The Impeachment Trap

America elected a real estate developer (and TV reality star) as its President in 2016.

Now while all real estate developers are obviously not the same, about the biggest certain things are true.

They are a tough breed because they have to be. Massive amounts of money are involved and when that is true, capitalism is at its purest and most often, inhumane. They work with other people’s money…borrowing heavily to purchase land, hire architects, fund construction, meet deadlines, marketing, competing. Lots of people to pay; banks to repay plus interest, and other costs when what you spend always challenges the bottom line of profit. When it’s all about money, the game can be cruel and anything goes; any statement, any claim, wheeling and dealing at its best…buyer beware. Because in real estate it’s always about money and the sell, always the sell… the buyer better beware.

And so it is just this kind of businessman and salesman who became President.

In this case, he is the son of a real estate developer who had very impressive successes in New York City. There was an older brother who became an alcoholic and a suicide and several sisters of whom little is known.

The second son saw the light in pleasing his Dad. Dad saw the potential. Private schools. The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Questionable payments – tax deductible gifts – to the children to maintain the fortune. Lessons taught and lessons learned about life, attitudes, the business and business practices. And always the sell. And when the boy was ready a sizeable gift to launch his career.

And so in time the classic story becomes reality. The reputation as the endless fraternity boy, the hard, sexist attitudes about women, the need to be known and recognized, to become bigger and more successful than Dad. A reputation as someone who will say anything to get attention and fight for that attention at all times. Always seeking the spotlight not necessarily by doing something but by saying something outrageous or profane with little interest in or reason for truth; where what is said matters most not whether it is true.

And when there was little interest in the persona, becoming John Miller, Press Representative for himself…talking about the beautiful woman “his client” was seen with last night. Laughable to some…but real.

And always the name foremost and upfront. And always…non-stop…the sell.

It was that ability to sell that made him a TV network star personality for 15 years in a reality show which established him as the ultimate BOSS and everyone else on the show as an Apprentice. The show itself was pure sell and the only line or incident remembered is the BOSS declaring “You’re fired”.

15 years on national television. A familiar face, a familiar attitude. The ultimate CEO…totally in charge. Why not President of the United States?

RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT

In the years immediately preceding the 2016 campaign for the Presidency, the real estate developer had difficulty securing bank loans he needed to finance plans for building in Europe and in the Middle East. The developer sought financial support in Russia from the oligarchs and in the Middle East from the sheiks. The salesman had to get to work.

He knew he needed to expand his influence, build his brand and so decided to run for President recognizing that such a move would put him on the biggest stage of all. No John Miller press agentry needed. Run for President and the World knows who you are

For a man who never stopped talking…did anyone ever hear him say he wanted to be President or that he thought he could be elected? No evidence of that at all.

Could a salesman who had no interest in or knowledge of Government (but for the damn taxes) run for President to build his brand? He’d lost his TV show…why not another one called the Republican Presidential Primary debates? Sounded great!!

Sure the man had absolutely no respect for any politician or the political system. But he needed to build his brand and the Presidential election had come along just in time to help him do that and no one could stop him from running…so why not.

IMPEACHMENT? PERFECT PR

And so we know what happened…and against all odds and expectations from anyone especially the real estate developer himself.

But do you remember that first debate? Standing front and center, red tie hanging low over his belt…telling America all politicians, especially the 16 on either side of him were crooks who only thought of themselves. And that staged attack on Megan Kelly which let the World he was talking to know how he really felt about women.

Sensational TV. And the country was hooked. This guy was telling it straight!! No politician ever talked like that.

The World is quite familiar with the story on Election Night and since.

And it knows of the crushing defeat he experienced in the Midterm Election in 2018…although history shows that other Presidents have suffered similar rejections.

Yet the result has triggered threats of impeachment and many Americans, not to mention the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, are all in favor of it despite the opposition of others including the Speaker of the House.

While it is easy to be sympathetic to this view if one is a liberal, it is easier still to see the mistake that could seal another term for the man they want to throw out. It is clear and beyond doubt that the Republican Majority in the Senate will NEVER vote to impeach no matter what the House does.

Further and more important, it is obvious that an impeachment inquiry will eat up all of the news coverage in this country, while the President’s administration continues to bludgeon program after program in a stunning effort to rid the country of any regulation that limits private industry in any way: deregulation in the environment, immigration, trade, college loan debt, the sale of arms, the recognition again of private institutions of higher learning despite their negative history. The Administration is bending and twisting what exists into an effort to free private industry from any regulation at all.

While the media and the country follow every single tweet, every statement morning, noon and night, every sales trick in the book to keep the country distracted by the noise that never ends, the Administration continues to run rampant finding every legal and constitutional reason – and some not so – to bypass Congress continuously.

It is as if we were all standing on a corner in lower Manhattan, while a magician with a small table and three shells and one coin, moves them continuously asking to bet under which shell the coin will appear.

Impeachment is not the name of this shell game. But it has a result much the same. More often than not the bystander bettor loses.