Monday, March 4, 2019

Will the Door Be Full of Holes Post Trump?

When I was bumming around Europe in 1957, I met a Scottish fellow who was upset about the failure of the U.S. to back up Britain, France and Israel during the Suez Canal crisis. The U.S. had threatened serious economic sanctions against those three countries –our allies--if they refused to withdraw from Egyptian territory along the canal. The Scot claimed that as a result of the U.S. action in Suez a breach had been made between the U.S. and Britain that could never be completely healed.  He told this story: 

A little boy, who was often naughty, was made to drive a nail into the barn door for each time he was bad. Soon the door was full of nails and the next time he was sent out to drive a nail, he returned and said to his mother, “I can’t drive any more nails, the door is full.”  

“Well, then,” said the mother, “from now on every time you are good pull out a nail from the door.” 

And after a long while the door was empty of nails and so the mother said, “Well, now we are back to where we started a long time ago.”  

“No, mama,” said the boy, “now the door is full of holes.”

Our friendship with our NATO partners Britain and France survived the Suez crisis. But now more holes have been punched in the relationships with our allies by Trump’s dangerous threat to withdraw from NATO and by his environmentally unsound withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord. In addition, Trump's dangerous and treasonous love affair with Putin rips away at his duty to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. 

He repeatedly attacks the Separation of Powers clause of the Constitution by maligning judges who rule against him and most recently by declaring a national emergency –which does not exist—in order to make an end around Congress’s refusal to authorize five billion dollars for an unneeded wall at the Mexican Border.

Let’s hope that we get rid of Trump and his sycophants in 2020 and get back to where we started before his election. 

Or will the door be full of holes?