Our Pre-existing Condition

Artwork by Michael DiMilo

                  The release of the long-anticipated Mueller Report this past weekend was anticlimactic to say the least: a disappointment for some and a vindication for others. The report contained no smoking guns or bombshells, but also no acquittals—a fact that seemed to be lost upon our esteemed leader. In yet another presidential misrepresentation, our Commander-in-Chief has subjected us to more strident self-righteous crowing and twittering. 

            The were no indictments; President Trump, his sons Eric and Don, Jr., his daughter Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, all previously linked to business dealings with Russian oligarchs before the election, were not charged with collusion. Of course, their minions, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, George Papadopoulos, and others, had already been charged, and—in some cases—tried and convicted. But, somehow, once again, the big fish got away.   

Mr. Mueller concluded that no evidence of collusion between the Trump White House and the Russians had been discovered. In his summation of the report, Attorney General Barr also stated there would be no pursuit of an obstruction of justice case, but that there also would be no exoneration of the president on this charge. Not guilty but not innocent. Democrats and many others are clamoring to see the report in its entirety. They claim that Barr, a presidential appointee, is protecting Trump. They seem to have believed that this report was going to be the magic bullet, Donald Trump’s kryptonite, and do not trust Barr’s motives in refusing to pursue the obstruction case. 

The one thing we can be sure of is that the report itself is valid. Robert Mueller is seen—almost universally—as a man of the utmost integrity and his work on this investigation has been thorough, conscientious, and unbiased. So if he says there is no fire, I believe there is no fire. But I do believe there’s smoke. A lot of smoke.

Regarding the report as the end rather than the means, or as a diagnostic tool, is misleading, much the same as when we consider Trump to be the most significant threat to our democracy. It’s not his idiocy or his behaviors that are the problem; abhorrent as they are, they are not the affliction; they are simply the outward symptoms of the greater disease infecting our country. Trump wasn’t elected because Hillary was running against him or because of the charisma oozing from his ever-present bulk. He was elected because a good number of people thought, and still think, that he’s a good leader, and that he’s right. While this group is not a majority of our electorate, it was—and is—substantial enough to get him elected. 

This electorate is willing to live with his constant and obvious lying, his blatant racism, his grandiose cheating and swindling, his gross misogyny, his bullying, his tastelessness, and his utter self-absorption. Why? Because they can identify with him. And because he was, and continues to be, propped up by a political system whose primary function seems to be to funnel money back into its richest quarter, and whose primary supporters respond to the most primal motivating political force: hate.

If Trump and his crew had been indicted, or if further investigations prove there were indeed crimes or impeachable offenses committed, would the removal of this man from our highest office solve these deeply embedded problems? No. Some of these issues, like racism and the American lust for money and adoration of the wealthy, are probably incurable, deeply ingrained as they are in the national psyche. Others, like Citizens United, campaign finance abuse, inequitable health care, and outrageous corporate welfare, are eminently curable. 

In the past, we usually haven’t relied on our justice system or our courts to shape policy or make new law, but with legislative and gridlock and party animus presently at an all-time high, the justice system has been asked to do more than ever before. This is not how it should be. Mueller is not responsible for determining whether Trump is fit to be president. He was appointed to investigate crimes against the state. He did that and determined that there is not enough evidence to indict our President or anyone in his immediate circle. Robert Mueller did his job. Would we expect a cop investigating a domestic abuse call to start counseling the couple? No. That’s not a cop’s job. 

If Trump is to be removed from office—and for reasons on a dozen different levels, he should be removed—it’s the electorate who must remove him; if we are to take the first step, to recognize that America does indeed have issues, issues much more deeply rooted than a bombastic martinet with a bad hairdo, than we have to acknowledge them.     

America, we’ve got a problem.

            Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes put it best.

            “…Removing Trump will not remove the infrastructure of an entire party that embraced him; the dark money that funded him; the online radicalization that drummed his army; nor the racism he amplified and reanimated.”

Trump has inadvertently done us a favor. By personifying the worst tendencies in our country, he has brought them into plain sight. He has raised the pus from the wound. He’s exposed America’s problem, our pre-existing condition. Now all we have to do is treat it.