HALIFAX—Anyone who had the misfortune of watching U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent three-and-a-half hour “cabinet meeting” will realize that he has sunk to new and toxic levels of ego liberation. In the aftermath of the meeting, one protester carried a sign reading, “I’ve seen smarter cabinets @IKEA.”

It was that bad. While Trump sat there like the praise-pig he is, his cabinet competed to see who could lay the most kisses on the presidential posterior. One after another, they gave him credit for saving everything from the economy to college football. 

Who was king of this death march of ingratiation? His labour secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer gushed that she had emblazoned her department’s building with a photo of his “big beautiful face.” Sycophancy on steroids.

Not far behind her was Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff. He hyperbolized that the president was “the single finest candidate” for the Nobel Peace Prize. Only four U.S. presidents, including Barack Obama, have received the honour. 

To put Trump in that company is beyond rot. Though Trump now claims he has stopped 10 wars—the number rises every time the president speaks—here is the skinny. 

Trump is the president who bombed Iran.

Trump is the president who supplies the weapons for Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, where 83 per cent of the 63,000 dead Palestinians are civilians.  

Trump is the president who praised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as “genius.” 

Does any of this sound like Nobel Peace Prize material to you?

Trump doesn’t deserve a Nobel or any other prize. What he deserves is to be held accountable for the worst abuse of office of any president in U.S. history.

His presidency has been a giant shakedown of universities, law firms, companies, and global allies, extracting millions of dollars in gifts or services from his victims.

It goes from the sublime to the ridiculous. 

The Saudis funded a $2-billion dollar investment for Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. 

And when Trump took a fancy to a Boeing 747-8 that belonged to the Qatari royal family, it was “gifted” to the U.S. for Trump’s use as another Air Force One plane.That move could put taxpayers in line for a billion-dollar retrofit. It is unclear if Trump gets to keep the jet when he leaves the White House or merely have it as a part of his presidential library. 

Despite clear prohibitions under the emoluments clause of the American constitution, Trump and his family have used his office to enrich themselves. According to the New Yorker, the Trumps have raked in $3.4-billion from his presidency. 

His breaking of norms doesn’t end with his multi-million shakedowns. 

Trump has taken over policing in Washington, D.C., sending in the National Guard at an estimated cost of $1.1-million a day. By comparison, it costs just under $200,000 to serve D.C.’s homeless. 

Trump has hinted he wants to take over policing in other cities, calling Baltimore a “hell-hole” and Chicago a “killing field.” Real statistics show that crime in both places is actually falling. 

Another problem with Trump’s bogus claim that deploying the armed National Guard is about public safety? Several GOP-represented cities like Memphis, Tenn., and Cleveland, Ohio, have much higher crime rates than Chicago yet Trump hasn’t mentioned sending the troops into any red states.

It hasn’t been enough for Trump to put masked men on American streets arresting racialized people for deportation, often without warrants and without producing any identification. The president has given Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, a budget of $45-billion to do the work of meeting his absurd deportation quotas.

Trump has also kicked off a frontal attack on America’s electoral system, brazenly asking Texas to redistribute its congressional districts to guarantee him five more seats in the upcoming mid-term elections. 

And then there are Trump’s outrageous attempts to call the shots on international matters. He has mused about making Canada the 51st state. 

Trump recently resorted to the extraordinary move of sanctioning a Canadian judge on the International Criminal Court (ICC). 

After Judge Kimberly Prost approved investigations into U.S. actions in Afghanistan and efforts to prosecute Israeli leaders for alleged crimes in Gaza, she had her assets frozen in the U.S. Three other ICC judges were also sanctioned.

And now the Denmark government has summoned its U.S. envoy after reports of a covert influence campaign aimed at undermining Greenland’s sovereignty. Trump has said in the past that he needs to take over Greenland for national security reasons.

Shouldn’t all of this raise holy hell with the powers that be in America? Tragically, the answer is no. The Republican Party, the Democrats, Congress, the Senate, the judiciary, or the corporate world have barely uttered a peep about Trump’s outrageous behaviour.

It comes down to this. There is a hero shortage in America and a surplus of cowards. A deadly silence, coupled with a relentless aversion to the facts, has enabled the worst of Trump’s lies and hypocrisy to proceed largely unopposed. 

Lisa Cook is a case in point. Trump fired Cook from her post as Federal Reserve governor even though he doesn’t have the authority to do so. Trump justified this unprecedented dismissal through a letter to Cook posted on his social network, Truth Social, where he alleged that she may have committed mortgage fraud.

Think about that. No charge against Cook, no trial—just a dismissal as unfit because of an allegation of wrongdoing included in a social media post. Thankfully, Cook is taking Trump to court.

Verdict by Truth Social is of course a travesty of justice. But there is another problem with Trump’s reasoning. 

If a mere allegation of wrongdoing renders someone unfit for public office, what about Trump’s 34 felony convictions for falsifying business records? 

What about his being found liable for sexual assault against E. Jean Carroll? 

By Trump’s own standard for firing Cook, he is unfit to be president. But don’t hold your breath waiting for someone to say that out loud.

One of the reasons Trump has been able to silence his critics is his willingness to turn the justice department into a revenge department. 

He has done that by appointing unprincipled toadies to top positions not just at the justice department, but also the FBI. Former national security adviser John Bolton is merely the latest Trump critic to find federal investigators at his door.

Until people stand up for the facts and the truth, the Trump tyranny will continue. People like Erika McEntarfer, the former commissioner of the Bureau of Labour Statistics, will continue to be fired for reporting the facts. People at the Federal Emergency Management Agency who sign open letters critical of the organization’s leadership will continue to be put on leave. Even television networks critical of Trump may one day see the licenses of their affiliates taken away.

The great poet William Butler Yeats wrote what might be America’s epitaph in The Second Coming, published in 1919:

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world ….

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

Michael Harris is an award-winning author and journalist.

The Hill Times

 

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