{"id":3421,"date":"2018-12-25T19:36:30","date_gmt":"2018-12-26T01:36:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/?p=3421"},"modified":"2018-12-25T19:36:30","modified_gmt":"2018-12-26T01:36:30","slug":"the-writing-on-the-wall-not-the-mexico-wall-12-25-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/?p=3421","title":{"rendered":"The Writing on the Wall (not the Mexico wall) 12.25.2018"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Time for G.O.P. to Threaten to Fire Trump<\/span><\/h1>\n

Republican leaders need to mount an intervention.<\/p>\n

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\"Thomas<\/a><\/div>\n
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By Thomas L. Friedman<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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Opinion Columnist<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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Up to now I have not favored removing President Trump from office. I felt strongly that it would be best for the country that he leave the way he came in, through the ballot box. But last week was a watershed moment for me, and I think for many Americans, including some Republicans.<\/p>\n

It was the moment when you had to ask whether we really can survive two more years of Trump as president, whether this man and his demented behavior \u2014 which will get only worse as the Mueller investigation concludes \u2014 are going to destabilize our country, our markets, our key institutions and, by extension, the world. And therefore his removal from office now has to be on the table.<\/p>\n

I believe that the only responsible choice for the Republican Party today is an intervention with the president that makes clear that if there is not a radical change in how he conducts himself \u2014 and I think that is unlikely \u2014 the party\u2019s leadership will have no choice but to press for his resignation or join calls for his impeachment.<\/p>\n

It has to start with Republicans, given both the numbers needed in the Senate and political reality. Removing this president has to be an act of national unity as much as possible \u2014 otherwise it will tear the country apart even more. I know that such an action is very difficult for today\u2019s G.O.P., but the time is long past for it to rise to confront this crisis of American leadership.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Trump\u2019s behavior has become so erratic, his lying so persistent, his willingness to fulfill the basic functions of the presidency \u2014 like reading briefing books, consulting government experts before making major changes and appointing a competent staff \u2014 so absent, his readiness to accommodate Russia and spurn allies so disturbing and his obsession with himself and his ego over all other considerations so consistent, two more years of him in office could pose a real threat to our nation. Vice President Mike Pence could not possibly be worse.<\/p>\n

The damage an out-of-control Trump can do goes well beyond our borders. America is the keystone of global stability. Our world is the way it is today \u2014 a place that, despite all its problems, still enjoys more peace and prosperity than at any time in history \u2014 because America is the way it is (or at least was). And that is a nation that at its best has always stood up for the universal values of freedom and human rights, has always paid extra to stabilize the global system from which we were the biggest beneficiary and has always nurtured and protected alliances with like-minded nations.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump has proved time and again that he knows nothing of the history or importance of this America. That was made starkly clear in Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis\u2019s resignation letter.<\/p>\n

Trump is in the grip of a mad notion that the entire web of global institutions and alliances built after World War II \u2014 which, with all their imperfections, have provided the connective tissues that have created this unprecedented era of peace and prosperity \u2014 threatens American sovereignty and prosperity and that we are better off without them.<\/p>\n

So Trump gloats at the troubles facing the European Union, urges Britain to exit and leaks that he\u2019d consider quitting NATO. These are institutions that all need to be improved, but not scrapped. If America becomes a predator on all the treaties, multilateral institutions and alliances holding the world together; if America goes from being the world\u2019s anchor of stability to an engine of instability; if America goes from a democracy built on the twin pillars of truth and trust to a country where it is acceptable for the president to attack truth and trust on a daily basis, watch out: Your kids won\u2019t just grow up in a different America. They will grow up in a different world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The last time America disengaged from the world remotely in this manner was in the 1930s, and you remember what followed: World War II.<\/p>\n

You have no idea how quickly institutions like NATO and the E.U. and the World Trade Organization and just basic global norms \u2014 like thou shalt not kill and dismember a journalist in your own consulate \u2014 can unravel when America goes AWOL or haywire under a shameless isolated president.<\/p>\n

But this is not just about the world, it\u2019s about the minimum decorum and stability we expect from our president. If the C.E.O. of any public company in America behaved like Trump has over the past two years \u2014 constantly lying, tossing out aides like they were Kleenex, tweeting endlessly like a teenager, ignoring the advice of experts \u2014 he or she would have been fired by the board of directors long ago. Should we expect less for our president?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the financial markets are now asking. For the first two years of the Trump presidency the markets treated his dishonesty and craziness as background noise to all the soaring corporate profits and stocks. But that is no longer the case. Trump has markets worried.<\/p>\n

The instability Trump is generating \u2014 including his attacks on the chairman of the Federal Reserve \u2014 is causing investors to wonder where the economic and geopolitical management will come from as the economy slows down. What if we\u2019re plunged into an economic crisis and we have a president whose first instinct is always to blame others and who\u2019s already purged from his side the most sober adults willing to tell him that his vaunted \u201cgut instincts\u201d have no grounding in economics or in law or in common sense. Mattis was the last one.<\/p>\n

We are now left with the B team \u2014 all the people who were ready to take the jobs that Trump\u2019s first team either resigned from \u2014 because they could not countenance his lying, chaos and ignorance \u2014 or were fired from for the same reasons.<\/p>\n

I seriously doubt that any of these B-players would have been hired by any other administration. Not only do they not inspire confidence in a crisis, but they are all walking around knowing that Trump would stab every one of them in the back with his Twitter knife, at any moment, if it served him. This makes them even less effective.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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Ah, we are told, but Trump is a different kind of president. \u201c<\/strong>He\u2019s a disrupter.\u201d<\/strong> Well, I respect those who voted for Trump because they thought the system needed \u201ca disrupter.\u201d<\/strong> It did in some areas. I agree with Trump on the need to disrupt the status quo in U.S.-China trade relations, to rethink our presence in places like Syria and Afghanistan and to eliminate some choking regulations on business.<\/p>\n

But too often Trump has given us disruption without any plan for what comes next. He has worked to destroy Obamacare with no plan for the morning after. He announced a pullout from Syria and Afghanistan without even consulting the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the State Department\u2019s top expert, let alone our allies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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People wanted disruption, but too often Trump has given us destruction, distraction, debasement and sheer ignorance.<\/p>\n

And while, yes, we need disruption in some areas, we also desperately need innovation in others. How do we manage these giant social networks? How do we integrate artificial intelligence into every aspect of our society, as China is doing? How do we make lifelong learning available to every American? At a time when we need to be building bridges to the 21st century, all Trump can talk about is building a wall with Mexico \u2014 a political stunt to energize his base rather than the comprehensive immigration reform that we really need.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Trump\u2019s biggest disruption has been to undermine the norms and values we associate with a U.S. president and U.S. leadership. And now that Trump has freed himself of all restraints from within his White House staff, his cabinet and his party \u2014 so that \u201cTrump can be Trump,\u201d we are told \u2014 he is freer than ever to remake America in his image.<\/p>\n

And what is that image? According to The Washington Post\u2019s latest tally,<\/a> Trump has made 7,546 false or misleading claims through Dec. 20, the 700th day of his term in office. And all that was supposedly before \u201cwe let Trump be Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

If America starts to behave as a selfish, shameless, lying grifter like Trump, you simply cannot imagine how unstable \u2014 how disruptive \u2014<\/em> world markets and geopolitics may become.<\/p>\n

We cannot afford to find out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Time for G.O.P. to Threaten to Fire Trump Republican leaders need to mount an intervention. By Thomas L. Friedman Opinion Columnist Up to now I have not favored removing President Trump from office. I felt strongly that it would be best for the country that he leave the way he came in, through the ballot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3421"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3421"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3423,"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3421\/revisions\/3423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rockaria.net\/bluebirdprairie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}