Donald Trump Jr.’s stupidity is exceeded only by his hubris. His now-infamous January 6 tweet to Mark Meadows has been rebroadcast and dissected by many, but if we are to give a prize for the Best Response, I believe it would have to go to Steve Schmidt. Schmidt is livid with Junior, as is anybody who is able to think straight. Junior is not the sharpest knife in the drawer and he gets himself into messes way over his head, time and time again. The Trump Tower meeting with the Russian lawyer was a mere foreshadowing of many other disasters to come.
Here is what Steve Schmidt had to say to Junior:
2/ AUTHORITY to Write, Execute and Interpret the law within a system of Government that is Co-equal, Federal and based on the following principles. 1. The Powers of Government are proscribed. 2. The powers of Government are limited. 3. The Rights of the Individual exist beyond
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) April 9, 2022
4/ no authority, no special privilege. HE CONTROLS NOTHING. The FACT that @DonaldJTrumpJr jr speaks like that shows his malice and autocratic heart. He speaks in the language of political violence. It is the language of PUTIN. American Presidents and their sons control nothing.
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) April 9, 2022
6/ real time how much Trump, his aides and family hate that idea. These people must never hold any position of power or public responsibility ever again. Disgrace doesn’t begin to describe it. What they did is unforgivable in this country within the span of mortal life.
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) April 9, 2022
Please join me in giving Steve Schmidt a standing ovation.
Don Junior has not made a lot of friends with his “we control everything” remark, and in point of fact, Trump and his band of misfits controlled nothing. They stumbled and bumbled all the way from election night when a drunk Rudy Giuliani told Trump to go out there and say that he won, through the subsequent denials of swing states’ final tallies, to the specious allegations of fraud and the non-existent Kraken, to the doctored videos and naming of fake electors, to Mellissa Carone’s rise to SNL icon, to Giuliani’s COVID farts and running hair dye, all the way down to the finish line in the parking lot of Four Seasons Landscaping, between the crematorium and the sex shop.
Junior’s “we control everything” was the wishful thinking of the easily deluded — although make no mistake, the fact that he was even thinking in those terms, having those kinds of discussions and texting that to Mark Meadows on the day of the insurrection, is heart stoppingly serious. We need to get to the bottom of this and put safeguards in place so that this will never happen again.
The guardrails of democracy held this time, because the people heading the assault on democracy were such bumbling buffoons. We may not get that lucky the next time. January 6 was the wake up call, the next attempted coup might succeed. The fact that we’re even here talking about the next attempted coup speaks for itself.
Unfortunately Steve made a major goof in his opening sentence. The US is NOT the oldest constitutional democratic republic by a very long chalk. San Marino precedes it by centuries, being a republic back in 1243 (long before Columbus was even a glint in his father’s eye) and its written constitution dates from 1600
Well, in fairness, San Marino is just slightly bigger in area than Manhattan (San Marino is 23.6 square miles; Manhattan/New York County has a land area of just 22.83 square miles) and its “republican” government differs greatly from that of practically every other “republic” in modern history. San Marino has 2 captains-regent who serve 6 month terms and are chosen by the Grand and General Council (the country’s legislature) and they are also supposed to be members of the Council when they’re chosen as captain-regent. Additionally, the Council produces the “Congress of State” (basically the equivalent of the US Cabinet) from among their own ranks. The people of San Marino do elect the members of the Council but the rest of the “republic” operates pretty much like the British Parliament (as in, the Prime Minister is also a member of Parliament, representing a singular constituency and the PM’s various ministers are also members of Parliament with a fair amount of backroom wheeling and dealing involved).
Also, there is that really nasty period between 1923 and 1943 when the “republic” became a one-party fascist state. That would kind of break the country’s “record” as a republic.
Well by the same token you could recall that the US was in a similar position between 2016 and 2020
Don’t forget they also had an elected communist government between 1945 and 1957 and that they were neutral for the whole of WW2
Both the Fascist and Communists governments were elected. You may disagree with the policies but it doesn’t alter the facts (that they had two glitches of 32 years total from a history of over 700 years
Regarding the election of the ‘captains’ – it’s no less democratic than any other parliamentary system.
On a technicality, there is no such thing as a ‘democratic’ government anywhere in the world – what you have are elected oligarchies (power is in the hands of a small, albeit elected by popular suffrage, group)
Please note – I’m not disagreeing with his viewpoint – just that he made a factual error in the opening sentence
You’d think the Univ. of Pennsylvania would take back the degrees issued to this family of idiots…oh, and Georgetown (Eric). It’s pretty embarrassing. I certainly would not pay for a child of mine to attend a college which issues degrees to those who quite obviously did not earn them.