Lucylastic
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Defenders or enablers?
DEFENDERS OR ENABLERS?
Let’s start at the beginning: The president of the United States said that part of his reason for firing the top federal investigator was his handling of a criminal probe into the president’s election campaign.
In the same interview with NBC News, President Trump even said that he had asked former FBI Director James Comey whether the investigation was targeted at the president himself.
No matter what, these are serious and significant developments. If you find yourself dismissing them or focusing on misplaced partisan reactions to them, you are doing no service to Trump or the country.
Full stop.
In life and in politics there is a line between defending someone and enabling them. What is happening these days with Trump and his core supporters is getting way past defense.
In the end, if Trump is proven right, and there was no information sharing or collusion between his campaign and Kremlin-allied entities, the president’s intemperate comments will not add up to much.
All this will have been is a sorry incident in which a frustrated commander in chief lashed out against his critics, making his reputation and his staff collateral damage in the process. Also harmed will have been Trump’s agenda and the already weak bonds of trust between him and his fellow Republicans in Congress.
And that’s the best case scenario.
The darker side of the street looks like this: Democrats retake the House in 2018, investigators find that one of Trump’s underlings had been in cahoots with Putinists and Trump’s remark to Lester Holt “when I decided to [fire Comey], I said to myself, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story,” would surely make it into the articles of impeachment.
This is deadly serious stuff. And many of the president’s supporters seem either unaware or unwilling to confront the situation as it exists. Just because one thinks that Democrats are hysterical in their responses to Trump does not mean that Trump is doing the right things.
His team had been, under the adverse conditions Trump created for them, working hard to offer the best rationale for firing Comey: That the former director’s mishandling of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s case left him unable to suitably lead the agency.
Whether Trump was frustrated by not getting adequate credit for toppling Comey, a man he clearly had come to despise, or if Trump did not understand the legal and communications necessities of the moment doesn’t matter. Whatever the reason, Trump harmed himself, his party and his agenda.
No matter how much his supporters want Trump to succeed, if they can’t be clear-eyed and plainspoken about the current situation things are going to get worse, not better.
The undisciplined, erratic approach to a scandal that represents mortal peril for this presidency is not primarily the fault of bad staff work, the “lying press” or Democrats. It is primarily the fault of a president who steadfastly refuses to empower his staff, show respect for the separation of powers or exhibit patience.
There will always be people who will tell the president that escapades like the one this week are a refreshing departure from stuffy old Washington and that all he really needs to do is keep kicking the walls of the barn down until he gets his way.
There will always be such people because there will always be, in any administration or organization, those willing to enable damaging behavior in order to gain power and access.
What Trump badly needs now is straight talk and honest appraisal from his advisers and supporters and desperation enough to be willing to listen.
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RE: Dutch documentary on Trump's ties to Russian mafia - 
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