NOWHERE TO RUN, NOWHERE TO HIDE
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.” Abraham Lincoln said that in his annual message to Congress, on December 2, 1862.
Tonight, Donald Trump will try and fail to follow in Lincoln’s footsteps. On the one hand, some of his aides have been telling the press (anonymously, of course) that Trump will pose as a healer – the man to bind the country’s wounds and unite the nation again. On the other hand, Trump himself has been trying to promote the speech by teasing the possibility that he’ll declare a state of emergency and divert money appropriated for the U.S. military towards building a big beautiful wall. Or maybe a fence, or a barrier. Whatever, maybe a crocodile infested moat, 2000 miles long.
As emergencies go, this one is basically non-existent, and trying to terrify the nation into believing in this fantasy is hard to square with being an above-the-fray unifier. The only crisis on our southern border is a humanitarian one, which Trump created and has no interest in solving. Trump is facing a crisis, of course. Nancy Pelosi is eating his lunch, which is a personal emergency for him. For the rest of us, it’s a hopeful sign of progress, and quite the opposite of a genuine threat to our national security.
If his past history is any indication, Trump will begin by reading woodenly from a teleprompter speech written by staff. He’ll get bored sooner or later and begin riffing incoherently about something he just heard on Fox & Friends. Maybe he’ll talk about women bound and gagged with blue electrical tape. Maybe he’ll try to make a case for sending American troops to Venezuela. Maybe he’ll launch into a rant about witch hunts.
The point is that, whatever Trump talks about, he’ll be lying. That’s who he is. It’s what he does. He can’t help himself. Remember that if you watch the speech. Remember it when you hear media types analyze the speech. Any commentator who takes Trump’s words at face value is foolish or dishonest. Or both – we can’t rule that out.
The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent notes (link below) that if Trump tries to declare a bogus state of emergency, Nancy Pelosi has the power to ask the House of Representatives to vote yea or nay on supporting it.If a resolution against the state of emergency passes the House, as it seems likely, Republicans in the Senate will finally have to take a public stand. In the event of a floor vote, they’ll have to declare themselves. In the event that Mitch McConnell tries to ignore the House resolution and refuses to schedule a Senate vote, they’ll have to take a public stand for or against that.
Lincoln concluded his speech to Congress in 1862 with these prophetic words: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves.” They can run, but they can’t hide.