On Golden Showers

Surf’s up!

Let’s begin with the fun part. Let’s imagine it’s true.

And now that we’ve spoiled your upcoming meal, ask yourself this:

How hard was it to imagine?

If you’re like us — God help you — the answer is clear:

Not very.

Because it fits with everything else we know about Donald Trump, particularly his need for dominance in all interpersonal relations. This is a man who, let us not forget, boasted of his unsolicited crotch-grabbing — when you’re a star they let you do it — and claimed a wistful droit de seigneur over his own daughter. We’re not shocked that a man whose tastes are triumphantly tawdry would enjoy a transgressive night in with the girls. Far from it.

And because we always warn against drinking (sorry) your own caricatures, compare this to claims that Barack Obama was really an anticolonial Kenyan Muslim at heart. We wouldn’t be surprised that Obama’s Christianity is less than full-throated (sorry again), but that would merely put him in the mainstream of the American professional class, far from a traitorous subversive who has only a week left to topple the nation he leads.

Meanwhile, as we await the publication of the Trump Special Edition of If I Did It, we must contemplate BuzzFeed’s role in telling us he might have. Journalists were sitting on the goods for months, and David Corn at Mother Jones even bowdlerized the documents during the campaign. But he didn’t divulge the — honesty, we just can’t help ourself — juicy parts.

In publicspeak, the allegations are salacious and unsubstantiated, and BuzzFeed has been criticized by its journalistic brethren for tipping off the Great Unwashed to their details. Clickbait, sirs, unforgivable clickbait!

And, yes, if we published random musings about Trump’s alleged participation in a German scheisse video, we would be laughed out of the fraternity. But these aren’t random: The allegations were gathered over months by a respected former British spy, originally as Trump opposition research — funded sequentially by Republicans, then Democrats — and turned over to the FBI in July, when the Former Spook thought they were too hot to remain in private hands.

And once in the system, they eventually ended up being reported to Trump and Obama last week by top intelligence officials — not as fact, but as examples of the shit making the rounds.

Golden Showers ain’t the Pentagon Papers, but this is where they become newsworthy as documents, whatever their veracity. (And BuzzFeed was very clear about what was missing from the story.) Our government is taking the allegations seriously enough to inform our present and future leaders. Care for a peek?

And while the document’s author wasn’t disclosed upon publication, his name came out soon enough — and now he’s gone into hiding.

From the Russians.

Who have been known to poke people with laced umbrellas in Britain.

He’s damn sure taking it seriously.

There’s an even broader, deeper question that encompasses this and similar recent news, as well as the entirety of Trump’s campaign: What are the norms of our institutions?

What if a similar memo was circulating about President-Elect Barack Obama eight years ago? What if the intelligence community was leaking as madly about Obama then as it’s trashing Trump now?

Our kneejerk response — and trust us, it’s really tempting — is to ask whatever happened to Trump’s private investigation of Obama’s birth certificate, and leave the goose and gander to duke it out. But our Better Angel — Michelle, you might have heard of her — urges us to go higher when the cretins go lower.

Alas, were only human. We’re opposed to the death penalty, but we’re not going to raise a fuss about Dylann Roof. And as much as we should be deeply concerned about our spies turning their attention to our leaders—

We feel nothing.

But we’re not naive. This — all of this — will have consequences. It already has. James Comey broke with longstanding FBI policy to comment on an ongoing investigation in the late stages of an election. National Republicans decided en masse that they’re cool with foreign meddling in our elections, as long as they benefit from it. They also cooly abdicated their Constitutional responsibility to decide a Supreme Court nomination in the hopes of holding out for a better alternative.

Norms have been broken from the moment Trump descended an escalator to a cheering crowd of paid shills. Norms continue to be broken in the preparation and wielding of power. And norms are now being used as cudgels to solidify the power of the usurpers who demand our respect instead of earning it.

We’re engaged in a war for our Republic, and for the democratic institutions that sustain it. It’s too late to turn back, too early to return to normalcy. Not everything we do will be justifiable in retrospect, but it’s the best we can manage in the heat of battle.

And if that means we’re perversely delighted by the thought of Dear Leader pleasuring himself in the presence of two whores urinating on each other in a Moscow hotel room, so be it. War is Hell.

10 Comments

Gee I wonder what would have made a splash during the elections… emails or Piss Trump Manchurine Candidate.

The real story is the treasonous coordination between Team Twitter Troll and Russian agents to install a Kremlin puppet in the White House. No wonder the CIA is pissed.

Fortified by some heavily-peated Caol Ila last night, I’m watching the Pruitt EPA confirmation hearing on CSPAN. 2 people thrown out already. He said that climate change is real and to some extent is caused by human activities. Flat-earthers are upset. He just showed off by saying “Tosca” which is how you say “TSCA,” the Toxic Substances Control Act. Not the opera.

Take heart, friends. President Twitter Troll and the RepubliKKKans will self-destruct due to a toxic stew of infighting, greed, and incompetence, and probably much more quickly than anyone expects. All is not lost, and we will rebound soon.

@¡Andrew!: Provisionally agree with that domestically — let’s not get ahead of ourselves — but the damage he can do internationally remains immense. He’s going to be “tested” as all new presidents are, and Flynn ain’t gonna be a calming voice.

“We’re all so dumb!” Should be the RepubliKKKan party’s new motto. Hell, it’d likely earn them even more white trash votes.

“Thinking is hard work, which is why it’s so rare to see anyone doing it.”

– Sue Grafton

By the way, the reason I’m only provisionally relieved is that Trump put on an awful convention, followed by a really awful campaign launch, and still he managed to win the Electoral College. I agree that early signs point to a domestic program that’s Not As Totally Disastrous As Feared, but I want to see how it plays out for a bit.

More confident about Obamacare at the moment. I don’t think Trump (or a sufficient number of Congresscritters) can stomach the blowback.

@nojo:
As Politico pointed out, President Piss Goblin has done far more to court Vladimir Putin than the nothing he’s done to reach out to the majority of the country that voted against him.

The incoming RepubliKKKan party dictatorship is historically unpopular and has next to zero public goodwill to carry out their agenda based on fear, greed, hate, and lies.

I refuse to become another victim of these sadistic psychopaths, and so should you, and so should every decent person in this country. We will win.

Best inauguration advice received the day before: “Be sure to close your eyes when they open the Ark of the Covenant.”

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