In the past, all Presidents have understood, without needing to be tutored on the subject, that, although they are not elected by all of the voters, they nevertheless serve all of the people, voters and non-voters, including voters who voted against them. Their primary responsibility--to take care that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed--extends to everyone, without fear or favor. That is ultimately what is meant by the rule of law. The law, in both its benefits and burdens, must be applied fairly and equally across the board, or America ceases to be a nation of laws.
Enter Donald Trump, stage very far right, carrying a switchblade with which to carve out the benefits for his friends, and a hammer for pounding the burdens into his enemies.
Actually, that might be giving him too much credit. Whatever else is true of Trump, he is a profoundly lazy man, one who has all but had to be told what to do in the face of obvious crises for which the past is a ready guide on how to behave. Ultimately, it may be the quality that prevents him from becoming a true tyrant. Just as some people are too stupid to be corrupt, Trump may simply be too lazy to step into the dictator role.
In any event, Trump had to all but be told to go to Texas and Florida when they were hit, respectively, by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Even then, he made a botch of it, telling people that he was doing a great job and that they should be grateful that the damage wasn't worse. Still, it was probably somewhat better than his performance in Puerto Rico in his response to Hurricane Maria. He delayed waiving the Jones Act which would have permitted instant foreign aid, deferring to fears of foreign competition from American shipping interests. He finally did waive it, and subsequently went to the island to throw paper towels to people and (yes, you guessed it) lecture people on why they should be grateful that it wasn't even worse. This latter tendency seems to be a favorite of his; more about this later.
But the media glare has largely faded from Puerto Rico and Maria, as the click-conscious MSM and social media race off to the newest traffic accident. And what has Trump done in its absence? That is, other than hide statistics about how bad the situation is? Or turn it into yet another example of cash-and-carry cronyism, Trump-style, by giving a nine-figure contract for the restoration of the island's power to a company with only two employees (which the island subsequently cancelled)? Lie about the extent of the "recovery" and his own Administration's ability to respond to it.
That's Trump. If the media isn't forcing him to focus on a problem, he ignores it. If he is forced to do so by the media, then, for the sake of what's left of his ratings, he'll make a show of dealing with it. But it's never more than a show, as was the case with him before he became President.
And, when you have a really high spot on his S-list and you get sporadic coverage at best, you really get a cold shoulder from him. Take, for example, California, which just might be the most reliably Democratic state in the nation, and which is currently being consumed by wildfires. California's government and residents are still waiting to hear from Trump. I suspect that Trump's attitude about contacting them is a little like the caption from one of my favorite New Yorker cartoons, where the harried businessman looks at his calendar to make an appointment and tells his caller "How about never--is never good for you?"
On the other hand, when it's a rapist who's a member of Mar-a-lago, poof! His anti-immigrant stance disappears, and he helps the rapist avoid deportation. If you're a 10-year-old with cerebral palsy and don't have a membership in a Trump club, there's a pretty good chance that you won't be so lucky.
To return to the top: the rule of law benefits everyone, or it benefits no one. Under Trump, the rule of law benefits only him and his cronies, and their need for power above everything else. Q.E.D., there is no rule of law.
And this attitude seeps down from Trump to those who are most loyal to him. And, by "him," I mean him above all else, even when they are presumed to have subscribed to a higher calling. Exhibit A: General John Kelly, Trump's chief of staff, who was supposed to be the "adult in the room" keeping Trump focused on the proverbial bigger picture. Well, whatever he was supposed to be, General Kelly has appeared seems to have taken the bigger picture and tossed it out of the nearest window.
He aided and abetted the botching of Trump's condolence call to the family of a fallen soldier (a task for which any competent adult should not have needed aid in the first place). He then denounced the presence during the call of a member of Congress who was a mentor to the soldier and a friend of the family, saying that it took a trip to Arlington National Cemetery to calm him down after he learned about her presence. He then lied about a speech she had made, was silent for a week while the White House ran interference for him, and subsequently refused to apologize for the lie when confronted with it. To top all of this off, he then launched a bizarre defense of Robert E. Lee, and stated that the Civil War came about due to an inability to compromise.
This is the supposed "adult in the room?" I can understand, after this, why some people might want to question the value of officers in civilian roles, although I'm not one of those people. Rather, I think that the real issue, the real thing to be frightened of, is the ability of one deeply corrupt man, one deeply corrupt President, to take the loyalty that normally goes with serving the most powerful person in the world, and allowing that loyalty to be perverted for base ends.
Kelly, and anyone else in the White House, should get out now while they can. Because they are part of a fish that is rotting from the orange, combed-over head on down. And exit is the only way to escape becoming part of the rot, as well as stopping it altogether.
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