The judiciary’s Christmas gift to Trump
And so this is the Christmas season. I hope you have fun.
Donald Trump is on the back nine. The festivities have begun.
He made calls to Santa and service men all right.
While in Venezuela, he’s spoiling for a fight.
We can blame Trump for a lot, and we know it’s all true.
But at the end of the day it boils down to me and you.
Enough of the rhymes. What the country needs is a sense of humor, some decent rock n’ roll and real leadership. Ask anyone and you will find, or at least I have, that a majority of people are not happy with either the Democratic or Republican parties. As I’ve often said, one is the party of no heart and the other is the party of no head.
Together they might be able to do something pretty special. But the last time there was any bipartisanship in the United States Congress was during — wait for it — the Biden administration. The trillion dollar bipartisan infrastructure bill that put people to work, helped out Republican and Democratic families alike and ensured that, coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. did not suffer the economic downturn that plagued many other nations.
We’ve gone back to ripping ourselves apart — a perennial pursuit that has pummeled the nation into divisive pandering since Richard Nixon slinked into office and spread his particularly malevolent brand of politics.
Since then? We’ve gone back to ripping ourselves apart — a perennial pursuit that has pummeled the nation into divisive pandering since Richard Nixon slinked into office and spread his particularly malevolent brand of politics.
Trump is just a symptom of the cancer that has infected the body politic.
In “The American President” directed by the late Rob Reiner, Lewis Rothschild (played by Michael J. Fox) tells President Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas) that the “People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they’ll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They’re so thirsty for it they’ll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there’s no water, they’ll drink the sand.”
And Shepherd, via some brilliant writing by Aaron Sorkin, tells Rothschild that people don’t drink the sand because they’re thirsty. “They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.”
We see evidence of this every day. I wouldn’t be surprised to read a headline that tells us that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid in a small Midwestern town ended with the arrest of two poor immigrants and their newborn son after local MAGA supporters turned the parents in for staying in a stable next to a Motel 6 that had no vacancies. The child would naturally be separated from the parents, sent to Honduras for no reason, while the parents would be stashed in a warehouse in an undisclosed location.
There is simply too much gaslighting going on to spend adequate time debunking everything. Those on the far-right believe that antifa is a terrorist organization, when being anti-fascist is literally one of the reasons why we fought Nazi Germany during World War II.
The far-right doesn’t want to talk. They want to insult and threaten with all the temerity of a drunk and the subtlety of a shovel to the side of the head — a blow they seem to really wish they could deliver to those with whom they disagree.
On the extreme left, there is no tolerance for anyone on the right. I am as tired of hearing about those who claim to be “woke” and who are not as I am tired of hearing racists declare they’re not racists. To be clear, Charlie Kirk is not “this generation’s Martin Luther King Jr.,” no matter any claims made to the contrary. They both were shot and killed from a distance, but other than that, I’m not so sure the guy who folded his arms and said “Change my mind” is on the same level as the guy who said, “I have a dream.”
There are plenty of other examples of “drinking the sand,” and those cycle through the corporate and independent media worlds. Both, whether they want to or not, “drink the sand” while telling us how everyone else is “drinking the sand.”
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The right screams that Bill Clinton’s picture was taken with Jeffrey Epstein. The left screams about redactions in the Epstein files and Donald Trump. Neither does anything to solve problems. It does, however, give “influencers” an infinite amount of material they either don’t understand or can manage to twist into whatever Gordian knot they want.
We are a nation of immigrants, a nation divided over appearances, a nation in search of itself. Our politicians reflect us. They are born in America. They are raised in American families and go to American schools and lead American lives. This is the best we can do. We have met the enemy and he is us.
This holiday season I really want to take a break from talking about Epstein, Venezuela, immigration, Gaza, Ukraine, Europe, climate change, climate deniers, anti-vaxxers, the NFL, the WWE, Congress, the president, ICE raids, the Supreme Court, the new White House ballroom, the Trump-Kennedy Center, rebranding, health care, education, the economy, entertainment, crime, religion, political corruption, asteroids, parental neglect and whether you’re a “Card” or a “Cat” fan — a nod to my Kentucky friends and family.
But there is some hope; two things that could make a big difference in 2026.
But there is some hope; two things that could make a big difference in 2026.
The first is the rare rebuke the Supreme Court gave to Donald Trump two days before Christmas. As NPR reported, the Trump administration argued in an appeal in October that it needed to federalize the National Guard to stop what Trump claims is unremitting violence against ICE agents at detention facilities in the Chicago area. But two lower courts ruled against Trump’s claim that the protests constituted a “rebellion or danger of rebellion” against the government — and that the president has the right to put down.
The conservative Supreme Court didn’t buy it, giving the president a rare defeat as a Christmas present. “At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the majority wrote in its brief opinion. The president, the justices found, failed to explain why the situation in Illinois warranted an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act that limits the military’s ability to execute laws on U.S. soil.
Hope is alive. And as icing on a cake, U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali ruled against the Trump administration on Dec. 23, issuing a preliminary injunction to keep the president from denying Freedom of Information Act and national security attorney Mark Zaid his classified security clearance.
While this does not have the weight of a Supreme Court decision, the Zaid case is important because he has spent the last 30 years defending whistleblowers against Democrats and Republicans alike. And while Ali gave the government until Jan. 13 to appeal the case — which Trump will most certainly do — it is another sign of hope. Congress has surrendered its power, but the judiciary has not.
“This is not just a victory for me,” Zaid said. “It’s an indictment of the Trump administration’s attempts to intimidate and silence the legal community, especially lawyers who represent people who dare to question or hold this government accountable. I will not be intimidated and look forward to continuing to defend the brave men and women who stand up to the unlawful retaliation of the Trump administration.”
As for Trump, he remains the real-life version of conservative Sen. Bob Rumson (Richard Dreyfuss) in “The American President,” and no truer words have ever been spoken as those Douglas spoke as the fictional president. “And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.”
It is also the way you divide a nation.
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