In an apparent effort to distract from the fact the Republican-led Senate cannot pass any version of the long-sought-after repeal-and-replace legislation, Donald Trump has abruptly thrown transgender folk under the bus.
Not that his largely homophobic base will give a crap.
I was frankly amazed at all those mewing tones coming from Trump at the Republican Convention, where the man all but transformed himself into a simulacrum of a human being on the subject of the LGBTQ community. (He seemed to hit the "Q" a little hard each time he recited the letters, which he did repeatedly, his golden promises to make.)
Is this some sort of master plan? Did Trump sidle up to other fringe groups so he can fire them down range in an emergency? Like when the bear is gaining on him and he needs to jettison some tasty morsel to keep those big sharp teeth out of his hindquarters?
As for the Republicans, they have but one reasonable path: to help the Democrats twiddle and twang Obamacare into some sort of viable shape. Failing to repeal-and-replace, some Republicans will fall under the wheels of their own political rhetoric—though they may recover some momentum by appearing to come to the aid of those Republican governors who can't see giving up Obamacare at this point, especially not when it might be fixed.
Trump will hate it like poison, of course, but I suspect he'll make a forceful statement that will make it seem like tweaking Obamacare was his plan all along. The idea that some folks wanted to repeal the law of the land will be made to sound ridiculous.
(Recall his words confirming Barack Obama was born in this country after all. PERIOD. As if Trump were not the beast hounding the man on the subject.)
Of course, the Republican failures in Congress are not the only creatures nipping at Trump's rump. There's the Russia Thing.
His own son admits slavering at the mouth over the possibility a high-ranking, government-backed Russian lawyer could deliver dirt on Hillary. That the woman could not come through does not mitigate his crime.
(If a bunch of guys get together and pool their money to hire a hit-man, the fact the fellow missed his shot, or simply grabbed their moolah and scrammed out of there, doesn't lessen their crimes that much. It's still felonies all around, for conspiracy to murder.)
The fact that lots of politicians would have taken that meeting (as Trump proposed) doesn't transform their crimes into May flowers. Those guys tried to collude, as best they could.
Trump's attack on Jeff Sessions continues. The thing he's upset about—that his Attorney Genera recused himself from the Russia investigation—is very old news, but suddenly Trump can't stop referring to it. Clearly the President wanted an AG who will protect him from unwanted investigations.
Lately, Trump has been criticizing Sessions for not prosecuting Hillary Clinton for her email server crimes. Trump has been quiet about this stuff since getting elected, but the subject is back and starting to heat up.
I think what is happening is that Trump has found the presidency not to his liking. Nobody is doing what he wants doing. There's no loyalty anywhere.
He's brought in a junkyard dog, Anthony Scaramucci, to run the communications department—a designated leak killer. (Nixon's boys called themselves "plumbers.") This guy's job is shake things up, and he's working it. Says he's loyal to the President despite negative things he's said about Trump in the past.
Trump keeps doing the sort of stuff he can do without Congress: Executive Orders.
He seems determined to dismantle the entire Obama administration, one chunk at a time. If the signature item (Obamacare) is beyond his reach, the man will do everything else he can. During the campaign, Trump called Obama the stupidest President this country has ever had, so all his accomplishments are fair game.
For a while Trump seemed mollified by his meeting with Obama in the White House before the inauguration. But all that ended when Trump found out the sick son-of-a-bitch wiretapped him in Trump Tower. It's an act of treachery that cannot go unavenged!
Trump revisits the glory of the campaign trail as often as he can, recently acting so bizarrely at a Boy Scout Jamboree the leaders had to issue an apology to the kids.
The man is coming unglued with the frustration of not getting treated the way he imagined he would as President. Deference and loyalty is what he expected, eager young men leaping into action to do his holy bidding.
Instead, if Trump can't scrape away on a piece of paper to make something happen, nothing gets done at all. This is not what he signed up for!
So the wheels on the bus go round and round, nicely greased by the guts of the fallen. (The standard mystery: Did the guy fall, or was he pushed?)
Trump now has his eye on special counsel Robert Mueller, ringmaster of the Russia Circus, despite warnings from Congressional Republicans.
Is there another bloodbath coming?
Trump needs to know: When you stab a man in the back—or in the front, Scaramucci-style—an unexpected obstacle may causes the knife to stall momentarily. The murdering hand slips forward, onto the blade, and the stabber is himself deeply cut.
Trump needs to know that wound can get infected, sometimes fatally.
(By the way, RIP Anthony Scaramucci.)
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