Amid all the finger pointing and playing the blame game of who is responsible for the “loss” of Afghanistan, there should be one essential point to remember: we’ve been down this road before, folks, lest we forget Vietnam 1975. As George Santayana said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

What will it take the United States, or more appropriately the United States government to learn from the past, to remember the errors of the past and not to repeat them . . . endlessly and so unnecessarily?

Did President Biden err in pulling out the troops from Afghanistan? Should he have waited, perhaps moved more slowly? Maybe. But wouldn’t that have simply delayed the inevitable? The fact is Biden’s predecessor, Trump, negotiated this withdrawal. Biden is not to blame for a U.S. policy that was flawed from the outset some 20 years ago. Again, we did not learn the lessons from the past. U.S. policy in Vietnam was flawed from the outset as well. You cannot create a fighting force unless there is determined will within that force to fight vigorously against all enemies foreign and domestic. If the will is not there all efforts to instill it will fail as has happened in Afghanistan and as happened in Vietnam.

The truth is in Afghanistan as was the case in Vietnam the forces opposed to the United States and its puppet regime and military force were determined fighters, zealous in fighting for their cause, pitted against a government force that was corrupt and not driven by any comparable zeal. What has happened in Afghanistan as what happened in Vietnam 46 years ago was inevitable. We wasted vast amounts of capital and thousands of lives needlessly.

We can debate ad nauseum the righteousness or justness and their opposites attributable to both sides of the conflict in Afghanistan, just as was done in Vietnam, but that misses the point: a cause is only as strong as the will of the people espousing it to defend and fight for it. You can have all of the best intentions in the world, but if the will to fight for those intentions is lacking, your efforts will inevitably end in failure.

This simple fact, however stark it may be should be indelibly imprinted into the minds and soul of the American government and people to ensure that future governments do not embark so foolishly and cavalierly on the folly of trying to instill American values in populations that are not willing to defend and fight for them. We cannot be nation builders. Nation building is a process that must occur from within the population itself. It cannot be imposed. The people have to want it, pure and simple, and be willing to fight for it.

So, let’s stop blaming Biden for the past failures of American foreign policy. He is simply cleaning up a mess. And as anyone who has ever had to clean up a mess knows, cleaning up a mess is a messy business itself.

In case anyone hasn’t noticed for the last four years, five if you count the campaign period leading up to the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, citizens and residents of the United States and citizens of the world have been treated to a great con-artist at work. Perhaps no other description best explains the essence of Donald Trump. Certainly, one could call him many names, and many not very flattering, and many have certainly done so, but no term perhaps better sums up the man like con-artist.

Currently, he is hard at it trying to convince everyone that he has been cheated out of a second term of office as a result of the November election just past. And from all reports, polls and such, he is succeeding mightily in the eyes of the Republican public in pushing this con, and, oh, by the way, raking in tons of cash in the process.

For you see with Donald Trump it’s always been about the money, and, of course, the power, but the power was really was just another way to get at the money. Make no mistake, Donald Trump no more believes that he won the election than anyone believes the arctic is a tropical paradise. What he does believe and what he knows is that he knows how to run a con. He may not know how to run a country—witness the pandemic as evidence of that—or a business—witness his four, count ‘em, four bankruptcies—but he is particularly adept at running a con. And running a con is exactly what he is doing right now by claiming there was massive electoral fraud in the Presidential election. While he continues to make his claim without a scintilla of evidence, he has thousands of people donating to his cause to overturn the election results. Not that his campaign has even a ghost of a chance of succeeding, and he knows it. He just doesn’t care. He just wants to keep up the con long enough so that a sufficient number of people donate to ensure he is successful in his end-game, which is either to raise enough money to pay off his Russian creditors and/or pay for his next con, which speculation has it that he intends to set up an alternative news service to Fox and run for President again, or perhaps enable his daughter to run for President in his stead, after all, in four years he will be 78.

Donald Trump is a con-man par excellence. He learned from a master, his father, and he has carried on in the family business. Ask any contractor who was foolish enough to do work for him. Ask any employee who was unfortunate enough to be employed by him. Ask any banker who was foolish enough to loan him money. Ask any student who was foolish enough to attend his university. Or ask any member of his administration who has seen Trump in action and has run afoul somehow of Trump. All have been conned, every single one. And there are thousands.

But in running for and becoming President, Trump upped his game or he just found a bigger pool of suckers to believe all the lies he told them, probably the latter because he already was a master con-artist, having honed his skills over some four decades and countless con games. But being President has been the ultimate con, and there’s nowhere to go after that except down, something this con-artist’s ego cannot fathom, much less tolerate.

And how was Trump so able to con so many for so long? It was simple really; he told them what they wanted to hear. That is the art of a con: tell people that what they believe is true and convince them that you believe it. People only believe what they want to hear, and what they want to hear is what they themselves already believe. And he’s telling them that now in his current con. They don’t want to believe that he lost, so he tells them he didn’t; he was the victim of electoral fraud by those out to get him and those who support him, which is what his supporters have always believed.

It’s a beautiful con raking in so much beautiful money as Trump would say it. But this con as the whole Presidential con has depended on one key resource to make it work: the media. The Presidential con wouldn’t have worked without the media, just as this current con can’t work without the media. Think about it, what did Trump do to make himself stand out among all those other candidates back in 2015 and 2016 running for President on the Republican ticket? He made outrageous statements that played to the beliefs of so many in the Republican party, and the media ate it up because he was telling lies, bald-faced lies. Incensed that someone running for public office could be so brazen as to tell lies and so openly, the media devoured them as if they were candy from a trick or treat haul. And to whom were the lies directed? His Republican audience because they were the same lies that they themselves believed and do still to this day.

Trump knew what the media wanted and he gave it to them, just as he gave to the voting public what they wanted to hear. Trump began as a long-shot candidate, but he used the media’s need for novelty to spread his word and boost his campaign. And he kept giving it to them, over and over, every day, constantly, so he quite literally sucked all the air out of the other candidates’ campaigns. And he kept doing it in the general election campaign, and the media loved every minute of it even when they were so outraged by all of it because it brought attention to them and that attention translated into money, lots of money.

But Trump added a twist; he criticized the media, called it corrupt, spreaders of fake news, and he did it while the media was latched on to him like a lap dog to ensure his followers would not believe anything negative the media might say but also to ensure the media would continue to cover him. He knew that by denigrating the media he ensured their continued fealty to coverage of him because he understood that the media out of outraged pride would want to prove him false. The media was not about to allow him to call them names without fighting back. It was a symbiotic relationship between Trump and the media. Trump needed the media for his con to spread his word, and the media needed Trump, however outraged by him and his behavior, to prove their relevance to the public. And, of course, there was money in it, both for Trump and the media. The media’s fortunes soared with Trump and Trump’s soared because of the media’s constant coverage of him and his every move and tweet, over and over and over, all day and night every day of the week.

So, was the media conned by Trump? In a sense perhaps, but they were also used by Trump knowingly and he by them knowingly. Trump’s con would have never worked without the media. Had the media actually acted as they believe themselves to be, righteous purveyors of truth, they would have recognized Trump’s con for what it was, and perhaps they did or at least some more introspective members might have, and they would have refused to give it air time. Trump’s campaign and con would have never gotten off the ground. But the media didn’t do that, and Trump knew that they wouldn’t and couldn’t because he understood that the media was more like him than they would care to admit.

The rest folks is as they say, history. Trump became President and continued to tell people what they wanted to hear without giving them what they needed, and he played the role of President . . . badly. He could no more manage being a real President than he could manage being a competent manager of his many failed businesses. Trump is a con-man. He’s good at it, even great. But that’s all he is. That is all he is capable of being.

But in this con, the great con, Trump needed an enabler, and he found that in the media. Trump understood and understands that what drives the media is the same thing that drives him: a need for attention. It is this need for attention that creates the symbiotic and circular relationship between Trump and the media. Trump provides the outrage, and the media by reporting it and commenting on it ad infinitum amplifies Trump’s message, furthering his con.

Of course, it didn’t have to be this way. The media could choose simply to not purvey to the public what Trump says and tweets, thus foiling the con. But the media could no more do that than a fish could exist without water. No, Trump and the media were made for each other, however much both would deny that fact, which, of course, is part of the con. But what really is at heart of the nexus between the two besides the need for each other is that which drives them and drives so much of the world: money, the need for it and the opportunity to get a lot of it.

In 2004, a voter was asked by some media personality doing a post-mortem of the election why she voted for President Bush for a second term after information was coming out that the whole premise of his war in Iraq was based on a lie, and she responded with the statement, “You don’t change riders in the middle of a race.” That attitude more than likely was responsible for Bush’s re-election.

Could it be that President Trump is utilizing that same playbook, believing that voters will overlook the mess that he has made of the office of the President, the damning conclusions of malfeasance in office of the Mueller report and the impeachment proceedings if he can show that he is a war-time President and in the middle of a war and thus deserving of another term?

The trouble is that there is no war and no need for one, but rulers when facing much domestic opposition have never been loath to start one to distract the population’s attention and ensure the continuation of their reign. So, it is that this week Trump declared that he is now a war-time President, and what is his war? It’s a war against a virus. It doesn’t have quite the panache of a war with guns and bombs and other such weapons, but by shutting down the country to combat the virus it has much the same effect as a war with guns, perhaps much worse.

One has to ask why is the economy being shut down, which will have untold ripple effects for years to come, and is already causing much suffering with much more to come, to combat a virus that in fact amounts to the flu? If the virus had a kill rate akin to Ebola or similar disease in which if you contract it you most likely will die, it would make sense all the measures that are being taken to combat the virus. But the Coronavirus (Covid-19) is hardly Ebola. It’s kill rate is principally limited to infirm elderly and those with compromised immune systems, much like the flu. Some 80 to 90 percent of the population if they contract the disease will suffer only mild flu-like symptoms. The rest may suffer more severe symptoms, and a very small minority will not survive it, just like the flu. That is the reality of Covid-19.

According to the CDC some 32 million people in the United States have contracted the flu in 2020 resulting in some 18,000 deaths, a death rate of about one tenth of one percent. Those who have died have principally been among the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.

Covid-19 as of this writing so far in the United States has killed 157 people out of some 11,000 cases or nearly 1.5 percent. Granted this kill rate is considerably higher than the flu, but if the population sample were extrapolated to the number infected by the flu, 32 million, the kill rate of Covid-19 would most assuredly decrease dramatically as the percentage of those at risk would make up a much smaller percentage of the 32 million than they currently do of the 11,000. And more than likely the kill rate would approximate that of the flu.

If that is the case, then, why is the economy being shut down and lives turned upside down for a disease that is really no worse than the flu? Could it be that this new virus, which originated out of China, for which there currently is no vaccine made the perfect excuse for those who would be inclined like the President and apparently other politicians as well to use to their own advantage?

Think about it: here is a President who was not elected by the popular vote, in fact lost by a considerable margin in the popular vote. His approval rating has stayed in the low 40 percent throughout his administration, and historically, Presidents entering an election year with such low approval ratings invariably do not get a second term. His behavior most people find deplorable, even those who support him. He has faced multiple inquiries and accusations and findings of corruption and incompetence, and his cabinet appointees have been a revolving door of incompetent and corrupt officials. This is a man, who as it turns out will be facing in the general election the one man he feared most to face and tried to smear, resulting in his impeachment for doing so, Joe Biden. Until this virus came along Trump’s chances for re-election were not looking promising. But the virus did come along, conveniently, and out of China no less. The only thing that would have made all of this more suspect would have been if the virus had originated out of Russia. But that might have been too obvious. With the virus originating out of China, a country supposedly at odds with Trump over trade, on the surface makes it seem as if this fact distances Trump from any culpability to do with the origins of the virus and that his actions in the wake of the virus are simply him reacting to something not of his making. He has plausible deniability.

But wait, does he really? Despite China having differences with Trump over trade, it nevertheless during Trump’s administration has been able to continue its island building in the South China Sea, has continued if not increased its repression of ethnic minorities and dissidents in the country, establishing concentration camps for them. It has continued its practice of technological extortion of companies wishing to do business and set up factories in China. It has continued to ignore international trade pacts and has continued to manipulate its currency to give its products and companies an unfair advantage against foreign companies and in foreign markets. These are just a few of its actions that past administrations and knowledgeable observers have denounced and fought against. Trump for all his bluster against China has ignored all of these practices and in fact has been quite friendly to the country and its leaders as a result. Certainly, it is in China’s interest that Trump be re-elected.

So, is it just coincidence this virus suddenly came out of China and that China invoked draconian measures to combat it when they didn’t have to? And is it just coincidence that this virus came on the scene just as Trump was settling his trade differences with China at a time when his popularity was at its lowest and he was facing a tough re-election fight?

One might posit that having the virus come out of China allowed Trump because of his past bluster against China’s trade practices to distance himself from any connection to the virus and its origins. He could point the finger of blame, a practice at which he is quite adept, at China. But the draconian measures that China instituted against the virus raised alarm throughout the world. What was this virus? Was it really all that bad people were wondering? Scientists and health officials watching the developments in China were loath to downplay the virus’ impact, lest the virus prove to be a terrible killer and they get blamed for not taking proper precautions. Enter the media, whose ability to analyze anything objectively outside their lens of self-interest has always been suspect, and here was something they could really bite into and exploit to make it seem much worse than it actually is.

And so, what did Trump do? His first reaction was typical Trump: he denounced the scientists and the media for overreacting. Had the scientists and the media taken a step back and questioned their reaction, they might have come to the conclusion they were overreacting. But they didn’t do that. Why? In the case of the media they had a good story to milk, and they didn’t like Trump’s reaction, which he knew they wouldn’t. In the case of the scientists, they knew that Trump was anti-science, which they couldn’t abide. So, both groups reacted negatively to his criticism, which he knew they would do, and the scientists doubled down on their estimates of how bad the virus could be and in the case of the media their coverage of the virus and its effects increased exponentially as the virus spread.

Trump had everyone where he wanted them. The Chinese had done their duty for him. They had squelched their people’s freedom supposedly to combat the virus, a practice which was nothing new to them, to make it seem like this virus was much worse than it is and to let little information out about the virus, causing great curiosity and alarm throughout the world. Other countries’ rulers and state governors or local authorities all trying to appear as competent leaders unlike Trump, and following like good lemmings China’s lead with little information to go on began implementing their own draconian measures to combat the microbe. Trump, as if to egg-on the scientists and the media, who he hates, and to thumb his nose at the rest of the world, dithered purposefully. The media and health professionals in reaction denounced Trump’s non-action, and so, what did he do, as if he were being dragged kicking and screaming late to school, he gave them exactly what they were clamoring for: a war against the virus. He shut down the economy to combat the virus, provided very little information about the virus and mixed and contrary messages about his actions so public fear of the virus and what was happening boiled over, further exacerbating the situation. Then, like the hero in a horse opera, he swoops in to save the day. What better way to distract the public’s attention and make himself out to be the hero than by bringing the power of the federal government to combat the virus and at the same time hand out billions, even trillions in aid to the American public devastated by his very actions in the first place?

It’s a true con, a magic act. While one hand is occupying everyone’s attention, the other is acting out of sight, so Trump can pull the rabbit out of the hat to the awe of the audience and get himself re-elected. The public’s been played by a charade by a master charlatan.

There may be some who upon reading this will think it can’t be true. That’s what people thought about the claims regarding Bush’s Iraq war, too. He got re-elected because people didn’t want to believe their leader would lie so blatantly to them. But it turned out the claims of the war being based all on a lie were correct. Why should this be any different? After all, Trump is a man whose entire life has been about conning people and getting away with it. His whole life has been running one con game after another on people from building contractors to banks to students, you name it. As President he’s just stepped up his game and now with this virus is running the ultimate con.

Will his victims, the public, wake up to his machinations and his manipulation of them? Only time will tell, but if history is any indication, probably not. And only in the future after Trump is long gone will the public look back and realize, much as they did with President Bush and his war in Iraq and to their great dismay that they were hoodwinked, again. But the damage will have already been done. Thousands, millions of people will have lost their jobs, their businesses, their homes and much worse and the perpetrator of that damage of all that suffering will himself incur neither punishment nor reprisal. His actions will go down as just another chapter in the history books of the people being used and bilked by the very leader they selected and trusted to protect them from harm.

That will be the legacy of Donald Trump and that will be the legacy of the Covid-19 virus war. The country and the world was brought to its knees not by a virus, but by a country, an Asian behemoth bent on shaping the world in its own image, by a conman who exploited the virus for his own ends and by a bunch of lemmings in the guise of politicians, scientists and the media, who were so anxious to act they failed to take the time to ask the important question of whether and how they should act all to the great detriment of the public over what amounts to the flu: a common occurrence that ordinarily causes at most very minimal disruption in people’s lives and the life of a nation.

The 2020 U.S. presidential election was held early in November and December 2019 and Trump won by a landslide. Trump’s actual 2020 election win in one year will be but the period at the end of a sentence.

In the fourth quarter of 2019, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives decided to hold impeachment hearings on the issue of whether Trump had sold out his country and its constitution that he was sworn to protect by bribing and extorting a foreign government, Ukraine, to investigate for corruption Trump’s assumed main political rival, Democrat and former Vice-President, Joe Biden. That was the Democrats first mistake, not that they should have held the hearings, they should have. It was their duty under the constitution. It was their job. Their first mistake was in limiting the impeachment hearings to that one issue. Trump has committed a series of impeachable offenses since his assumption of the presidency, the Ukraine bribery scandal is just the latest. Everything Trump has done should have been under scrutiny in the hearings, and the hearings should have been held for weeks, not days.

The Democrats second mistake, and the biggest one, was when they decided to hold the hearings. They held them during the day when everyone was at work and not watching the made-for-TV media spectacle play out. By holding the hearings when they did, Democrats communicated that they still have not learned the lesson of why Trump became President in the first place. Trump is the media’s bread and butter, their poster child and he knows it. He made it so by manipulating the media to draw all their attention to him and away from all of his political rivals by saying and doing the outrageous. All attention was focused on Trump, which is exactly what he wanted and needed to ensure he became the Republican candidate for President. And he continues to draw the media’s full attention to him as President because he is President but also and even more importantly because he is so outrageous as President. The media like flies drawn to a bright light is very willing, nee, is compelled to report and display all that he does and to do so with great glee.

While the media may hate Trump, the man, for his boorish behavior, his mendacity, his ignorance and ineptness as President, they love him because of what he does for their bottom line. The media—the press in all its forms—operates on one principle: man bites dog. People’s attention is attracted not to the normal or mundane, but to the spectacle, to the odd or weird, to that which is jaw-dropping and grotesque or horrific. Why is it when you are traveling down a highway and there is an accident on the other side do people slow down to gawk at the carnage? Trump more than anyone on the political scene, aside from Boris Johnson in Great Britain, soon to be little Britain, understands this all too well and feeds the media with this principle every day.

The Democrats in the House, on the other hand, did not and do not understand this principle, and they blew their moment. As George Santayana said, those who do not learn from the past are destined to repeat it. So, the House Democrats forgot or did not learn the lesson of Vietnam. That war was played out at the dinner tables of every American family. During that war every American family watched night after night while they ate their dinners in front of their television sets American troops get slaughtered on the battlefield of Vietnam and for why the American people could not understand. It was this daily display of grotesquerie of what actually was happening in Vietnam, not what the Johnson administration claimed was happening, that turned the country against that conflict. They could see with their very own eyes that American soldiers were dying by the thousands for what amounted to a spit of land thousands of miles away that no American gave a damn about and what is more they knew and understood was a country that was of no value or threat to them or their country. The people are not so dumb as to not believe what they can actually see for themselves. It was this history and the lesson that it taught that House Democrats failed to heed and to capitalize on in their impeachment hearings.

Had the House Democrats held their hearings at night when the people were not working but were watching their television sets they would have put on display for all the country to see just what Trump has done and the kind of person and President he truly is. The people would have seen with their own eyes a parade of very credible witnesses explain just exactly what Trump has done, and it would have played out night after night, just as the Vietnam war did. People would have been glued to their television sets; it was dramatic theater.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, because the hearings were held during the day, what people learned about the hearings they learned at night from snippets on the news from some talking head juxtaposed against Trump at his rallies denouncing the hearings and professing his innocence, and what is more his claim to be the victim of some giant conspiracy against him and against the American people and the results of the 2016 election. Which is the more powerful and convincing image, some talking head commenting matter-of-factly for 30 seconds to a minute at most on the daily proceedings in the House hearings or the spectacle that is Trump also displayed for 30 seconds to a minute thundering away at a political rally to the backdrop of cheering throngs about his victimhood? He would not have had that opportunity had the hearings been held at night. Of course, he could have held his rallies, but instead his thundering would have been a snippet of news juxtaposed against hours of a mesmerizing display of a parade of dedicated and convincing public servants laying out all that Trump had done to sell out his country for his own political and financial gain. The people would have seen this with their own eyes, they would have experienced it, not just heard about it for less than a minute from some talking head who they already suspected of political bias.

No, the referendum on Trump 2020 has already been held in November and December 2019, and Trump has won. His poll numbers went up during the hearings, not down. Prepare yourselves for another four years of Trump. There is no Democrat running for President who is Trump’s equal as spectacle and who knows and can manipulate the media as Trump can and does. He sucks all the air out of the room and will from his Democratic political rivals, and the media will be his accomplice and his vehicle as they were in 2016 and will thank him for it as they cash their checks at the bank.

The philosopher Santayana said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Are the Democrats in Congress living proof of what Santayana warned against?

Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House has gone on record in opposition to the impeachment of President Trump, apparently in the belief that because the action has no chance of succeeding in the Senate, which would try Mr. Trump were articles of impeachment passed in the House, the Democrats would be expending precious political capital on an exercise in futility, so better to focus the effort to get rid of Trump through the electoral process.

While an impeachment proceeding very probably would prove unsuccessful, does that mean it nevertheless should not be attempted? The evidence for impeachment is clear. Special Prosecutor Mueller laid it all out in his report. The only reason he did not seek a criminal indictment of the President was because the Justice Department had already come to the conclusion that a sitting President could not be indicted. But a sitting President can be impeached by Congress. It’s in the constitution. It’s one of the duties of Congress. So, Mueller provided in his report the ammunition upon which Congress could undertake such a proceeding. Now is the time for Congress to use it.

As Edmund Burke said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Certainly, Europeans are more than familiar with what Burke was referring. They failed time and again to do anything while Adolph Hitler and his Nazi regime swallowed up country after country, and the good men of France and Britain stood by and did nothing until finally, Hitler came after them. Only then did they act.

But what if they had not waited? What if instead of playing politics and exercising political expediency they had listened to the counsel of Winston Churchill and the leaders of France and Britain had stood up to Hitler from the very beginning when he first started to rearm Germany, which was in violation of the Versailles Treaty? World War II might have been averted and some 50 million lives might have been saved.

Alas, they did not. They tried to appease the monster. But the monster could not be appeased. He could only be defeated by an implacable foe, which eventually coalesced into the Allied countries and armies. And he was defeated, but it required a supreme effort of much blood, sweat and tears and death and destruction.

The American people, the Congress and the World now stand at a crossroads very similar to what the world faced in the decade leading up to World War II. The forces of authoritarianism are on the rise, and the forces of Democracy stand by and watch, either largely silent or impotent out of a combination of temerity, caution, political infighting and political expediency. Time and again in the United States under Trump, the man has repeatedly thumbed his nose at Congress, at the idea of representative government, at the will of the people. He has flouted all custom and decorum. He has openly conspired with a foreign government to subvert the electoral process to get himself elected. He has actively and openly attempted to obstruct investigations into his many nefarious and criminal activities. And he has openly and illegally diverted funds that were appropriated by Congress for other purposes to build the border wall that only he and his misguided servants want.

Just like Hitler, Trump has dared those who might oppose his actions to do something about them. But so far, no action has been taken against him. Will Congress, which has the power to act, continue to stand idly by, as Britain and France did with Hitler and let Trump remake the United States in his own authoritarian self-image?

Congress, the embodiment of representative democracy is now facing what can only be described as a fate of irrelevancy if it fails to assert itself as a co-equal branch of government, and shies from its duty under the constitution to impeach the President when there is clear evidence of malfeasance in office. The People of the United States who have elected the Congress deserve no less than their representatives do their job and that job is to preserve the Union by recognizing when it is threatened and to rise up and squelch the threat lest it be allowed to grow stronger and to crush the forces of Democracy and turn the country into an authoritarian nightmare.

Congress has many weapons in its arsenal to fight Trump and his evil authoritarianism, not least of which is impeachment. It has every right and duty and it has the evidence provided by Mr. Mueller to exercise impeachment. The impeachment battle might not be won. Clearly the Senate, a bastion of Republican subservience to the evil that is Mr. Trump, would do his bidding like a bunch of servants of Dracula and fail to convict, unless, miraculously, several members suddenly grew a conscience, or more aptly a pair, and recognized and asserted affirmatively the evil that Mr. Trump is by voting for conviction.

But simply because there is the likelihood a battle might be lost does not mean you risk the war to avoid losing a battle. If the United States Navy had failed to engage the Japanese fleet at Midway in World War II because of the very real possibility of defeat due to the enemy’s overwhelming numerical and weapon superiority, we all might be speaking Japanese right now. Instead, they engaged the enemy and turned the tide of the war.

Timidity in the face of evil is no virtue, and it is not a successful strategy because evil where it sees timidity exploits it for what it is, a weakness, to triumph. Democratic leaders do themselves and the People no favors by waiting to joust with the evil of Mr. Trump through an election, essentially passing the buck of responsibility to the People in hopes that the People will have the good sense to do what the leaders of Congress are too timid and weak to do themselves, to do what they were hired to do, which is to represent the will of the People. The will of the People who elected the Democratic members of Congress was to get rid of Mr. Trump. If the Democratic leaders of Congress believe they were elected for some other purpose, they should seriously rethink that notion.

The Democrats in Congress were elected to lead the country away from the evil that is Mr. Trump, to fight him at every turn, not to turn tail and hope that the People will do what the Democratic members of Congress are too afraid to do themselves.

The People have already spoken when in November 2018, they elected a majority Democratic House of Representatives. And the People will once again reaffirm their will in 2020 at the ballot box but only if Democrats in Congress take action in the interim in the form of impeachment and however else they can combat Trump, showing that they are worthy of the People’s trust once again.

Do your job members of Congress!

I went to see the movie “Vice” last night. I found it a fascinating and scary depiction of the self-serving, dare I say it, evil of former Vice-President Cheney, his wife and all those he associated with that is so very responsible for so many of the problems we face in the world today. I highly recommend that anyone who cares about the direction this country is headed and what has happened in the last 20 years go see the movie. While viewing the movie, I was struck by one scene in the film that shows very briefly the words etched on the Federal Judicial building in Washington, D.C., “Where law ends, tyranny begins.”

The statement comes from philosopher John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government in which he says, “Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.” Perhaps it had to be truncated to fit appropriately on the wall of the building. In any event, the moment I read that statement I was struck by the juxtaposition of it, the subject of the movie and recent current events, notably President Trump’s announcement that he was declaring a national emergency at the border.

If Cheney’s actions during the second Bush administration did not push this country to a state of tyranny, certainly what Trump is trying to do will be the proverbial nail in the coffin of American democracy. What Cheney started–actually Nixon did, but that’s another story–Trump will complete and we and the world will all be worse off for it.

Cheney believed in what was and is called the Unitary Executive Theory, which posits that only the constitution and the judiciary in their interpretation of the constitution can limit the President in the exercise of his authority, such that any act of the President is legal in his role as executive and Congress can do nothing short of impeachment, which is granted in the constitution, restricting the exercise of the President’s authority as executive.

Using this theory as justification Cheney, and Bush as mouthpiece, set out to change the relationship of the American people to their government by means of systematic spying on every person in the country, the exercise of torture on anyone deemed by them a threat, forcibly taking people and incarcerating them without due process, conducting undeclared wars based on lies that under this theory somehow made them legal lies and justified.

At the end of the film Cheney is shown being interviewed—whether this actually happened is unclear–and he claims he did it all in the name of the safety of the American people. The question is safe from whom and from what?

Now, along comes Trump, who heretofore has shown only contempt for the rule of law, Congress, the Courts, and belief that he and he alone is the government and he can do anything he wants, and no one, not Congress and not the Courts can stop him.

Where Cheney stopped, Trump (Tyranny) begins. At least Cheney and Bush bothered to obtain Congressional approval for their actions. Of course, they lied to convince Congress to follow them, but under the Unitary Executive Theory such lies are legal and justified.

Trump now is not even bothering to consult Congress. He has decided that if Congress won’t give him what he wants, he’ll do it anyway in contravention of the direct will of Congress and those who they represent, the People. In effect, he is shredding the constitution and embodying by his declaration of national emergency the very thing the founding fathers of the country and the constitution meant to prevent—an omnipotent dictator.

By this action the issue no longer is should a wall, which Trump wants and uses to justify his declaration of national emergency, be built on the country’s border with Mexico as the best means to control border crossings. By his action Trump has plunged the country beyond the debate as to the efficacy of a wall to the brink of dictatorship. Should Congress and the Courts fail to stop him, this one act will forever be precedent to any President acting unilaterally against the will of Congress if Congress fails to give its assent to his or her desires.

In effect, the Congressional authority granted by the constitution to determine budgetary priorities and allocation of funds for the same will have been usurped by the President, and the role of Congress will have become irrelevant. At that point, democracy as we know it in the United States will cease to exist.

This is what is at stake by Trump’s declaration of national emergency and his intent to reallocate funds previously slated by Congress for specific purposes unrelated to his wall to be applied to build his wall.

So far, Republicans by and large during the Trump administration have followed his lead; on this issue, if they believe in the American system of government, in the constitution, they should fall out of line. For the precedent Trump’s action will set will most assuredly come back to bite the Republicans and their fealty to this most very flawed man who occupies the Presidency.

Imagine for a moment that Trump is successful in fulfilling his bogus declaration of national emergency, a complete act of political expediency, what will happen when a Democrat becomes President, for it most assuredly will happen? What national emergency will that President declare? Perhaps that there are too many guns in the country and all guns should be seized. Or perhaps something having to do with climate change and requiring that all power be generated by renewable resources or that all cars be electric, etc.? Or perhaps that anyone who is registered as a Republican cannot vote or only ballots with Democratic candidates will be allowed. Let your mind run. The possibilities are endless.

The founders of this country put the power of making the laws, of setting budgetary priorities and allocating the money for them in the hands of Congress, the representatives of the People, not the President for a very solid reason: they had just finished fighting for independence from the very system of government where a king could do anything he wanted regardless of the will of the People.

Under the constitution, the role of the President is to carry out the laws enacted by Congress, by the People. It is not to make the laws. That is Congress’s role and duty. Yes, the President is Commander in Chief of the armed forces because the founders recognized that armies cannot be led by committee. There must be one leader, but that leader must act within the laws created by Congress. He or she cannot take the law into his or her own hands. A President is not above the laws of Congress, and it is Congress’s duty to ensure that the President acts according to the laws that it enacts.

Now, national emergencies have been called before. Trump’s declaration is in this sense no different, except none were declared in contravention of the will of Congress. This is where Trump’s differs and why it is so dangerous. It in effect makes him dictator.

Cheney may have wanted to be dictator, using Bush as his puppet, but he was smart enough to manipulate Congress to go along, to at least give the pretense of legality and constitutionality to his actions.

Trump’s declaration makes no pretense of acting with the will of Congress. It is a bald-faced grab for power, and it must be fought and defeated if American democracy is to survive.

I saw a football game yesterday, two actually, both of which epitomized the state of the game in the United States, sport, and the society itself.

The first game pitted the New Orleans Saints against the Los Angeles Rams, two professional football teams, with the championship of the National Football Conference on the line and a berth to the Super Bowl, the prestigious and crowning championship of professional football. Twice in that game there were examples of egregious fouls that occurred that were not called, both involving pass interference against a Los Angeles Rams player. The first occurred early to mid-way in the fourth quarter and cost the New Orleans team a first down and good field position. The second occurred with 1:48 left to play in the game and cost the New Orleans team the game. The team would have had the ball on the five yard line of the Rams with four downs to go five yards and score a touchdown or a field goal, either of which would have been enough to win the game and probably would have left little to no time for the Rams to mount any kind of credible comeback.

As it was, New Orleans kicked a field goal but left too much time on the clock, such that the Rams were able to gain enough yardage for them to kick their own field goal to tie the game and send it into overtime, at which point the Rams finally prevailed.

Now, one could argue that the Saints had plenty of other opportunities during the game to be victorious, and that one play does not define an entire game. But that’s not the point. The point is the games are supposed to be fair. The officials are there to ensure that they are fair, but when the officials clearly ignore that role, where does that leave the game, the sport and society?

Now, one might say, “Oh, you exaggerate. It’s just a game.” Yes, ultimately it is just a game, but it is also much more than that, and not simply because there is so much money riding on it and careers of all those involved. Rather, the game, sport, represents who we are as a society.

If we truly believe in fair play, not simply in sport but in our dealings with one another, then it behooves those involved to individually and collectively live up to that ideal. When we do not, we demean ourselves and our society and reveal who we truly are and what we really value and believe is important in society.

When the officials neglected to ignore what was obvious for all to see in the stadium and for anyone else watching on television, the players themselves and the coaches should have stepped forward and admitted to the foul and righted the situation themselves. That would have been fair and would have exhibited good sportsmanship, things we teach our children are important. But they didn’t. None of the Rams players or coaches said a word, even though they knew their own players had committed egregious fouls that gave them an advantage. They cheated.

Another foul was committed in the other football game that same day. This time it was called, but replays showed it was called incorrectly. It involved a Kansas City Chief player and the quarterback, Tom Brady, of the ultimately triumphant New England Patriots. Mr. Brady was in the process of passing when he was hit on the shoulder pads, a clean hit, by the Chief’s player. It altered his throw and the pass went incomplete.

But the official called it roughing the passer, presumably because he thought he saw the player hit the helmet of Mr. Brady, a violation. The Chief’s player did not hit Mr. Brady’s helmet. Nevertheless, it was called as a violation, giving the Patriots an extra 15 yards and a new set of downs, after which they went on to score. Had the play been called correctly, New England would have been faced with a fourth down and probably would have punted instead of scoring.

Now, Mr. Brady is considered one of if not the best quarterback to have ever played professional football. He has won many accolades for his prowess at the position, and he has led his team to many championships. But I have also seen this same person kick opposing players for having the temerity of tackling him, legitimately, crying to referees whenever he doesn’t like a particular call, and, of course, he was caught having deflated footballs to give him and his team an unfair advantage. He cheated.

Now, Mr. Brady is held up as some sort of football hero, a paragon of virtue. His opinion is sought out on football but on other topics as well—why? I have no idea. And yet, when he had the opportunity to do the right thing, to step forward and tell the officials what really happened, he was silent, because he wanted his team to win, and win at any cost. He cheated. And this is a man we hold up to ourselves and our children as being a hero? Is this what a hero is in American society, someone who cheats to get ahead?

If we as a society cannot live up to our ideals in our games, in our sport, is it any surprise that we fail to do the same in our everyday relations with one another?

Now, one might call me a Pollyanna for believing that upholding the rules of the game is important. But if not there, where?

We are currently in the midst of the most vicious onslaught of corruption in our government officials that perhaps has ever occurred in the history of the United States. And the people, the officials, most responsible for doing something about it remain silent, some even encourage it. Why? Because they want to win. They want to take advantage of others. They are willing to sell their souls for immediate gain at the expense of countless others.

Sport is a mirror of society. A society’s games and how those games are conducted reflect what kind of society has produced those games. When a society’s games are corrupt, so is that society in every aspect. The only way to fight corruption is to fight it wherever it may appear because if we allow it even at the most elemental levels, we allow it and condone it at all levels, and the result is what we see happening currently at our highest levels of government.

The truth is what happens on the playing field does matter. It matters because it is us.

Regardless of whether Christine Blasey Ford or Brett Kavanaugh was telling the truth or lying, one thing was very clear from the Senate Judiciary Hearing September 27 in which the two testified concerning Dr. Ford’s allegation of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh: as a justice of the Supreme Court Mr. Kavanaugh will be anything but objective when it comes to legal issues near and dear to Democrats. This should have been the main take away for anyone who watched his testimony, and for that reason alone, regardless of whether he did or did not do what Dr. Ford claims he did, he should not be confirmed to a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land where his decisions will affect the lives of millions of people for decades to come.

In his testimony, Judge Kavanaugh protested against and vilified Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee for turning the proceedings into a “circus” and for having ruined his and his family’s life. He claimed that they and they alone were responsible for the predicament he found himself in. Really? And I thought he was brought there to answer to charges of sexual misconduct that weren’t being levied by Democrats but by a woman from his past. How are Democrats responsible for her allegations and those of other women from his past?

Yet, in Judge Kavanaugh’s world view, Democrats are the demons. If that is truly how he feels, is there any doubt that he would carry this animus against Democrats and the issues they support into his judicial decisions as a Supreme Court Justice?

Judge Kavanaugh in his statement claimed that he was a good jurist, fair and objective. Nevertheless, he saw fit to demonize one group of U.S. Senators for all his troubles. How can a jurist be objective if he quite clearly loathes anyone who happens to hold certain beliefs that he obviously does not?

No one will ever know whether Judge Kavanaugh did the things that Dr. Ford and other women have alleged. The judge claims vociferously that he is innocent, and absent any corroborating witnesses, the claims boil down to a he said, she said scenario, and for the observer a choice between who seems more credible, essentially a flip of the coin.

There have been individuals who have given statements regarding Judge Kavanaugh and his behavior in high school and college that run counter to his narrative and quite simply are very unflattering. But then, he has rounded up others who have testified in his defense to the contrary. If one is to believe that the women who have alleged sexual improprieties in Judge Kavanaugh’s past are telling the truth and are not pawns of others bent on character assassination of the judge, then, the mere fact of the allegations should give one pause and question if the true character of the man is the kind one expects of a Supreme Court jurist.

Again, unless someone can come forward with clear-cut evidence that the judge did what has been claimed, we will never really be sure. One thing we can be sure of, however, the judge hates Democrats and as the country is made up of both Democrats and Republicans and many other political beliefs, but Democrats are in the majority, it is clear that he can in no way be objective toward Democrats and the issues they support and is thus unqualified to serve as a Supreme Court Justice. On that basis alone he should not be confirmed by the United States Senate to the United States Supreme Court.

Who really is responsible for the upcoming summit talks between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un? Donald Trump because of his bluster against the North Korean leader? Hardly. It’s China. Who also benefits from Trump’s recent decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal? The United States? Hardly. It’s China. Who benefits from Trump’s decision to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem? Is it Israel? The United States? Hardly. It’s China.

Stay with me here because they are all connected.

Months ago, when Trump met with President Xi of China, he reputedly asked the Chinese for assistance in putting pressure to bear on North Korea to cease its development of nuclear weapons. The Chinese did, but not because Trump asked, but because it was good for China. China’s leader summoned the North Korean leader to China and told him that he was to make nice with the United States, that he was to cease his development of nuclear weapons and to reach an accord with the United States. That is exactly what he is doing. He is not about to bite the hand that feeds him. And that is China.

Trump and Kim will sit down and they will come to an agreement in which Kim agrees to cease his nuclear program in exchange for a promise by the United States not to invade North Korea, to draw down its forces on the Korean Peninsula and to provide economic aid and investment to North Korea.

Trump will be declared a great negotiator, and his esteem in the eyes of the U.S. electorate will rise, which is exactly what the Chinese want. They want Trump to get re-elected. They need Trump to be re-elected. Why? Because with Trump as the head of state of the United States that gives China free rein to do what they want in Asia and elsewhere.

In Trump the Chinese know they are dealing with someone incapable of thinking strategically, who thinks of only one thing: himself. In Obama they knew they had a leader who thought strategically, and who was working to stem Chinese influence; hence, the Iran nuclear deal and the Trans Pacific Trade Pact (TPP). Now that both of those are dead because of Trump, that leaves China free to consolidate its position in Asia and to take advantage of a further embroiled Middle East.

Who really benefits from a de-nuclearized Korean peninsula? Yes, it lessens tensions and makes a nuclear conflict less likely, which is in everyone’s interest, but the Chinese get the best deal. If the U.S. draws down its forces in Korea, that makes the U.S. less of a threat to China directly from the Korean peninsula and makes the U.S. weaker militarily overall in Asia, which is in China’s best interest because then they can militarize in the South China Sea more readily without fear of the U.S. stopping them. With a U.S. and North Korean deal, China doesn’t have to pay so much to prop up North Korea. The U.S. will do it for them.

Now that Trump has basically scuttled the Iran nuclear deal, and with Iran and Israel fighting one another in Syria, there is added incentive in Iran’s mind to renew its quest for nuclear weapons. Add to this Trump’s decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, of which there is absolutely no benefit to the United States, nor Israel, because it only heightens tensions and conflict in the Middle East, still a region of strategic necessity to the U.S. and Europe because of the oil. The oil must flow.

Continued tensions and fighting in the Middle East will occupy the world’s and in particular the United States’ attention, allowing the Chinese to operate at will in Asia, building up their military position in the South China Sea and bringing pressure to bear on the countries of Asia to reach trade accords very beneficial to China.

Ah, but you say, China is negotiating with the United States to end the burgeoning trade war between the two countries. Yes, but who is in control there? It isn’t the United States. What bargaining chips does the U.S. have in those negotiations? Trump exited the TPP. He refuses to work in concert with Europe and other allies, insulting them whenever he can. Where is his leverage now with China? Had Trump stayed in the TPP, had he worked in concert with Europe and other allies to present a united front against China instead of imposing tariffs that mostly damage allies, that would be some real leverage to get China to cease its predatory trade practices and to abide by recognized international norms. Since because of Trump’s actions the United States has no leverage, China will not be held to account on trade, not in any meaningful way.

The truth is the Chinese think very strategically and long term. The whole North Korean nuclear gambit was not cooked up in North Korea; it was planned in Beijing. All they had to do was wait for a leader like Trump to emerge in the United States. Now that they have him, they’re not about to let him fail. Hence, the upcoming summit in Singapore between Trump and Kim and the inevitable agreement that will most benefit China but to an uninformed American electorate make Trump into a hero. And Trump being Trump, he will not lose any time in boasting of his great feat that was in fact engineered by China.

Similarly, it is in China’s interest, if for no other reason than to occupy the United States’ attention, for there to be continued and heightened conflict in the Middle East. Anything to take the eyes of the United States off the far east to give China the opportunity to do what they want there. Also, with Iran once again isolated and a nuclear pariah, that makes them ripe to become an ally of China as well as Russia.

The trouble with Trump, which benefits China, is that the man doesn’t listen to anyone but the voices in his head. He was a failed businessman, having gone bankrupt four times such that no reputable banks would lend him any more money, and he had to go to corrupt Russian Oligarchs to fund his business schemes. He is incapable of thinking strategically, something the Chinese, on the other hand, are expert at.

As long as Trump remains in office, the United States will be the puppet of China manipulated at every turn by a master puppeteer.

Regardless of whether or not the Iran deal was a good one or a bad one, which could be debated ad nauseam, it is obvious the Donald’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the deal had absolutely nothing to do with the merits of the agreement or if Iran was violating its terms, as Trump claimed, without proof, in his announcement. The reason the Orange Monster pulled the U.S. out of the deal was because it had been negotiated by the Obama administration.

That was the reason and the only reason for Trump’s decision. There were no other considerations made. He did not evaluate whether it would be better for the U.S. and the world to stay in or exit. He made no evaluation of the consequences for U.S. and world businesses, or the political and economic consequences for the Middle East. Such considerations, which assume a measure of prudence and thought on behalf of the orange man do not and have never entered the vacuum of Mr. Trump’s brain.

Trump is obsessed by one thing, other than the gratification of his third leg and his narcissistic ego, and that is to eviscerate any memory, any vestige of the fact that the United States had a black man as its head of state. It’s as simple as that.

The political pundits can pontificate all they want about Trump’s actions, speculating about what geopolitical considerations might have been weighed in the decision of whether or not to remain a part of the Iran deal, but one salient fact remains: Trump squashed the Iran deal because it had been considered a foreign policy triumph of President Barack Obama.

Before Trump became President he vowed to scuttle the Iran deal without explaining why or citing anything particular about the deal that he found so objectionable. All he would say was that it was a very bad deal. He said the same thing regarding the Trans-Pacific Trade Pact (TPP), which he exited as one of his first orders of business upon entering office. Scuttling that deal gave China the green light to go ahead with its military ambitions in the region and to force the Pacific Rim countries, especially in Southeast Asia, who have a long resentment of China, to heel to China’s dictates.

The whole purpose of the TPP, again negotiated by the Obama administration, was to present a buffer to Chinese ambitions. Now, that buffer is gone. An opportunity to check China and exert American, western, liberal, democratic influence was wasted. And why? Because Mr. Trump could not stand the fact that the agreement had been negotiated by a black man. Was the agreement perfect? No, but no agreement ever is. It was, however, a solid effort to maintain American influence in Asia, which would have been good for the American economy and, obviously, the other signatory countries believed it would have been good for them and their economies as well.

The truth is Trump is quite simple to figure out and to predict what he will do. If you happen to have black or brown-skin, you can pretty much figure he will do anything he can to make your life miserable. His entire life has been spent in opposition in some fashion to people of color. In his mind, which is a generous term in his case, the fact of a black President was an intolerable affront to his conception of what the make-up of U.S. society should be. For Trump there is only one American society and that is a white society. Anyone who isn’t white is considered an interloper and not wanted. Trump’s primary motive and focus since gaining the throne of the American presidency has been the systematic expunging of any evidence that the country was once led by a person of color. Pulling the U.S. out of the Iran deal is only just the latest example of that obsession.

What will be the result of Trump’s latest strike against the legacy of President Obama? Certainly, it will not sit well with the Iranian government and people, and if the U.S. sanctions Trump re-imposed by his decision are adhered to by a good portion of the developed world, the Iranian people will definitely suffer, engendering ill will in their hearts toward the U.S. government, and, yes, toward its people. If Trump’s objective as some pundits argue is to effect regime change in Iran, think again. The current Iranian government and governing structure will not go gently into the night. Don’t forget, the current Iranian theocracy is a direct product of decades of American interference in Iran prior to 1979 and its support for a corrupt, ruthless, and very unpopular regime there, notably the Shah Reza Pahlavi. Like elephants the Ayatollahs and their surrogates, who rose up against the Shah in 1979 and have maintained control of the country ever since, have very long and bitter memories and will not take kindly to any effort to oust them from their perch of power and control.

Will Iran resume its nuclear ambitions? It’s quite possible, especially if the European countries adhere to the sanctions. What incentive would Iran have at that point to not resume its nuclear program? Will that make the world safer? With conflict between Israel and Iran in Syria escalating, there will only be further incentive for Iran to double-down on its efforts to perfect its nuclear capability, putting not only Israel in danger but the entire region, the consequence of which could easily spread throughout the world and to an inevitable catastrophic world-wide nuclear conflict.

As a result of the Iran deal negotiated by European countries and the United States under the Obama administration, there was at least the beginnings of some dialogue between the U.S. and Iran as well as the opening of commerce between the two countries, always a helpful mechanism to keep the bombs at bay. Now, that dialogue will end. American companies that had secured contracts for their products with the Iranian government will lose those contracts, costing them billions and costing thousands of jobs. How does that make America great again when it’s nominal leader effectively harms the interests of its own manufacturers?

And what of American influence in the Middle East? Like it or not Iran is a major player there. It cannot be ignored. Trump’s decision to snub Iran will not convince that country’s leaders to sit down with or listen to U.S. negotiators; quite the contrary. And where there is a vacuum of American influence it will be filled by other players, notably Russia and China that will have long-term repercussions for American business interests and influence in the Middle East.

And all of this could happen because of one man’s fixation and enmity toward people who happen to have more melanin in their skin than he does. If it weren’t so absurd, it might actually be comical. Unfortunately, there is nothing funny about someone with such odious ideas and beliefs who has so much power to influence so many people’s lives and so adversely. There is only one word to describe such a situation: tragic.