Comeyphobia Grips The Nation

Donald Trump is writing a new book, one he should title, The Art of the Fail, about how not to run the White House. He may think his tough guy act in which he fires one high profile adversary after another is the way to impress his supporters. However, he fails to realize how they also galvanize his increasing number of detractors. Worse, his insistence on being combative with the press while showing no regard for the facts should scare the crap out of Americans because no one on his team dares to try and talk sense into him.

Trump and his spokespeople, namely Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, seem to think they have the upper hand in their fight with the press. They have no problem going on live television and spewing a narrative of false facts along with the complete smearing of a man Trump and his team hailed for his courage to go after Hillary just last fall.

The increasingly paranoid Trump just could not accept the fact that his FBI Director, James Comey, was operating independently of the Oval Office and was unwilling to bend down and smooch our president’s fast food butt. What’s a dirty billionaire who is used to getting his way on everything in life to do? Comey had to go. The real shock should be he was fired and not on the receiving end of a Kremlin-like “accident.” Maybe later, but for now, Trump thinks all of this will blow over.

There is the press and then there is the DC press. These are very different beasts. The general press is kind of like the North Korean military. They have some weapons, a sizable number of foot soldiers, but in the end they lack the ability to go toe-to-toe with a major force like the U.S. military.

The DC press is the media equivalent of the U.S. military and if the sitting president wants to go to war with them, they will gladly accept the challenge. They are not going to back down just because Sarah Huckabee Sanders is more apt to fire off a false narrative in a more combative tone than the funniest guy on television, Sean Spicer. The DC press will still be around after she and the rest of Team Trump are run out of town with federal investigators crawling up their back sides.

However, those who froth at the mouth at the idea of Trump being eaten alive and made to suffer the most humiliating of defeats any American politician can suffer, keep this in mind; Mike Pence is the Vice President of the United States and if you think he is an improvement on Trump, think again. He is a man who recently stated he believes Americans want and need more spiritual care than health care and just need to get right with the Lord to stop being sick.

This is just his thinking on health care. Science does not exist in his world nor is it a world in which women are allowed to make their own choices.

Pence will tout his pro life stance without thinking about the suffering children in Syria, the starving families throughout Africa, the barbaric policies toward gay people in the Middle East, or the 22 service men and women who take their lives every day, but he will insist we keep creationism in the classroom or work to end the teaching of any religion other than Christianity in our schools. Mike Pence will be loved by the Alt Right when he takes over the Oval Office after Trump is forced out.

I would be remiss if I did not point out that throughout all of this Russian lunacy, Democrats have come to the defense of the man, James Comey, many blame for the defeat of Hillary last fall. Perhaps they have accepted what Hillary refuses to believe: the studies that show many did not vote for her simply because they did not like her as a person.

Then again, perhaps this just shows the blatant hypocrisy that drives the political narrative in this nation. Politicians no longer worry about what they say on matters or about others any more because they just follow the winds of public opinion and go with the moment. For now, those winds are blowing a gale at a president and administration that cannot get ahead of a story because they keep changing the facts as it unfolds.

Maybe most of the media is biased and leans left. That did not keep them from liking Reagan while chasing the facts on Iran-Contra or running with the move to oust Bill Clinton during his Cigargate — despite making him into a rock star.

They were all over W and his weapons of mass destruction while also covering the war on terror. All they wanted in each of these cases were the facts so they could report the truth. Unfortunately, Donald Trump knows the truth will not set him free so he continues to spin a mountain of lies for the media to wade through and tear apart thinking that sooner or later they will grow tired of the work and give up. They won’t and they should be applauded for refusing to so.

In the end, what will it matter? If you have been in the Trump camp all along, you will simply see him as the victim in all of this. If you have opposed him, you will cheer upon his demise. However, if you are one of those somewhere in the middle, do not think for one second we are getting another Gerald Ford in Mike Pence.

While Ford knew pardoning Richard Nixon might cost him the election in 1976, he did it, not because he was part of any conspiracy or a movement to bring about a new nation, but rather because he felt it was necessary in order for us to heal and move forward. Mike Pence is part of the Steve Bannon school of thought. He will continue the war Trump is waging only his style will be far quieter, one designed to lull the nation into thinking all is well again.

Assuming this all plays out before the 2020 election, the nation can only hope both the Democrats and Republicans can find a candidate who respects this nation’s history and system of government while being willing to engage in open and honest debate over the direction we need to head. Until then, this theater of the absurd can expect to suck the life out of all things that matter, bringing effective government to its knees.

Top photo is a screen shot from YouTube of President Trump lying to Lester Holt of NBC