed "he's/she's" back there. But it'll happen...) And speaking of Vice, we're going to pause here. During the pause, please watch, or re-watch, the movie "Vice." I'll wait.
Let's all go to the looooobby, let's all go to the looooobby, let's all go to the looooobby to get ourselves a treat.
Dick Cheney may have been the greatest proponent of Unitary Executive Theory to ever kinda be, but still not be president. This was, as you will have noticed from watching the movie just now, Dick & Rummy's plan to take control of the U.S. way back in '76 during Ford's first term. Problem was, Ford lost to Carter. The Republican reaction was a familiar one: "This must be a mistake." "We need to re-count those votes." Eye roll. The team can do no wrong. Fight for the team right or wrong.
At any rate, the movie is mainly about how Cheney got to practice some of Dubyuh's executive powers FOR HIM. It's scary enough that the president could have such absolute executive control of the most powerful country in the world, but when someone else could practice it in proxy due to a president's weak-mindedness, ummmm wouldn't this qualify as one of those things that need to be changed? We've talked about this before. Why are there so many of these things, really fucking important things, that are "not clearly defined" in the presidency of the United States? Here's an article with statements made by some Whitehouse workers at the time of the 9/11 crisis about how scary that really was. Jack Goldsmith called it a theological commitment to executive power.
Not quite sure why that has pink behind it, but it's a powerful statement. It makes the president like a god or even like GOD! As Bruce Fein commented, the executive powers that were used after 9/11 unilaterally by the president (Cheney) weren't even applied to Hitler, Hirohito, Mussolini, and Stalin. Surely Osama Bin Laden was nowhere near the threat they were!
And now we arrive at a familiar Trumpian impasse: why in the name of Fucky McFuck is all of this a THEORY??? Shouldn't something like the power to, oh I dunno, vaporize entire cities and destroy the earth, have legislation that is absolutely clear? Not theoretical? But as gobsmackingly unintelligible as it may sound, it doesn't. It has Article II, Section 2 of the American Constitution. Evidently, people interpret this in wildly different ways.
One man having all that power! Surely that can't be good! But as Brad Berenson once observed, "There is only one thing more frightening than an American president who has such power in his sole command. And that is an American president who does not have that power."
I suppose he meant that if the nukes needed to be launched in a hurry, it would slow things down having to get multiple agreements, in writing, and from presumably members of both parties whose job it is to simply disagree with one another. Agreed, this wouldn't be the best way to have things. But surely there must be a better way! Put a think tank together, America! You wouldn't be just saving yourselves!
For the past 4 years, with the infantile Master Trump fully aware of and anxious to exercise his omnipotence he interpreted biasedly that he had been granted when he came down the escalator, spectacularly absurd methods were regularly employed to keep him in check. Here is an entertaining article on the various distractions, lies, tricks, stolen documents and tactics straight out of a child psychology book that needed to be employed to keep Trump from creating the disaster we all feared he would.
He knew about the Unitary Executive Theory. He probably recorded it and pleasured himself to his voice reading it. And we come to our point (finally) during impeachment number one, it was invoked. If you were like me, and at the time of the first impeachment, you read William Barr's full 19-page article about why Trump should not be impeached, you basically read the Unitary Executive Theory. It will come as no surprise to anyone that this oily hided mouthpiece stated the exact opposite at another time.
Whether this made much difference or not to the mindlessly loyal GOPers I can't claim to know, but they were all harumphing and echoing the gist of Barr's defense: You can't impeach Trump because he's president. And he didn't get impeached.
Fast forward to impeachment number two. At the senate session in which the election was affirmed, you know, the one after the Capitol riot, two particular chuckleheads of note decided to use the platform to show their brainless solidarity through some superfluous and gag-inducing play acting. Here's an account that actually calls it that. TWICE.
There they are, JF KKK and the Canadian Commando. But despite their grandstanding and time wasting, on Jan. 6 (or the 7th really), the election was confirmed. Shortly thereafter, on January 13, a second impeachment of Trump was passed. The opening arguments of the trial are set to begin on Feb. 9. But the GOP is raising a very interesting argument against them. I think possibly it was Rand Paul who was the brains behind this one:
I'm sure the two above, Rupaul, Bill Barr and probably even Dick Cheney are amongst the Pavlovian Repuglicans who are now harumphing and echoing the agreed upon slogan in regards to Trump's impeachment part deux, you guessed it, "You can't impeach Trump because he's no longer president.
This is not government, this is mockery. They're probably sipping expensive scotch and smoking fine Cuban cigars laughing at how stupid the public is.
Now, think back to when I said you can probably think of 100 more examples like this. I certainly can. This theater of the absurd has gone on long enough. It needs to end. If I didn't promise earlier to end my sport analogy, I'd say this league should be defunct.
HOWEVER, every so often, political bad guys get beat out of office restoring public faith in elections, politics, politicians and the broken system of government we continue to support. These heroes usually start out great. Biden/Harris have done some great things out of the gate. So did Carter, so did Clinton, so did Obama, but eventually all have succumbed to the true powers that own everything and everyone: the three comma class. And inexplicably, voters always seem to end up at that mysterious place where they say to themselves, "Self, this party isn't working out. I need a change. The other party was shit last time and the chances are very good they'll be shit again. But I'll take that chance because I don't want to vote for a fringe party even though their platform is what I want. I just don't like their team name."
And on and on goes the two-party political nightmare.
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