Ever wonder what Donald Trump
means by “America First?” This week we found out.
It turns out that “America First” is one of those phrases
whose meaning is derived wholly from context, invoked opportunistically when convenient, and
revealed with his taxation and healthcare plans -- and then the stunning revelations about Jared Kushner -- to be a disgraceful
deceit… malevolent, disingenuous, and perhaps treasonous.
Our loyal allies in NATO learned that “America First” is
a great sound-byte to send back across the Atlantic to the Fox News faithful,
as Donald Trump glossed over the profound strategic and moral basis for the NATO Alliance and got straight to the part about dividing the check. “America First”
in this context meant photo-ops of Donald Trump, the tough guy allegedly
looking after the American tax payer, demanding that all those deadbeat
European countries fork over their cash. There was the irony of Trump leading a
ceremony about September 11, which was the only time that NATO’s Article 5 –
the “one-for-all, all-for-one” mutual defense clause -- had ever been actually
invoked because a NATO nation had been attacked. The country NATO nations raced
to defend? That would be the United States of America. Sound-byte bites back.
But, hey, do you want to hear a real first for America? How about having the leader of the Catholic
Church chastise the United States of America for being backward about science? When the Pope suggested that
Trump read his encyclical on climate change, he was not falling back on that
old Ex Cathedra Papal Infallibility justification,
he was invoking a rich catechism of extremely secular climate data. For the
Pope to find it necessary to bring the President of the United States up to
date on science is like Leonard Bernstein feeling a need to show Elvis Presley how
to grind his pelvis.
In Saudi Arabia, we learned that Donald Trump will
hate-talk the Muslim faith with incendiary intent while addressing frenzied
stadium mobs in Red State Nation, but shrink his demeanor and shrivel his
message when he actually finds himself under the laser-beam scrutiny of
powerful global Muslim leaders in Riyadh. Put another way, Trump will say one thing in America first, and then say the exact
opposite when in the Middle East. The speech was generally well received, but
reviewers seemed to reach this conclusion largely because Trump had finally
demonstrated an ability to mentally compartmentalize the world’s one billion
Muslims as distinct and separate from the deranged murderous jihadists who
inhumanly target eight-year-old girls attending an Ariana Grande concert. Spare us the Fox anchors’ breathlessly reporting the arrival a new “statesmanlike”
Trump every time the President manages to read a prepared speech from a
teleprompter. When will they finally
figure out that he only reads verbatim from a canned speech when he is scared
stiff, knows he is in way over his head, and can’t afford the risk of an
extemporaneous off-the-cuff screw-up?
Still and all, the trappings, pageantry, and gleaming
wheels-up video of high-level global diplomacy could make even Barney Rubble
look like Harrison Ford in Air Force One. Limited to highly scripted photo-ops
and mandatory good behavior, the Trump team probably felt he had a pretty good
week in all the countries he set foot where he was not President.
However, earlier in the week, far, far from the Wailing
Wall, we heard the loud, anguished cry from the Congressional Budget Office
lowering the boom on the new Trump healthcare bill, which the House passed
enthusiastically without waiting for the inconvenient matter of whether it made
economic sense. You may recall that it was
the CBO’s report way back in, uh, five
weeks ago, that dealt the body-blow to the original euthanized Trump
healthcare proposal. Apparently the white mice in mazes in Psych 101 B.F.
Skinner experiments learn faster than House Republicans, who somehow thought
that a few tweaks to forge an unholy compromise would enable this homely
caterpillar of legislation to emerge transcendent as a luminous healthcare
butterfly beloved by all. But all of the elements that caused the bill to cover
fewer ailments, cover fewer people, and cost more than ObamaCare were pre-existing conditions from the
original DOA Republican legislation. To simplify the C.B.O.’s verdict on the new
healthcare bill: it is every bit as
stupid as the first one.
But the real issue in the C.B.O. report is the degree to
which it solidifies that sense Donald Trump’s idea of “America First” is actually
that some Americans are more first than
others. Swept into office on a wave of anti-establishment populism stoked
by Trump’s often brazenly inaccurate assertions, Trump promised that a vast
segment of "forgotten Americans" would be forgotten no longer. He promised that their healthcare could be
higher quality and less expensive. It took Trump a mere four months to not
simply forget, but to wage open warfare on the vulnerable people who naively bought into his fantasy.
The C.B.O. report concludes that Trump’s health plan will
reduce the number of insured Americans by 23,000,000, and it will make
healthcare vastly more expensive for low-income elderly people. And the money saved by stripping away affordable
healthcare from Trump’s “forgotten Americans” will go largely into the pockets
of wealthy individuals, whose taxes had been raised to fund Obamacare, and will
now be reduced accordingly. America
First? More accurately, "Rich America First."
Later in this same eventful week, Trump doubled down on
his “some Americans are more first
than others” philosophy with a non-starter proposal for overhauling our
taxation. Again, the primary beneficiaries of Trump’s tax plan are phenomenally
wealthy individuals, who particularly scored with the proposed elimination of
the estate tax. This hocus-pocus plan is scotch-taped together through the
assumption of sustained 3% GNP growth, a number that Trump’s spokespersons
assure us used to be normative. Perhaps this is just one more example of Trump
wanting to make America great again by returning to the 1950s. The problem is
that banking on a GDP growth rate considerably higher than the actual rate in
the past decade is like justifying your new Lamborghini by explaining to your
spouse that the payments will easily be covered by the vastly-above-average
raise you are certain you will receive every year for the next decade. Not many
couples would bet the college fund on such foolishness, but that is the core premise of the Trump tax plan.
Not lost in all this: The Trump tax plan was delivered
at roughly the same time Trump was shaking down our European allies for NATO
money, claiming he was “looking out for American tax payers.” If only he were actually looking out for
American tax payers on the actual subject of paying American taxes.
What is startling is that despite all of the above,
Monday through Thursday was putting Trump on track for what was being tallied
as a damn good week for a damn weak Presidency. The absence of Greenland-sized
gaffes, new Russian scandals, and spewing molten Twitter lava allowed Trump to
make it through Hump Day with only a reproachful hand slap from Melania to slow
his mojo.
And then Thursday happened. Thursday, that is, followed by Friday.
On Thursday came the saucy revelation that Jared Kushner
is officially “under scrutiny” by the FBI in connection with its investigation
of the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian intelligence. Reporters and talking heads went to standard liberal lengths to parse
the meaning of “under scrutiny,” bending over backwards to convey that phrase
this did not imply that the President’s son-in-law and apparent closest advisor
was being investigated for wrongdoing. The FBI, it seems, has its own little
color-coded chart, and being “under scrutiny” lies in some gray area south of
merely being a “person of interest” but not currently “under
investigation.” Jared may have been
soothing Ivanka’s no-doubt jangled nerves about the ambiguities of FBI
terminology when all of a sudden Friday
happened.
On Friday, the Washington Post broke the story that in
December, the son-in-law of the President of the United States had an
undisclosed meeting with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in which the topic
of establishing a secret “back-channel” method of communication between the
Trump transition team and the Russian government was discussed.
Jaws now black and blue from crashing on tables with each
succeeding Trump gaffe, embarrassment, and apparent obstruction of justice once
again descended in mass, with disdain and distaste now supplanted by
open-mouthed disbelief. What in God’s
name did Kushner want to talk about with the Russian government that he so
desperately needed to conceal from U.S. intelligence and law enforcement
agencies? Did Kushner really propose
using private Russian communications channels specifically to hide the
content of his communication with Russia from the United States government? What possible charitable
interpretation could the Trump team paste on a plan to conceal covert communication with a
hostile sovereign nation?
A tasty side dish to Kushner’s inexplicable gambit was the
fact that Michael Flynn was in the meeting. This, of course,
suddenly provides blinding clarity as to why Donald Trump was begging everybody
in official Washington to drop the investigation into Flynn. Trump knew that if
Flynn felt cornered, he could cop a plea in exchange for Kushner’s head.
Kushner, of course, is direct connection to the Oval
Office. If we find a "smoking gun," it's a good bet that Jared Kushner will be the one smoking it. It’s possible for Trump to play games about whether he knew what was
going on while Manafort and Flynn were supposedly free-lancing with Russian
intelligence. But for Donald Trump to assert that he had absolutely no
knowledge of Kushner’s proposed private back-channel places Trump in a highly
precarious position. If that is interpreted by Ivanka and Jared as hanging
Jared out to dry, what follows is a Trump nuclear family nuclear meltdown. Trump's return to broadcast television will not be with The Apprentice, but with an horrendous re-make of Family Feud.
As a final note, there is the Ken Starr Rule of Special Prosecutor Privilege, which holds that
once there are grounds to investigate Kushner, the FBI is not going to limit
their investigation to dealings with Russia. They are going to take that Swiss
Army knife with the fancy can opener and filet Kushner’s financial innards
going back to his frat house. Nothing will be off limits. Anything Kushner has
ever done gets thrown into the plea bargain broth. Ten years at that minimum
security facility in Englewood ought to be plenty of time to read up on why they put
those nepotism rules in place.
Call it Amerika First,
the final and most insidious perversion of Donald Trump’s promise. In this case, the promise to place America
First is intentionally undermined by secret conversations intended to keep
America in the dark about private negotiations with a rival who has
demonstrated their intent to sabotage our democracy. America first? Not exactly.
The Trump team wants to give information to the Russians first, and keep
it from Americans as long as possible. Right now the Trump White House looks
like floating pond scum obscuring the view, making sure Amerika is the last to know.
Last week we wrote that the endgame on the investigation
into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with the Russian government might
be faster than we think, and we pointed to the flood of leaks out of the White
House and the intelligence agencies as one critical reason.
The story on Kushner is the latest – and perhaps most
spectacular – example of the whistle-blowers, outraged career government servants,
and red, white, and blue patriots inside our government who are actually doing for real what
Trump so cynically postures and pretends.
They are putting America first.
How can Donald Trump promise to put America First when he
doesn’t even know what America is, where it begins, or, for that matter, how it
could end?
The rest of us now know for sure.
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