A bill of particulars by @BloggersRUs

A bill of particulars

by Tom Sullivan

What does one make of an American president who has befouled his office, undermined allies' trust, "palled around with" murderous dictators, humiliated the United States before the world, treated the U.S. Constitution as an inconvenience, and lied with such abandon that after 2-1/2 years even the national press caught on? That is only a shrill partisan's opinion, naturally.

When historians pen the history of this period, the men and women who debased themselves and their country to serve this man-child may not have found their way to The Hague. Likely, they will have found lucrative, post-administration work as wingnut-welfare propagandists churning our "best-sellers" collecting dust on pallets on the loading dock at the Heritage Foundation. But history will look upon them with disgust. It may not treat their fall with the solemnity with which dignitaries celebrated the 75th anniversary of D-Day. It took sacrifice and commitment lacking today to end another foul regime. With any luck, this one will end not with a bang, but a whimper. Okay, a lot of whimpering.

For now, Democrats in the House of Representatives plod along with their investigations, dutifully relying on rules and norms the Trump cult swats away like gnats. They debate whether impeachment is prudent knowing they won't have the votes in the Senate to convict. They won't raise the likelihood that with Mitch McConnell in control, there may never be a trial, much less a vote.

Should they need a bill of particulars of the sort colonists brought against King George III, Timothy Egan has written a first draft for the New York Times. From trying to turn the U.S. Park Service into a White House propaganda organ, the minority president went on to attack the press, the military, the intelligence community, and civil servants who carry out the work entrusted to them by Congress.

He has turned the Department of Justice and into his private goon squad, a tool for carrying out "private vendettas" and framing his enemies as traitors.

He has (with evangelicals' eager assistance) turned conservative Christianity into a kind of Trump University for hypocrisy.

He hopes (with Republican acolytes' eager assistance) to use the Census Bureau to cheat on representative government the way he cheats on taxes.

There is more. Egan concludes:

We’ve had a census every decade since 1790, after the colonies threw off a king and created a governing document establishing an independent judiciary, a legislative branch that writes the rules of the land, and asserting that no man is above the law. To the present occupant of the White House, it’s only a piece of paper.