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by Constitutional attorney Robert Barnes
Trump’s Next Big Hurdle is Himself
Trump’s virtue and vice reflects two sides of the same coin: his stubborn independence from outside voices and abundant self-confidence. On the good side, it makes him immune from elite critics, orthodox thinking, establishment mindset, and institutional narratives. On the difficult side, it makes him unlikely to acknowledge errors, reverse course when needed, or look beyond his own horizon. A few examples of this.
During his response to the State of the Union, he wanted to remind everyone how wonderful the vaccines were, and why he deserves credit, not Biden. This tone-deaf response led to an avalanche of criticism on his own Truth account, and triggered Trump deleting the statement. But it reflected a stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge he got taken for a ride by Big Pharma and it’s institutional allies in 2020 to the detriment of his own Presidential legacy and his core constituency.
It reflected a trend. Trump remains mute on Julian Assange, who his own administration secretly coordinated the imprisonment of. Trump remains silent on Edward Snowden, whose disclosures first outed the great dangers of the Obama administration’s weaponization of the intelligence community ultimately turned on Trump. Trump failed to comment on Amos Miller, when his own Department of Agriculture under Dumber Boss Hogg Sonny Perdue instigated the harassment of. Trump skipped support for Brook Jackson, whose case his own DOJ slow rolled to keep secret the Pfizer fraud of the Covid vaccine he just again celebrated.
Trump promised to hire the best and drain the swamp. Instead, he hired the Swamp. Barr’s own DOJ sabotaged his 2020 campaign. Rosenstein greenlit the Mueller onslaught. Pompeo promoted the Deep State at State. Bolton killed the North Korea nuke deal. His own generals sabotaged withdrawal from Syria. RussiaGate, and Ukrainegate, led from within his own administration, derailed détente with Russia. Elliott Abrams continued foolish coups in Venezuela. Miley almost induced war with Iran. Pence made his 2020 challenge DOA.
The administrative state remains fully intact at the end of his term, and used his power to make sure his reelection was doomed. Trump recently endorsed a host of establishment and deep state candidates over populist challengers, while considering corporatist Noem and war whore Tim Scott for the Vice-Presidency, a Deep State death invite for Trump, while employing critical campaign aides deeply embedded within the establishment.
Trump’s vulnerability – aside from the weak side of his instinctual refusal to admit error, a stubbornness that can come in handy when refusing to change many of his populist policy preferences from elite critiques – is he tends to see the world from his own horizon. To Trump, the problem with the lawfare is just it’s use against him, not an institutionally ill system of state power that corrupts all it touches and threatens all Americans’ liberty. This failure to appreciate the institutional problems divorces him from the true source of the lawfare against him, as well as the solutions essential to a successful second term for himself and the country. Institutional problem require institutional solutions, not individual ones.
This is why Trump’s next big hurdle – as he dominated Super Tuesday, ended the nomination early, won SCOTUS blessing of ballot access, and may be on the verge of dismissal or post-election delay of his criminal exposure – will be Trump himself. His best skill set for handling this hurdle is his marketing instincts and competitive impulse: the threat of a Kennedy campaign stealing votes for Trump can be his best incentive to shift toward policy prescriptions that mirror the institutional illnesses infecting our governance. The question is: will he?
Bill Madden writes, "Refusing illegal orders in the military is difficult to do because they normally are generated high in the chain of command and very few officers in the chain really know what is or is not a legal order. Immediate superiors can be very demanding and the orders are usually given in high pressure environments. Refusing an illegal military order is tantamount to whistleblowing and, as much good as it does for the concept of truth, the whistleblower’s life is made miserable as a punishment for his honesty and a warning to others."
I watched this happen with Army Spec Michael New during the Clinton years. He disobeyed an illegal Clinton order, was arrested on base in Germany, was then given an unjust, unconstitutional trial, and then a Bad Conduct Discharge. But he stood his ground the whole time and has been proven right since.
“Fact check; not locking down at all (like Sweden) would have saved lives in UK. Hard to believe how much money the UK spent on its sham covid inquiry.”
--Jay Bhattacharya
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry cost millions. It finally released the core political chapters of its long-awaited report. After nearly three years of hearings, millions of documents, and tens of millions of pounds spent on legal fees, the conclusion is now unmistakably clear.
They’ve learned nothing, even while watching millions suffer from lockdowns and vaccination.
Worse, they may not want to learn. The Inquiry’s structure, its analytical frame, even its carefully curated narrative all point in the same direction: away from the possibility that Britain’s pandemic response was fundamentally misguided.
Not the personal sub;
the private American car. Americans owe $1.66 trillion in auto debt. Delinquencies just hit levels not seen since the Great Financial Crisis. Nearly 30% of all trade-ins are underwater. Average amount owed: $7,000 more than their cars are worth.
Auto loans are now a bigger consumer debt category than student loans (8.9%) and significantly larger than credit cards (6.6%).
So is that shiny late model vehicle a blessing, or a curse?
