Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has more in common with the religious right in America than she realizes.
I don’t know how President Donald Trump manages to function these days because it seems wherever he turns, whatever he does and whomever he does it to, the hits to his character, his ethics, his abilities and his presidency just keep coming.
Not that he doesn’t deserve the rations of bad news that keep coming his way. He does. If ever there were a president who, when faced with a decision — one which could turn out right and one which could turn out the other way — it seems that our president almost always chooses the latter course of action. Whether it is caused by hubris, ignorance, willful neglect or just incompetence, Trump rarely acts in a way that is good for the majority of people in the United States.
So when the courts of our nation are asked to get involved in the mess he keeps making, the verdicts are virtually unanimous: no, you can’t do what the Constitution says you can’t do; no, you aren’t the king of the American hill, you must share power with Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats with whom you are supposed to work to better the lives of all Americans; and no, the people who work in the executive branch owe their allegiance to the Constitution not to you, the individual.
I know these are hard concepts to accept for a man disposed to autocratic notions and megalomania, but they are the foundational precepts of this democratic republic we call the United States. Wouldn’t it have been so much better for everyone if President Trump had embraced our democracy at the beginning and not fought so hard to make us something we are not.
Alas, that did not happen and as is always the case in our country, the truth will win out and the law will reign supreme — no matter how long that takes.
This past week marked what I believe is the end of a long beginning to the unraveling of the Trump presidency. It took a long time but it appears that the blustering, the stonewalling, the falsifying, lying and prevaricating that is synonymous with the name Trump, has finally reached a point where the mechanisms built into our U.S. Constitution are just starting to work.
By that I mean the judicial branch of government is finally stepping up and into the fray and, so far, it is siding with the constitutional principles laid out in that extraordinary document that has governed our country for over 230 years.
In short, the judges are starting to say no to Donald Trump. And that is making him crazy! Or should I say more crazy?
The great irony is that the person who is driving our president toward his wits end is the exact opposite of what most people would expect. Trump’s tormentor in chief happens to be a 79-year-old woman. That alone is reason for the madness of King Donald.
I don’t know who said it recently but someone described the speaker of the House as “riding the Trump elevator and pushing every one of his buttons. “ It seems she has found a way to drive him nuts and while that may be some good sport for those of us who have had enough of his antics, making Trump more unstable than normal is a recipe for disaster — which no one in their right mind should want.
And that is where our friends on the religious right come in.
Forget the hypocrisy needed to allow people of faith to condone the faithless and classless acts of a man whose moral compass constantly spins out of control, what is important is that most people of faith are patriots and want only what is best for our country. Just like those on the other side of the political spectrum whose hypocrisy quotient is not quite so challenged want the same thing.
In short there actually are “fine people” on both sides of this equation.
That is what struck me the other day when Pelosi was trying to explain to the country the inexplicable actions of Trump who, instead of discussing how all parties were going to advance an infrastructure bill to create high-paying jobs and needed infrastructure improvements — all for the benefit of working men and women in this country — he stormed out of the meeting to an awaiting news conference at which he decried the bedrock concept of legislative oversight.
In short, he was unhinged.
As a result of what had just happened, Speaker Pelosi said she was praying for President Trump. And she was praying for our country.
That seems to me to be an area where both the right and the left — especially the religiously inclined — can come together.
For God knows that these United States of America can use the help right now. Please, folks, start praying.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun