Those of us who loathe Donald Trump use a variety of words to explain that reaction. We note that he is ignorant, intellectually deficient and incompetent, that his maturation and vocabulary appear to have stopped developing around third grade, that he is mentally-ill, mean-spirited, selfish, vindictive and criminal…I could go on, but the bottom line is that he exhibits not a single redeeming human attribute.
But it has taken someone who actually worked with and for him to append the word that sums him up: evil.
As Lincoln Square has recently reported,
Ty Cobb, the former White House lawyer who once represented President Donald J. Trump, issued a public warning this week, saying the president’s conduct and his approach to the judiciary pose what Cobb described as a serious risk to the country’s constitutional structure.
“The Constitution really is not adequate to deal with a president as evil as Trump,” Cobb said in an interview broadcast on MSNow, adding that the president’s recent actions reflected “a desire to accumulate and abuse power.”
In the interview, Cobb expanded on his observations, noting that his concerns have sharpened as the administration has experienced setbacks in the courts. (An appeals court threw out Trump’s attempt to revive a defamation lawsuit against CNN; another federal judge found his deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., illegal; and yet another called the president’s cuts of millions of dollars of local government funding “probably illegal.”) Cox noted that–as we all now know– Trump reacts intensely to setbacks and perceived personal slights.
“Any insult tweaks his narcissism in a way that brings out a fight or flight instinct,” Cobb said, “and with Trump, the flight instinct really doesn’t kick in. It’s really just fight, and it’s fight by any means possible — legal or otherwise.” He said he viewed actions such as “sending in the National Guard” and “zip tying mothers and separating [them] from their children” as examples of this pattern.
Congress came in for its (richly deserved) criticism. Cobb decried that body’s lack of response to the administration’s lawlessness, and the reality that members have “neutered themselves through their cowardice and greed.” And he pointed out that the ability of the courts to constrain the administration is limited to constitutional violations. Only Congress has the constitutional authority to override policies, censure and impeach.
Trump’s contempt for both the Constitution and bodies of law is demonstrable. He continues to pardon people whose criminality (and lack of remorse for that criminality) is manifest. He’s committing blatant war crimes in Venezuela and Colombia.
Cobb concluded that “It’d be nice to have a Nuremberg trial of all these people,” although he admitted such a trial is unlikely. In his opinion, the judiciary is America’s only institutional safeguard– and if he acknowledged the corruption of the current Supreme Court, the article doesn’t mention it. The lower courts, at least, have been holding the constitutional line, and not every setback can be appealed.
So here we are. Recent polling shows that large majorities of Americans strongly oppose Trump and his administration, and it seems very likely that it will be up to We the People to exact whatever retribution or accountability is feasible. Most of us have come to realize that the only viable cure for Trumpism is political, As genuine public servants like Jamin Raskin have reminded us, We the People need to build and maintain a new coalition dedicated to serving the common good through the institutions of a democratic republic.
That–as we all understand–is easier said than done.
We need to be clear about how we got here. The apathy that kept some 80 million voters from the polls merged with the racial animus of MAGA Republicans to elect–albeit by a very slim margin– the vicious, dangerous man who is wreaking havoc with America’s legitimacy both at home and abroad. If survey research is to be believed, a significant portion of both those groups is experiencing remorse.
We have just under a year until the midterm elections, and the GOP is trying desperately to rig that election. Given public opinion, I don’t think those efforts will succeed, and I anticipate a large “Blue wave” in 2026. Between now and then, the resistance must increase the pressure in every way we can–through protests, boycotts, and lawsuits.
When we finally neuter this criminal administration, the first order of business will be to repair the structural flaws in our government that facilitated what historians will mark as a tragic episode in America’s history.
I wish I too could “anticipate a large “Blue Wave” in 2026″. Alas, if the Democratic response to the Republican redistricting plot here in Indiana is any indication of that Blue Wave we are in deep trouble.
“The Constitution really is not adequate to deal with a president as evil as Trump,” Cobb said in an interview broadcast on MSNow, adding that the president’s recent actions reflected “a desire to accumulate and abuse power.”
The above paragraph speaks Trump’s truths in a succinct manner which the public would understand before the many daily accusations against him and his blatantly criminal Cabinet members and his full administration as they happen. I will argue the statement regarding his “recent actions ‘a desire to accumulate and abuse power.” We have watched these Trump actions for decades before he slithered down that escalator in 2015 to announce his presidential candidacy, these are not his “recent actions” but his life mission. We, as a nation, ignored and overlooked his actions, deeming him to be a fool and not worth keeping track of.
“When we finally neuter this criminal administration, the first order of business will be to repair the structural flaws in our government that facilitated what historians will mark as a tragic episode in America’s history.”
Will we have the numbers and the power to withstand the next more than THREE YEARS of this “tragic episode in America’s history”? I have seen shocked faced when I mentioned that he has been in office less than one year of his four year term; living through this “tragic episode” has caused many Americans to lose site of the brief time period of his despotic rule, losing all sense of passing time and losing site of what lies ahead.
This reminds me of some of the history I’ve read about life in Germany, circa 1933 – 1945. Germans embraced an evil, lawless dictator too, decided it was OK to ignore the rule of law and to persecute Jews by blaming them for everything wrong with everything. Sounds a lot like bashing Somalis who have not committed crimes.
Crazy people who get their hands on power reveal some things: (1) Their political sycophants are also eager to ignore law if it fills their pockets. (2) The voter apathy is not a one-off. (3) Low approval ratings don’t mean a damn thing to the criminal enterprise currently destroying ours and other societies.
If the carbuncle on the ass of humanity administration does indeed pass into history while we still have a burned-out husk of democracy, major amendments to our Constitution must be put in place … IMMEDIATELY. If not, Republicans and their paymasters will find a way to repeat this horror show until it is, in fact, burned to the ground.
SCOTUS just overruled a federal court’s decision to halt the Texas attempt at what the that court called racial gerrymandering, which trump had pushed and Gov Abbott had complied with; of course it was the 6 (far) right wingers -vs- the 3 true justices, again. It appears that we have some really good work going on in our court systems until you get to the corrupt SCOTUS, and that is a very serious problem for America. SCOTUS reform is a long way off I fear, and until that happens, fasten your seatbelts and pray for our republic.
Gil, the egregious 6 are all Federalist Society members and were picked by Republicans for just that reason. These corrupt idiots are part of the Heritage Foundation pay structure as well. As Todd has often pointed out, the Koch money train passes right through these guys. It really began with Reagan appointing Scalia, the Bush the elder appointing Thomas, Bush the younger appointing Alito and Roberts and, finally, the monster appointing Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett. This is where Citizens United v. FEC came from too.
I think it’s pretty clear where the very first new amendment has to address.
SCOTUS is the big problem. We don’t dare add justices as long as Orange Jesus would pick the new justices. We can’t impeach the two. most corrupt of the nine, for the same reason. The only thing we might do that would be helpful is to limit the shadow docket to matters of life or death.
I have maintained for years that there’s a solid third of citizens who just don’t participate in any political or civic endeavor. I call them the peasants in the rice field, because, like those peasants, they don’t believe that anything is going to change for them, no matter who wins. They are generally less educated and more stoic than the rest of us. We might never convince them to vote, so we need to focus on registered voters who didn’t show up.
Peggy,
Those “peasants” (why in a rice field??) may also believe that all “pols” are corrupt or at the beckoning of the “Bigs” – Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Def, etc.. Maybe they may not be education but they can see what is in front of them. Who’s gonna prove them wrong?
History knows and shows that right-wing screed is baked into the human soul. It just takes the right conditions and the right politicians to bring it out.
We like to think of ourselves as defining intelligence, which is literally true, but we have no competition yet to show us what more-than-human knowledge looks like. Still, the possibility now exists for machines to keep many more facts in play than any individual human by far, but they will still depend, as far as we know, on human knowledge pioneers to keep expanding all that has been captured as factual at the frontiers of knowledge.
“ When we finally neuter this criminal administration, the first order of business will be to repair the structural flaws in our government that facilitated what historians will mark as a tragic episode in America’s history.” Yes, and the Trump administration has revealed many of them. We still need to depend upon honest, decent, intelligent individuals in leadership positions but they need to be able to operate within structures with guardrails to ensure that our constitutional republic can function at least within the mind-set and expectation of its Founders. We have strayed far from that, believing that more structure is not needed, that, indeed, it can impede….yes, that’s right, but it can also protect and preserve.
I feel moved to point out that one reason so many “peasants…don’t believe that anything is going to change for them no matter who wins” is because they have been bombarded with the message that all politicians are corrupt, both political parties are the same and the United States never was and never can be a force for good in the world. That message is destructive, demoralizing and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m talking to you, Todd, not because you originated that attitude but because you have bought into it and consistently propagate it on this platform.
It is up to the rest of us to reject that message if we want something better for the future.