Cowards, Cretins, and Fools

435 Representatives
100 Senators
15 Cabinet members
1 Vice-president

And not a scruple of conscience among them. Not a whiff of courage to call out dishonesty and injustice. Not a shred of evidence that each one of them once swore to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

Every day these 551 individuals plus a host of staff watch the alleged leader of the free world lie, scheme, cheat and swindle his bumbling way through life and not one raises their voice to call him out.

Only the press, in their Constitutional position as government watchdog, call him out regularly. The 551 should be listening. There was a time when the editorial boards of major newspapers had the ear of Congress. Now the portion of Congress that isn't deaf listens only to its own voice crying for attention in a masturbatory maelstrom of fear and self-loathing.

Donald John Trump is not special. He is a man, not a superbeing. He is not unstoppable. He puts his pants on one leg at a time. He belches, farts, and picks his nose. He is nobody's Chosen One. He has such little self respect that when he cannot gain praise from others he invents it himself.

His Twitter handle is @realDonaldTrump, but there is nothing real about him. He is a creature of his own imagining, cobbled together from whole cloth into a simulacrum of a leader, but lacking any knowledge or talent for the role. He is material but lacks substance. He is false from the hair on his head and the complexion of his face to the emptiness of his heart. He is the living embodiment of the emperor's new clothes.

The 551 know this but cannot admit it. They are politicians, hacks, and wonks so entrapped by the system they have built for themselves to ensure a continuing spot at the trough of public money that they can understand nothing else. They are cowards, cretins, and fools who will continue to be accomplices to the crimes and misdeeds of the Poser-in-Chief who squats atop the house of cards they have built. They disagree superficially but know they are totally interdependent, so not one will say "Enough! Stop!" Not one. Not. one. They are beyond shame.

Meanwhile the Traitor-in-Chief who has not betrayed his oath because he never intended to follow it attacks genuine patriots. He defends murderers and domestic terrorists like Kyle Rittenhouse, and the mouth-breathing, tattooed lowlifes who drove into peaceful demonstrators in Portland, Oregon.

Speaking to the National Republican Club in February 1938, Vermont Governor George Aiken said Abraham Lincoln "would be ashamed of his party's leadership today."¹ A plaque with that quote should hang in every Congressional Republican's office to remind them of their responsibility to be a check on executive actions.

Government functionaries don't fear the Bully-in-Chief; they fear the power he wields. That is a small but significant distinction. There is nothing to be feared from Trump the man. He is a small, insignificant entity whose personal power over others is limited to insults and epithets. But he holds the presidency, and with that can cause irreparable damage, if not destruction, of careers. He holds it over his minions like Damocles' sword, threatening them with the worst possible fate: expulsion from a government job and the loss of their place at the trough.

Elected officials are beyond his reach, but cower nonetheless because even after four years he remains a phenomenon foreign to their culture. They fear the unknown and therefore bow before it.

There are 551 of them and not one will stand up. The refusal of every one of them to stand and announce their opposition to the Cretin-in-Chief is disgraceful and cowardly. Bullies respond to being pushed back, but we Americans and our Constitution have no one to push for us.

In a post several weeks ago I said I would not condone assassination as a means of removing Tyrant Trump.

I have reconsidered that position.


--- Diogenes, 9/1/2020


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¹ D. Gregory Sanford, "You Can't Get There From Here: The Presidential Boomlet for Governor George D. Aiken, 1937-1939," Vermont History, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Fall, 1981), p. 204.