Trump flips, thrashes democracy

After initially saying he would leave it up to the voters in Alabama, Donald Trump now really wants Roy Moore in the Senate.

Maybe it’s because those accused of sexual harassment in government would like a support group.

The way congressman are quitting government, they are losing their quorum.

Or maybe Trump, an accused serial sexual harasser himself, just wants someone he can really relate to like Moore, a man accused of inappropriate relations with underage girls.

Moore makes Trump, the infamous “pussy grabber” look semi-wholesome. And maybe that’s why Trump is now out on the campaign trail for Moore.

It’s a pretty major flip in American politics, where flips have been in the news lately

But it has nothing to do with Filipinos.

Will Flynn take down Trump?

It began a week ago with the stark reality of General Michael Flynn, the former National Security Advisor to Trump. Flynn is no flip, but he most assuredly has flipped.

He’s the first member of the Trump inner circle to admit to lying to the FBI–a felony that could get him five years in prison.

Flynn’s flip begins paving a path to the truth, that one commodity that has been in short supply in the Trump administration, where lying seems to be a way of life.

Michael Flynn. AP PHOTO

As a witness for Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, Flynn could be the key to putting the screws on others on the Trump team, including the orange man himself.

Trump’s response? After an inordinate period of quiet, the tweets go on.

But after Flynn flipped, you’ve got to keep a story straight. It meant Donald Trump had to flip too.

The twit was back to twitter like it was his confessional,

“I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI,” Trump tweeted. “He has pled [sic] guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”

Of course, in February, when asked why he fired Flynn, Trump was pretty blunt. “I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence, it’s very simple,” Trump explained to reporters.

He must not think there’s any video tape in the cameras or that we are as daft as he is. Trump has repeatedly pointed to Flynn lying to Vice President Mike Pence. He never mentioned the FBI lie.

Did he know about it and didn’t say?

Were Trump’s repeated attempts to get leniency or immunity for Flynn an obstruction of justice?

California Congressman Ted Lieu, an outspoken Asian American leader, who took to Twitter himself.

“This is obstruction of justice,” Lieu tweeted. “(The president) now admits he KNEW Michael Flynn lied to the FBI. Yet Trump tried to influence or stop the FBI investigation on Flynn.”

That’s the way it looks, doesn’t it?

You don’t see many people of color speaking out on the matter in the news. But Lieu’s has been a significant voice for Asian Americans, Filipinos included.

Things only got worse after Trump’s lawyer John Dowd said HE actually wrote the tweet, not Trump.  And then Dowd told the Washington Post that Trump had known about the Flynn lie for months.

And just to cap it all with the appropriate amount of arrogance, Dowd explained to the news site Axios that the “president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution’s Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case.”

The president is above the law? We know from the Nixon years that no one is above the law. Not in a democracy.

But we see from Trump, truth, democracy, what’s it mean?

There’s just the Trump truth in a Trump democracy, everything else is fake news.

It’s become the way things work under Trump. It truly is like we’ve never seen before. Tradition. Truth. Convention. All of that is out the window. We know that politicians lie. But with Trump there’s no art to it. He just trudges forward like maybe no one was paying attention.

In golf, Trump’s game,  it would be like someone mismarking his ball for a putt, moving his ball an inch closer to the cup on the green. Or maybe taking a little liberty with a ball on the woods.

Trump pushes on. And if you call him out, you’re fake.

In politics, you get away with it if you have a majority behind you.

Trump doesn’t like it that he won an electoral college majority, but lost the popular vote.

And indeed, he is the least popular president in modern history.

But as long as he has a majority of Republicans in Congress, the Senate especially, he can get away with his remaking of Democracy.

More Moore

Which brings us to the importance of Roy Moore, the Senate candidate in Alabama accused of having inappropriate sexual contact with underage girls.

After first trying to distance himself from Moore, Trump is now “full throated,” as they say in his support of Moore.

Roy Moore. AP PHOTO

But you know he thinks it’s bad because he’s doing clearly doing cosmetic things like campaigning for Moore not in Alabama, but in the adjacent state, Florida.

You see through that one don’t you?

Once again, it shows that Trump is the biggest flip in America these days.

When that infamous “Access Hollywood” tape revealed Trump talking about grabbing women by their genitals, Trump came clean. He admitted what he said and apologized.

Now he says, it wasn’t his voice on the tape. Flip.

When the tape emerged during the campaign, at least a dozen women coming forward to claim they had actually been sexually harassed by Trump in the past.

Trump didn’t acknowledge them, simply calling them liars and threatened to sue them. To date, he hasn’t.  Flip.

But the flip on Flynn, and the flip on Moore is just downright infuriating.

Clearly the world must see through all his actions.

Don’t you?

In America, enough people are so frustrated with government they are all too willing to see it thrash and fail.

Unfortunately, Philippines, don’t look to America for moral leadership.

Trump, the harasser-in-chief, who has bankrupted several businesses, amongst them a casino (how does a casino–with a house edge–lose money?) is bankrupting democracy for all.

If Roy Moore wins on Tuesday, it’s just another clear sign that America has flipped.

Emil Guillermo is an Inquirer.net columnist based in North America. Follow him at https://www.twitter.com/emilamok

Listen to his podcasts at https://directory.libsyn.com/shows/view/id/emilamokstakeout