Reflections

 Reflections

By Jack Dallas

Each end-of-year holiday season we look back to what happened during our most recent trip around the sun. We give thanks for the good things and express our hopes for the future. I’m going to throw out a curve ball and say that we should be thankful for Donald J. Trump.

I didn’t live in New York where, according to several old episodes of Law and Order, he is mentioned regularly in passing and everyone nods knowingly in agreement. I never watched any of his television ventures. Before he successfully ran for president, I couldn’t have told you much about him. I just didn’t have an opinion.

Well, that has sure changed. You would have to be living under a rock to not know of him today. Speaking of rocks, there must be a lot of vacancies under them these days because so many folks have emerged to the siren call of their new “rock star.” Love him or hate him, everyone knows of his escapades.

He will be remembered, and history will speak his name. We remember Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Idi Amin, and Ivan the Terrible, why not Trump? I would have preferred that his tenure in office would have been as memorable as William Henry Harrison who, after giving a long acceptance speech in the cold at his inauguration, caught pneumonia and died four weeks later.

I won’t list Trump’s faults, no one has that much free time. I would however like to point out a few positive things he has accomplished. He has highlighted the shortcomings of our democracy. As a deceitful grifter with no moral compass, he has tested our laws, protocols, and even our understanding of common decency. We now know that relying on previous rules of decorum and the threat of public shame, is without influence on the activities of someone who has no feelings beyond those of pompous pretentiousness. He has pulled off the long con and as a bloviating coward who is filled with his own importance, he threatens others into submission.

Unwritten laws are not worth the paper they aren’t written on. We also know and should have always known, that laws without a means of enforcement, are useless. We now know, as if it wasn’t clear before, anyone with time, money, and a bit of political influence can ignore the law, delay investigations, ignore subpoenas, appoint, and influence judges who will refuse to recuse themselves, and basically defy and deny justice. Laws are for those without the means to fight them.

It is particularly now clear that only working stiffs pay their fair share of taxes. The underfunded and understaffed IRS won’t bother with complicated tax returns where the subjects might be able to put up a long legal battle. The IRS only bothers with the low-hanging fruit. Trump and his ilk can avoid all but the taxes on things like the outright sales of real estate. He avoided taxes, like most of us, by donating large sums of money to charity in cash without documentation. Oh wait, I can’t do that. I would need to provide documentation.

He also “donated” a large parcel of land, the value of which had no valid appraisal, to a land trust, and claimed it was worth $21.1M. I wonder if I could donate my backyard and front yard to a trust. No one could use the land and I could write off the maintenance as a further donation to charity. If only I were rich and connected. We also see that Trump inspired a new era in Republican politics.

Ducey, Abbot, Trump, DeSantis

We have three state Republican governors trying to outdo each other by being cruel to immigrants to gain favor for those constituents who hold some animosity for Hispanics or people of color. Greg Abbot and Ron DeSantis have each pulled stunts at taxpayer expense to use immigrants as pawns in a political game of who can make the lives of these people more miserable. Imagine how much fun Governor Abbot had bussing families with children to Washington DC in the middle of a Christmas blizzard, some wearing shorts and sweatshirts with sandals, and dumping them at the doorstep of the Vice President.

Immigrants being dropped off at VP Kamala Harris' Washington DC home

Even Arizona governor Doug Ducey jumped on the bandwagon and erected an illegal border wall topped with razor wire. The wall was a waste of taxpayer dollars that accomplished nothing more than to get the governor some publicity. Protesters easily climbed his wall and stood on top for pictures. All three governors hope to be presidential candidates and think that such stunts will win them votes with the Republican base. None of these activities were constructive. They did not address the problem. They merely made the lives of some poor immigrants more miserable than they already were.

Yes, there is a problem with immigration that both Republicans and Democrats need to solve, but this is not the way. When a building is on fire you don’t throw gasoline on it just so you can make people aware that the building is burning. We already know about the problem so grandstanding like these three clowns is not the answer. Trump just paved the road and these three are just the heartless tin man, empty-headed scarecrow, and cowardly lion trying to get to Oz. They would tell you that they just don’t want us overrun by Munchkins or whatever aliens lurk south of our border.

Another part of Trump’s legacy in politics is unabashed lying. We have long tolerated the “little white lies” of those running for office. Trump’s lies have taken the lying out of the minor leagues and made it an Olympic event and national political pastime. His Big Lie about a stolen election is a classic work of fiction that has been copied by his minions like Kari Lake. She lost her legal challenge because she, like Trump, had theories and conjecture, but no proof. Trump doesn’t like losers so, if asked about Kari Lake, he will claim that Kari Lake is a water hazard on the back nine at Doral.

Kari Lake at Doral

A recent political candidate, George Santos, has been caught lying about his education, his work experience, his religious background, and the source of his income. He calls these things “embellishments.” When you pad a resume and say that you graduated at the top of your class and you were really second or third, that’s an embellishment. When you never attended that school and don’t have a degree from any college, never worked at two prestigious corporations, and don’t have a Jewish family history involving the Holocaust, but claim that you do, you are a fraud not worthy of the public trust. We are well beyond the “embellishment” phase on a resume. In the corporate world, this much lying on a CV would result in termination.

Who is George Santos?

Santos further claims that he had a family-owned real estate portfolio with 13 properties but that too seems to be fabricated. His sources of income are cloudy at best. First, he was poor, and then he was a millionaire who had a spare $700,000 to loan his campaign. There are now inferences that some of his economic windfalls happened through the largess of Andrew Intrater, money manager to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Vekselberg, like all Russian oligarchs, has close ties to Vladamir Putin. Santos has since blasted the Ukrainian government calling it, “a totalitarian regime.” It would seem that Santos, much like Trump, hasn't met an authoritarian dictator he didn't like. This is especially true for any who will donate dark money to his campaign.

Santos also claims that he has no criminal record in Brazil, but authorities say he wrote checks there with a stolen checkbook. He confessed to the crime in Brazil, but the case is still open because he left the country. Another stunning example of what we seem to now tolerate as the new normal in politics after the legacy of Donald J. Trump.

When you have MTG in your corner, your troubles have just begun.

Yes, while lying in politics has been around since its inception, Trump has set the bar so low that it is no longer a high jump but a limbo bar where politicians say, “how low can you go?” It would seem that this “barrier” now only allows snakes to slither underneath.

Trump lost the 2020 presidential election and here we are, two years later, still talking about him. He has been “in politics” for over two decades now with declarations as a candidate for our highest office in 2000, 2016, 2020, and now for 2024. He even made half-hearted attempts in 2012 and 2004. Let’s hope that our better politicians, both Republicans, and Democrats, will realize that America deserves better than the likes of Donald Trump. Promises to Make America Great Again and Drain the Swamp were just political rhetoric. Trump divided America further than it had ever been and showed up for his first day at work with a truckload of alligators for the DC swamp.

We may not have known much about him in 2016, but the four years of his presidency have tested the fabric that holds this nation together. That fabric held, but just barely. We may not need a complete overhaul of the Constitution, but this man has certainly pointed out its weaknesses. If we make the necessary changes to prevent a future such occurrence, good for us. If we ignore his example, or worse yet, condone his actions, we deserve what follows. Thank you, Donald Trump.

Joseph Welch at McCarthy hearings

To quote Joseph Welch from the McCarthy hearings, “You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”