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America heads into this year's holiday season with a cheerful discussion of whether or not we've committed war crimes. Just another random week in the Donald Trump era, folks! Sorry for being snide, but it's hard to juxtapose the whole "peace on Earth" holiday sentiment with the revelations coming from Washington this week.
The United States of America is once again committing war crimes. In fact, the recent revelation in the Washington Post that there were two survivors of one of the military's missile attacks on small boats, and that a second missile was launched specifically to kill the survivors, was literally a textbook example of a war crime. The entire operation -- killing people who are in international waters who are not at war with the U.S. -- is probably a war crime as well, but with this particular example there is absolutely no doubt. But I for one am not going to hold my breath waiting for any of the people involved to be held to any sort of account for their actions.
It seems that James Carville has seen the light, and as a result he's now channelling his inner Bernie Sanders. In an opinion piece in today's New York Times, Carville calls on Democrats to focus on what he calls "good old-fashioned economic populism, both in message and measure." In some ways, this is Carville circling back to an earlier time for him, since he was the one who came up with the slogan: "It's the economy, stupid" during Bill Clinton's first successful presidential campaign. You might call it Carville's "It's still the economy, stupid" moment.
The political term for physically-challenged waterfowl has been appearing with increasing regularity in the media this week, to describe the president. But is Donald Trump really a "lame duck" yet? Or is he more of a duck that happened to sprain an ankle or perhaps stub a toe (do ducks technically have ankles... or toes? I must admit, I have no idea...)?
Who is ultimately going to win the game of "mid-decade redistricting" that Republicans launched earlier this year? At this point, nobody knows. Several things are still very much up in the air, and we won't be able to tell the ultimate score until all the state maps are locked in and people are actually running and campaigning in the resulting districts (filing deadlines are already approaching in several states, it is worth mentioning).
So the longest federal government shutdown in American history ended last weekend, not with a bang but a whimper. Seven Democrat senators and one Independent voted with the Republicans to reopen the government without securing the goal that Democrats had been fighting for. This has outraged many other Democrats, since it was seen as "pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory," once again.
Donald Trump has never cared all that much what the U.S. Constitution actually says. He certainly has never read the whole thing -- he makes this painfully obvious whenever he attempts to talk about it in any detail. And he has been actively trying to dismantle parts of it already. So it's no real surprise that he has trolled everyone again by flirting with the notion of possibly running (or otherwise somehow becoming) president for a third time, using the 2028 election to achieve this goal.
So, let's review, shall we? Last weekend, seven million Americans took to the streets to protest Donald Trump, in the biggest political protest this country has ever seen. The theme of the protest was: "No Kings!" So this week, Trump responded by acting in what can only be described as kingly fashion, in as many ways as he could dream up -- including a rushed demolition of one-third of the White House, without consulting anyone or even attempting to get anyone's permission. He sent the demolition crews in, and within a few days the entire East Wing was nothing more than a pile of rubble. All because a royal decree had been issued.
Tomorrow could be the biggest day of mass protest America has ever experienced. The "No Kings" rallies planned for Saturday could, collectively, add up to more than the five million who turned out earlier this year for the same reason: to protest that America was founded on the idea that we do not want to be ruled by a king who holds himself above the law, but instead by laws that all people -- even the country's highest leaders -- have to follow. That's a pretty basic premise, really. And the organizers of the rallies have reportedly gotten a much larger signup than occurred at their earlier rally, so the signs are pointing to tomorrow breaking records as well. There will be over 2,500 locations of these rallies across all 50 states, so go to their site and check out where the closest one to you is!
On the National Mall, with the United States Capitol as a backdrop, democracy is dying. Or... well... melting, to be more pedantic and less poetic. A brilliant art installation funded by Ben Cohen (of "Ben and Jerry's" fame) was erected this morning and unveiled at noon, consisting of an ice sculpture spelling out "DEMOCRACY" in capital letters five feet high. They lucked out on the day chosen, since it is reportedly a sunny 70 degrees in Washington today, which means the sculpture is not going to last very much longer (there's a live feed of it available, which at roughly 5:00 P.M. Washington time had been reduced to the "D", the first "C", and the "Y", with a portion of the second "C" and nubs of a few other letters still hanging on). The message is as simple as it is brilliant: Democracy is melting away before our very eyes. Or, to rework the now-laughable banner slogan of the once-vaunted Washington Post: "DEMOCRACY" dies in broad daylight.