Fired FBI chief James Comey. ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON, DC– I was deep in the swamp last week where I said hello to the only Filipino American representative in Congress, Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia.
We stood next to Sec. Norm Mineta, the Godfather of Asian American politics at the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies dinner, and Norm told to Scott, “Remember when we were in a meeting with Bill Clinton and he said, ‘Bobby what are you doing here!?’”
Scott’s grandfather was Filipino, and thus we have him at the table at the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.
The talk was mostly about the news of the week. Trump shared secrets with the Russians! As if the Comey firing to try to stop the investigation into the Trump Russian connection wasn’t incendiary enough. And the hits just kept coming.
Trump then asserted his right to share those secrets with Russia, even though it compromises an ally, Israel, as well as a more “friendly” terrorist group.
Then Trump said he asked Comey to drop the Russia probe, bringing up the possibility of obstruction of justice, an impeachable offense.
And then the news of the appointment of a special counsel to look into the federal investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Bang, bang, bang, bang.
Is it the beginning of the end of the Trump administration that seems hell bent to turn democracy into a corporate phenomenon that enriches the 1 percent and tosses the 99 percent overboard?
Any impeachment talk is premature, and even if Trump were impeached, getting him out of office is another matter. Bill Clinton was impeached and managed to hang in there.
No, the distressing news is that the cloud only got darker for the U.S. and this president. And the possibility of doing anything substantive as far as a legislative agenda is getting more and more unlikely.
The least qualified president is now the least popular president in recent history. And now with an investigation that can literally look at all wrongdoing, it’s hard to imagine Trump will be able to do anything beyond his often wrongheaded temporary executive orders that end up being make work.
This is America, once the proud super power, now led by a dimwitted narcissist with no clue how to govern.
America run as a business? Never made sense. And now he’s turning his sights to an economic plan that will do more to help corporate interests and enrich the 1 percent of the country, while ignoring the 99 percent.
This is the example being set by the president of the free-world. He is making the U.S. look more like the Philippines, were the elite rule, and the interests of the people are subverted for corporate and personal gain.
We are always wistfully saying how the Philippines’ democracy was built in the image of the U.S. d Now Trump has made it easy for Filipino elites to justify how democracy looks in the Philippines. It’s exactly how Trump wants to change America, where we look like the Philippines, complete with our own White Marcos.
Sad how that’s working out.
That’s why people of both parties are hailing the news of a special counsel on the Trump investigation. Wherever it goes, an honest investigation goes a long way to restore faith American democracy.
That’s the first step. And it’s a big one. A larger problem is that Democrats, a minority in both the House and Senate, don’t seem to have any better answers at this point either. At least that’s the takeaway I got from informally chatting with people at the dinner. It’s non-partisan, and I sat next to some Republicans.
But it seems no one really likes to, as they say, address the elephant in the room. Even when it’s not.
These days in Washington, it’s enough just to keep spirits up and away from the despair of the Trump reality.
There’s a sense of resistance to Trump, and a sense of advocacy against Trump’s draconian policies.
But no one on the opposite side is really articulating anything that amounts to a vision for a future Post-Trump. And that’s what American needs now more than anything. Certainly, more than all the Trump bombshells.
Emil Guillermo is an award-winning journalist and commentator based in California. Contact him at https://www.amok.com
