The adjectives come easily enough: autocratic, authoritarian, bombastic, bullying, capricious, dictatorial, disingenuous, imperious, etc. The same may be wrapped into one unifying wrapper: “malignantly narcissistic”.

The case fits the object that has become America’s most unrelieved subject of interest.

There once was a day in which the power of the sovereign was precisely the power to destroy property or persons — or both — with impunity, and that same power would have been defended by barbaric, cruel, and ruthless machination and violence provided the sovereign could assemble the compacts and raise the army and security necessary to rule by force — or, as above, take care of business himself.

Ours is not that day — or at least not that day in the liberal and open democracies of the west — and very much not a day to be welcomed back.

In the parallel and surreal universe opposed to the west and marching forward into the past, however, the politically absolute may continue to deceive and gas light their hapless populations while making themselves — precisely: their “glory” (rather the effects) of their own brutality mistaken for virtue — of primary importance beneath the dispassionate gaze of God, nature, and the universe. From their most on-high positions, each will violate every last aspect of conscience by lying most freely, destroying most wantonly, thieving most brazenly, and, generally serving themselves most of all without restraint.

And why not if each malignantly narcissistic personality can seize the kind of self-glorifying power dreamed of for itself and achieve — true to form — “unlimited narcissistic supply”?

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One might suggest that Putin, Assad, Khamenei, and, sigh, of late, Erdogan, and Orban, at least, have been living within or toward deeply retrograde dreams, but while empire, dictatorship, theocracy, and dynasty may prevail for Russians, Syrians, Iranians, Turks, and Hungarians, the same will not for Ukrainians — or Americans — for whom medieval power is no longer wanted, need be no longer tolerated, and will be resisted — and that, God willing, to the end of time.

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Regarding President Trump

Count the now felonious associates (if you can); take in the bankruptcies and stiffed subcontractors; count the marriages (add in the lovers and spice with the “Grab ’em . . .” remark); consider the cruelty of the betrayals, including the firing of long-term alien labor right along with the tragic Michael Cohen’s sore abuse; think about the lies, especially having to do with his (denied) Russian relationships.

Related Online

Benen, Steve. “All the president’s (convicted) men.” MSNBC, November 15, 2019.

Bump, Philip. “Roger Stone joins the remarkable universe of criminality surrounding President Trump.” The Washington Post, November 15, 2019.

Goldberg, Jeffrey. “The Man Who Couldn’t Take It Anymore.” The Atlantic, October 2019.

Jacobs, Jack. “Trump’s former generals, from James Mattis to Joseph Votel, sound an unprecedented warning.” NBC Think, October 22, 2019.

LeBlanc, Paul. “Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal hits Trump as immoral, dishonest.” CNN Politics, December 31, 2018.

Morello, Carol. “Tillerson calls Trump undisciplined. Trump calls Tillerson ‘dumb as a rock.'” The Washington Post, December 7, 2018.

Walters, Greg and Cameron Joseph. “‘Talk to Rudy’: How Trump Let Giuliani Hijack the State Department into Chasing Conspiracy Theories.” Vice News, November 5, 2019.

Quotations

The BackChannels process has turned out one that might be distilled to “collect” (media), “select” (quotations, references, videos), and “opine” — i.e., stand on the virtual Hyde Park soap box and declaim. Be that as it may, here are a few of the more notable “moments” in text 🙂 provided by references noted.

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“So often, the president would say, ‘Here’s what I want you to do, and here’s how I want you to do it,’ ” Tillerson said at a fundraiser for the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

“And I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President, I understand what you want to do. But you can’t do it that way. It violates the law,’ ” he said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/tillerson-says-trump-directed-him-to-do-things-that-violate-the-law/2018/12/07/2e8623dc-fa34-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html

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Once Mr. Trump treated the military with a level of reverence that he extends to few other American institutions. Peppering his cabinet with retired senior officers enabled him to allay the concerns within the Republican Party about his own lack of experience and preparedness for the role of president. He has spoken admiringly of “my generals” and talked about those who looked the part.

“They were like from a movie,” he said on Wednesday, describing a recent Pentagon briefing. “Better looking than Tom Cruise, and stronger.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/trump-mattis-defense-secretary-generals.html

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. . . Mattis and Tillerson had together smothered some of Trump’s more extreme and imprudent ideas. But now Mattis was operating without cover. Trump was turning on him publicly; two months earlier, he had speculated that Mattis might be a Democrat and said, in reference to NATO, “I think I know more about it than he does.” (Mattis, as a Marine general, once served as the supreme allied commander in charge of NATO transformation.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/james-mattis-trump/596665/

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WASHINGTON — When President Trump’s top advisers on Ukraine gathered in the Oval Office in May, Trump gave them a simple, clear directive: “Talk to Rudy.”

Since then, a mountain of evidence has emerged to show just how deeply Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney with no official government role, penetrated American diplomacy toward Ukraine — and turned it toward pressing the country to announce an investigation of Democrat Joe Biden.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/zmj7za/talk-to-rudy-how-trump-let-giuliani-hijack-the-state-department-into-chasing-conspiracy-theories

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