Joy Reid Op-ed: Trump Has Stripped the Presidency of its Basic Dignity

[bigtree]

So This Is What American Greatness Really Looks Like?
Another week of new low after new low. If this is what making America great looks like, God help us when it arrives.

by Joy-Ann Reid:

____With Trump’s ascension, the Russification of the Republican Party, which once supported apartheid-era South Africa and continues to back a Cuba embargo, both on the basis of keeping countries out of Russia’s sphere of influence, is complete. Trump, who in the 1980s complained that Ronald Reagan was too tough on the Soviets, and who has used Russians, including reputed mobsters, as everything from bailouts to buyers to brokers for the expansion of his hotel and pageant franchises, has officially brought kakistocracy to Washington. None but the most unmoored to any recognizable morality need apply. He has made fools of his own spokespeople. He has exposed the religious right’s leaders as very much men of this world, with all its hatred and avarice. He has unleashed the forces of white nationalism and even neo-Nazism in our country. And he has revealed an America that is far less than we thought we were eight years ago when the United States became the first former slave republic to make a member of its once entrapped minority population its national leader.

One wonders whether this democracy, as fragile as it has been revealed to be, and whether the presidency as an institution is entirely salvageable, now that Trump has exploded the norms we thought constrained the office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Since becoming president, Trump has flouted the emoluments clause and openly profited from his office, taking payments from all comers, from the State Department to foreign governments at his golf courses, hotels and his private Florida club. He has encouraged his children to treat the White House as a marketing tool for the Trump businesses, and allowed them to commingle their business activities and ongoing involvement in his government. He has turned American foreign policy into a Santa’s workshop for Saudi and Russian interests and goals, from the needless fight with Qatar to pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords to attempting to return the Kremlin’s spy facilities, which the Obama administration seized in retaliation for Russian interference in our election, to giving Russian oligarchs direct financial interest in the Keystone pipeline boondoggle to having his administration lean on House members to soften a Russia sanctions package. (He even briefly floated the outrageous and absurd notion of cybersecurity cooperation with the Kremlin.) He has invited the Russian foreign ministry into the Oval Office out of the eye and earshot of the American media, who now are reduced to audio-only press briefings where they take a back seat to Trump sycophant right-wing blogs, and he has now canoodled with Putin himself, taking the murderous Russian autocrat’s word for it that no election meddling occurred.

Trump has made political thuggery the new American political standard; throwing allies overboard and cuddling up to dictators and autocrats around the world. He has diminished American influence and credibility every day he has been in office.

Meanwhile, he has stripped the presidency of its basic dignity...


read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/so-this-is-what-american-greatness-really-looks-like?source=twitter&via=desktop

[ck4829]

1. Now we need to strip the Presidency of it's powers

[gademocrat7]

2. A pall has been cast upon our country.

This evil buffoon and his cabal need to be driven out of The White House and Congress.

[Scarsdale]

6. Top gop leaders

have to go too, for enabling this clown.

[JHan]

3. And cynical idiots said last year...

"It don't matter who you vote for , it's all the same"

yeah right.

[Raster]

15. Of course it was not the same...

...on one side you had a candidate representing decency and a true love of Country; and on the other side, you had a known liar, cheat and thief, a craven piece of shit that bragged about sexually assaulting women.

There was no comparison, no equivalency. All hyperbole aside, this country "supposedly" chose to go down a dark path. And I say "supposedly" BECAUSE I BELIEVE IF THE ELECTION HAD BEEN FREE AND UNFETTERED, THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE WOULD !NOT! HAVE ELECTED tRump*.

[dalton99a]

4. Trump and his thugs might as well conduct business in the back of a restaurant

[Snotcicles]

5. It's the dignity the spoils of a theft deserves. nt

[malaise]

7. Excellent read

Rec

[bronxiteforever]

8. K & R.

[WinkyDink]

9. Leave the gun. Take the blini.

[MissKat]

10. Never again

Never again with the President of the United States be looked upon as the leader of the free world.

Thank you Republicans for allowing a clown to steal the presidency. I hope you're happy with what you've done. Now go ahead and rush through all those hateful plans to give more money to the rich and crush the poor.

Just remember this quote from Napoleon-- Religion was invented to keep the poor from eating the rich.

How long will it be before the people get hungry?

[Grammy23]

11. There has been a coarsening of America for some time.

Much has been written and spoken about the dumbing down of our nation for years. We'd rather concentrate on our favorite sports team or who will be competing on Dancing With the Stars this season than be bothered with what the asshole in chief is doing to our country. Yes, there are SOME who really care and who keep up with what's being done to our country and how it is governed but sadly, far too many are easily distracted.

tRump is a symptom of what ails us. The numbnuts who giddily pulled the lever to cast their vote for tRump are getting a taste of what they elected now that the chickens have come home to roost. Now that it is dawning on some of them that the ACA and Obamacare are one and the same and that it is THEIR disabled child who will be left out in the cold if "Obamacare" is repealed and replaced or JUST repealed, they are starting to listen a little closer to the rhetoric coming out of DC. NOW they get it. Too late since tRump seems firmly ensconced in the White House.

Oh, yes, the investigations are happening. Every. Single. Day. A new piece of this double sided, 10,000 piece puzzle falls into place. But don't count on him being ejected from his throne any time soon. The pundits and experts predict a long seige of investigations and hearings before we get down to the nitty gritty of it all. tRump is counting on this and unless they uncover something so egregious that he has no choice but to resign, he will be in place, infecting anything and everything with his brand of awfulness.

And we can't forget that as terrible as it sounds, the tRump faithful are still with us. The racists, the homophobes, the misogynists, the self-righteous ones have been given a license to come out from under their rocks to crow and preen among us. No shame. No self awareness. They will happily emulate their Dear Leader and be proud of it.

So sadly, we probably are at a new low. It would be easy to just blame tRump for this mess, but that isn't accurate. We have been victimized and taken hostage by something far bigger. trump was the guy out front, but who was the man behind the curtain? Putin has been watching from afar and knew exactly how to use tRump for his nefarious deeds. It sounds odd to say this, but tRump himself has been played by Putin. He helped put tRump in place and can just as easily have him removed or "eliminated".

What is still ahead for us is unfolding one sordid day at a time. The path is obscure and dark. Putin has pulled off his greatest hat trick and we're slowly unwinding exactly how he did it. But part of the truth is we were ripe for the picking. Too busy to be worried about the details of trump's Make America Great Again campaign. Too distracted to ask enough questions. Too deluded to wonder what leadership by a crass, clueless buffoon would really mean. Not all of us, mind you, fit this description, but enough that just a little manipulation of the vote, skimming here and there in just the right places could totally change the outcome of the election.

We are in for a rough ride. Those of us who didn't fall for trump's easy answers, hateful rhetoric and crass bloviating are being hurt by this reign of terror just as much as the ones who happily helped put the mobster in place. We are the ones who know what might have been and what we have instead. Meanwhile, a few on the other side are slowly waking up as the wicked plans of tRump are enshrined in our bureacracies and are coming down the pike to a school or health care facility near you. We'd better buckle up because tRump and Putin are not finished with us yet. In fact, they're just getting started.

[Raster]

16. This! Preach it, Grammy!

[Loge23]

12. After the deluge; can it be fixed?

I always held fast to the belief that the Right was a decided minority in this country.
If this is true, we must turn the tables and marginalize these idiots as they have done to us.

[Gothmog]

13. I love AMJOY

[maddiemom]

14. Reid is the best, most articulate commentator around today.

[yallerdawg]

17. Republicans don't care where dirt on Hillary comes from.

They don't care if it's fact or fantasy.

You want to see collusion, just follow "Hillary Hate" for the last three decades.

History books will one day offer a complete record of the greatest character assassination ever perpetrated in our modern times.



And it wasn't just Republicans.

[DK504]

18. " ... the Russification of the Republican Party ..."

That pretty much sums it up there. There are still all these old Reagan Republicans in DC. They are wanna be Cold Warrior and have forgotten the little fact that Russia is our enemy and has been for a century.

When they start flinging the "St. Ronnie" bullshit, they seem to forget that Ronnie didn't destroy the Soviet state, they also seem to forget he actually hated the Russians....maybe they could remember that.

[OnDoutside]

19. The Russpublicans, as it were ... nt