What is the Failed Mueller Report?
“We come here to bury, not to praise Caesar, but who is Caesar?”
1. Whether due to the liberal orthodoxy of the American Dream or the reality of white privilege, the Mueller Report (Report) reflects the “cognitive dissonance” (inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, as related to behavioral decisions and changing attitudes) of the pundits, political factions, and the partisans. Ironically the Report contradicts itself in both the introductions to Volume I (Investigation of Russian Interference) and Volume II (Obstruction of Justice).
2. In Volume I, the Report says on page 60 of the Washington Post edition, April 2019 edition, “”that the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Then the report goes on to list contacts between the Campaign and the Russians (many of which have been reported ad nauseam by national media.) Who’s guilty now of a “wink and a nod?”
3. Similarly, in Volume II, the Report says in the introduction that “this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” The Report excuses itself, due to considerations of “fairness” and Department of Justice policy that suggests that indicting a sitting President “could imperil the President’s ability to govern.” Does he govern?
4. Then the Report goes on in detail during the next few pages and lists the number of times witnesses and reports show how the President threatened and/or tried to stop the investigation or lied about his participation with Russia or as an obstructionist. The Mueller Report apparently loves a Paradox.
5. The Report reminds me of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, which mentions the purpose of the U.S. Constitution to insure “Tranquility,” Welfare,” and “Liberty” while eliminating access to same in Article I, section 2 while omitting women and omitting by name indentured servants, Indians, Black people (3/5ths doctrine).
6. The White Supremacy of the U.S. Constitution has gained credibility under “originalists” (Scalia, Kavanaugh, Roberts, Gorsuch et al) at SCOTUS. Meanwhile the Trump administration aims at reversing over two hundred years of Amendments and policies aimed at gradually satisfying the diversity of rights seemingly guaranteed by Abraham Lincoln’s version of the Declaration of Independence and FDR’s progressive reforms. Put those people in their place…at the end of the line.
7. Many of my readers will be familiar with the Constitutional reasons for sanctioning Trump’s “abuse of power” because of reports broadcast on television but better analyzed in Michael Lewis’s book “The Fifth Risk.” The destabilization of the energy, agriculture, education, and environmental departments, to name a few, reflect Trump neglect, policies which lead to the endangerment of the public health, welfare, and safety of America and the World.
8. Foreign policy revolves around Trump family profits, arms sales to Saudis, Towers in Moscow, renting hotel rooms in D.C., a policy which violates the “Emoluments” clause in the Constitution. Privately, the policy assuages the ego of the iconic deity of the right.
9. The inhumane abuse of children at the border and their incarceration by private prison systems under the Trump administration emulates the violations of the Geneva Conventions, which forbids torture, a practice the Bush administration embraced. Similarly, Trump disparages the fourth estate as “enemies of the people” (despite their protected status under the First amendment.) Here, he emulates the Obama administration, which persecuted whistle blowers and journalists under an espionage act, folks who reported on fraud and fakery in the intelligence agencies, while revealing the ubiquitous surveillance of American citizens. The abuse of children whether by Catholics, Baptists, or the President should be taboo.
10. The Triumphant corporate economy and almost unanimous GOP support for Trump indicates how wedded are his various supporters to racism or white supremacy, which policy and propaganda divides and conquers both liberal and conservatives, upper and lower classes in their pursuit of Capitalist Democracy. When it comes to the gap between rich and poor, Trump is not to be outdone by Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, or Obama. All acknowledge the true power brokers ensconced at banking, fossil fuel, Big Pharma, the Gunsters and Gangsters among the War Profiteers.
11. Just as the contradictions in the Mueller Report stick in one’s craw so do the intellectual’s paeans to the rule of law and anxieties about the loss of faith in government by both liberals and conservatives on radio and in journals, like The New York Review of Books, where writers, like Mueller’s team, raise their pens only to be drowned out by Trump tweets. Trump knows who doesn’t read or watch TV even as he burgles the country’s treasury in plain sight, while denying human contributions to climate change i.e. “Apocalypse Now.” Don’t we love the smell of Napalm?
12. The Christians who encourage their kids to join the military, kids brought up on Jesus’s message of love, wonder why their boys come home with PTSD and commit suicide. During Vietnam and Iraq, reporter Seymour Hirsh spoke to mothers who said, I sent the government a good Christian boy and they sent me back a killer. What constituency does the serial killer represent when he kills children and church goers? The Re-interpretation of the Second Amendment gives the lie to “originalists.”
13. In “Defying Hitler” by Sebastian Haffner, a memoir, the German historian and writer confirms the heart of the heart when he discusses the motives of decent people who would rather “kill” or commit atrocities than rise up and raise their voice against conformity and conventional wisdom of the community. (Better to die heroically than speak with moral courage.) James Baldwin speaks of the way minorities internalize white racist views of the majority culture. The “colonization” of minds by propagandists also happens in plain sight. The Rust Belt working class votes for Trump, like the Rich white folks who vote Republican, or the various agents of the police who support the lawbreaker. They kowtow to their Tribune and their Tribe.
14. In America today the light on the hill has dimmed. Mother Mary closed her eyes because of the priests. Lady Liberty has turned her back on the poor and forgotten. The Report equivocates and doubts like Peter at the Last Supper. It reads like the struggle between the Old and New Testaments together, between a vengeful God that seeks glory and the son, Jesus, who cries for mercy and humbly says to turn the other cheek. While AG Barr plays the role of Judas, remember that Jesus said to the Devil: “Get thee behind me.”