dave :: @roweafr :: now showing.. :: @FinancialReview
* * * *
Peter Birkenhead
Donald Trump is a serial rapist. There can be no serious or reasonable argument against that assertion.
Yet reporters, pundits and Senators will tell you that they go on having conversations with the president about housing policy and taxes and ballrooms because, well, he’s the president, and no matter what he’s done that fact makes his every utterance newsworthy and important.
Because the institution of the presidency is important, and must be respected.
Read that again, slowly.
“We respect the institution of the presidency so much we must allow it to be occupied and administered by an utterly depraved criminal.”
This is not a logic that “respects institutions.”
This is a logic that worships power.
If an assistant deputy director at the EPA was a serial rapist, no reporter would ask them about anything other than being a serial rapist. No Senator would speak to them.
What would happen if the reporters at a press briefing in the Oval Office asked Donald Trump detailed questions about the sickening evidence of his depravity and refused to let him change the subject?
Yes, he would send everybody out. How do you think that would play on the evening news later? Yes, he would deny those reporters access in the coming days. How long do you think he could go without on-camera attention from them? Yes, he would only allow sycophants from Fox and Newsmax to attend the next press briefing. How long do you think he’d be able to withstand the coverage and criticism of that fact by other news organizations? A day? A week? Two weeks?
What if members if Congress gathered in the Oval Office said to the President, on camera, “We’ve read the following evidence of your shocking, disgusting behavior and refuse to conduct business-as-usual with an unrepentant, violent criminal”?
Does anyone think that would play to the benefit of the criminal?
A healthy democracy, one that actually respected its institutions, would not allow a deranged, serial abuser of women and children to occupy its most powerful office.
In such a democracy it would be a matter of course to speak to a sociopathic rapist occupying the office about nothing other than his crimes, to extend him no courtesies or deference, no benefit of the doubt, and no opportunities to cause more harm and suffering.
To do otherwise would be to engage in blatant disrespect of the presidency and the principles embedded in the Constitution that established it in the first place.
Allowing Donald Trump to continue wreaking havoc on our institutions and their founding principles is not an act of respect for those institutions and principles. It is an act of disdain for American democracy and an exaltation of power for its own sake.
