Summary: the events of the last week have read like something out of a very bad political potboiler/spy novel. An out-of-control President of the United States, a presidential contender suffering from a heart attack, and attacks on a presidential front runner have all combined to induce in much of the American public a curious mixture of Schadenfreude and low-level dread. What the hell will happen during the next 24 hours?
What will happen as Bernard Sanders recovers from his coronary "episode?" It's not unfair to speculate that his followers will seek to deflect and redirect discussion of Sanders' fitness for office by ramping up their attacks on Joe Biden with help from Donald Trump campaign.
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Donald Trump is unraveling before the eyes of a shocked American people as a cynical world takes a certain joy in The Donald’s self-induced impeachment drama. Never have we seen, not even with Richard Nixon and the Watergate coverup, not even with Bill Clinton and his Oval Office blow job, not even with the semiliterate Andrew Johnson and the donnybrook over the Tenure of Office Act, a president so obviously desiring to be impeached, and so obviously shooting himself in the foot at every opportunity.
Today’s “spit up your coffee” headline news leader was that The Donald was, or thinking about, entreating the Chinese to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Given that The Donald has been busy whipping up an economic war against the People’s Republic of China, his apparent effort to enlist Beijing in some sort of outré effort to salvage his presidency strikes most Americans as risible.
Similarly, his insistence that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff is somehow guilty of treason for opposing The Donald also has Americans spitting up their coffee. Add to that the efforts of the once respectable Rudy Giuliani to gin up a false narrative of the alleged corruption of the Bidens, conduct which should by Rudy significant discipline of his professional law licensure (up to and possibly including disbarment), leads many Americans to and ineluctable conclusion that we are dealing with an American equivalent of the Madness of King George III.
But as much as many Americans find the Madness of King Donald vaguely amusing, and as much as many Americans are experiencing a certain degree of Schadenfreude over it, our Schadenfreude is not unmixed with a certain low-level dread. Now, most Americans probably have no idea who Alberto Fujimori was. Fujimori, an otherwise colorless politician in Peru was elected that country’s president in 1990, and who, two years later, with the support of the Peruvian military, carried out a so-called self-coup in which he shut down the Peruvian Congress, suspended the Peruvian Constitution, and purged the Peruvian judiciary.
The precedent of Fujimori’s self-coup cannot fail to appeal to Gospodin Trump and his inner circle advisors, corrupt men like William Barr, Stephen Mnuchin, Stephen Miller, and Gorka Sebastyén. Indeed, as an increasingly cornered and desperate Donald Trump lashes out, referring to his congressional antagonists as traitors, declaring that “[he wants] Adam Schiff questioned at the highest levels for fraud and treason,” and hurling all manner of false and unsupported charges against his potential Democratic rival for the presidency, Trump begins to sound like a Latin American dictator of the old “blood and thunder” school. The Donald apparently has never familiarized himself with Charles De Gaulle’s rhetorical question “[p]ourquoi voulez-vous qu'à 67 ans je commence une carrière de dictateur?” Why do you think that at 67 I would start a career as a dictator?
Trump, of course, has neither the wisdom, nor the courage, nor the sense of occasion the Charles De Gaulle had. For Trump, riding down the gilded escalator of Trump Tower represents his “greatest achievement.” Nothing The Donald can ever do could possibly match the sheer physical courage of De Gaulle walking unhesitatingly up the center aisle of the nave of Notre Dame in the face of German sniper fire before taking his place in the choir to join the Cathedral chapter in chanting the Magnificat on that glorious day when Paris was liberated from four years of Nazi occupation. Nothing Donald Trump can ever do could ever match the way in which de Gaulle saved the French Republic in 1958. But then, de Gaulle was a man raised with concepts of duty, honor, and country that entirely evade the mental wreck of a man that is Donald Trump.
Of course, if Donald Trump is a mental wreck, recent events have certainly suggested that wannabe president Bernard Sanders is a physical wreck. Sanders’ recent hospitalization to have two stents implanted after a coronary “episode” in Las Vegas has brought to the fore the issue of his health and fitness for office.
Of course, based on Gospodin Sanders prior performance, both in this campaign and against Hillary Clinton in 2016, we may assume that his supporters will attempt to deflect and redirect the conversation about Sanders’ overall health away from that topic by any means available. Their efforts will no doubt take the form of intensified and redoubled efforts to spread disinformation and defamation against Joe Biden. In doing so, Sanders and his feckless, redeless, followers will happily, eagerly, and uncritically borrow whatever talking points are available against Biden from the Trump campaign. They did this against Hillary Clinton in 2016, and they will do it against Joe Biden in 2019/2020.
The Sandernistas’ eager attacks on Joe Biden demonstrate two unanswerable facts. First, it demonstrates that Gospodin Sanders and his followers will avail themselves of any means of attack available to them to do harm to Joe Biden, and to Elizabeth Warren as well. Second, it also demonstrates the willingness of the Sanders effort to make common cause with Donald Trump and with his Russian puppet masters. And the Sanders people will do this without any shame whatsoever, because, in the Sanders cult of personality, any dirty trick is acceptable as long as it advances the Sanders campaign.
Right now, Joe Biden remains the consensus front runner in the Democratic primary campaign. Both Donald Trump and Bernard Sanders would like to change that. Both Donald Trump and Bernard Sanders have demonstrated in the past their willingness to make common cause against a common adversary. Only time will disclose whether the cynical joint Trump-Sanders effort will be successful. Those of us who are loyal Democrats must work to ensure that it is not.
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Paul S. Marchand, Esq. is an attorney who lives in Cathedral City and practices law in the adjacent Republican retirement redoubt of Rancho Mirage. He makes no secret of his profound, patriotic, disdain for Donald J. Trump and for Bernard Sanders. The views expressed herein do not reflect the views of the Riverside County Democratic Party, another organization for which Mr. Marchand feels a distinct measure of disdain. Call Mr. Marchand a "neoliberal," a "corporate Democrat," a "shill," or a "Hillbot" and Mr. Marchand reserves the right to belabor you about the head and shoulders with whatever cast-iron skillet is available and ready to hand. Mr. Marchand also reserves the right to have yellow dogs bite you in a sensitive location.
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