It’s been a bit of a humdinger the last few days. It started off with a presidential debate that was (or should have been) tremendously disappointing for the entire country. On the one hand, you had the current President fumbling to make any coherent arguments and sound like he had half a clue of what he had done or wanted to do. On the other, you had the former President lying repeatedly, ignoring any and all questions that didn’t touch on the three or four lies he wanted to keep hammering. To top it all off, the two of them ended up making fun of each other’s golf game, then started name calling. The only question not answered was whose dad could beat up whose.
It was like I’d bought a ticket for a buffet, and when I got my plate, I saw there were two options: rotting meat and raw sewage. I’ve known all along I wanted nothing to do with raw sewage, but now I’ve got got some Democrats trying to convince me why the rotting meat should just stay in the buffet, because if they swapped it with anything else (say . . . cauliflower), people would just flock to that raw sewage, especially if it turned out the cauliflower at some point in its past had been in contact with dirt.
Have a little faith in American, people. Do I hope we, as a country, decline to select raw sewage as our dining option for the next four years? You bet. But maybe we should make it a smidge easier for people to choose “anything else” if that “anything else” isn’t swarming with flies as well.
As if that wasn’t enough, now today we just had the Supreme Court rule that Presidents have “some immunity” when it comes to what they did while in office. If that was all it was, then I guess I wouldn’t have been too depressed. But I’ve read the decisions (and the dissents), and what the court did was waaaaaay more than simply say Trump was immune from prosecution for any official acts he made while President. They ruled that anything a President does that touches on any official capacity is something that earns immunity. Trump tried to strong arm the Attorney General to overturn the election. He threatened to fire him if he didn’t. Immune. He did similar things to the Vice President. Immune. Not just that, but anything the President does or says–regardless of legality–while acting in an official capacity is something that can’t even be considered in any trial against the President.
The Court went way beyond ruling Trump had some immunity. I have a tough time seeing a scenario where he’s actually held accountable for anything he did or didn’t do on January 6th and the days leading up to it. As was said in the dissent, the Court basically told all Presidents that they have carte blanche to do whatever they want, as long as they do it officially. The majority tried to claim in its ruling that the steps they were taking were minor and reasonable. I find them anything but, especially in light of just what sort of an impact this ruling can have on the country’s future.
The thought that we might have four more years of Trump, now with him fully recognizing just how much free rein he has, is horrifying.
So . . . yeah. I guess I’m looking at ways to minimize the impact of rotting meat on my digestive tract. Maybe with a sprig of mint?