It’s easy to kick a dog when it’s down. Take Joe Biden. More space has been taken up recently about his possible failings and foibles, with breathless commentary, and book sales, on who knew what, when, while we watch every day a president who seems mentally unwell disrupting the world. Right now. In real time. And the GOP shrugs.
The WH has gone from publishing fewer than 20% of Trump’s transcribed speeches on a publicly accessible database to taking all public records down, except edited videos.
No one who has watched Trump lately has to wonder why that might be. His appearances since he took office have been erratic, and removing the transcripts, while entertaining reading, are consistently nonsensical rambles.
WH press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “The Trump White House is the most transparent in history,” but of course, it’s not.
We the people don’t know who’s making decisions at DOGE. Or who gave the order to render migrants to El Salvador. Or much about a multitude of other mysteries. Now the president’s actual words will be hidden from us too.
Trump’s erratic behavior regarding tariffs is just one example among many.
He suddenly announced that he will impose a 50% tariff on goods from the EU on June 1. He is frustrated because his fantastical promises of a new trade deal have failed to magically appear when he said ‘make it so.’
Instead he’ll simply dictate terms himself.
“I’m not looking for a deal. We’ve set the deal—it’s at 50%.”
He also threatened a 25% tariff on Apple products unless the company begins to make the iPhone in the US.
Major European stock market indexes fell after Trump’s threat. US stock market indexes fell for the fourth day. They rose from their lowest point after the WH clean-up team said Trump’s tariff comments were not a formal statement of policy.
In other words, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”.
So the president of the United States can tank world markets, only to have his own staff inform the media that his comments should not be taken seriously.
The election of Trump, twice, is democracy in action. And we have to live with the consequences, regardless. But we also expect all the people we elect to lead the country will take their oaths to protect and defend seriously.
The first part of that democratic process we can understand. We might not like it, but that’s our system. The second part, the dereliction of leadership we assumed would work for we the people, we absolutely cannot understand.
And will not accept.
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