One of the most interesting things to happen during the Senate confirmation hearings was the number of Trump appointees who appeared to disagree with the campaign rhetoric of President-elect Donald Trump. As a group, there was disagreement with Trump about water boarding, the building of a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and a lot more. That got me to thinking about the motivation of those candidates appointed to cabinet offices. Were they disagreeing with their incoming boss in order to get confirmed or were they actually in philosophical disagreement with Trump? In any case, the President-elect was quick to Tweet that he wanted people to run their own operations. Think about it. That was really extraordinary.
What really has me scratching my head is whether or not anything Trump says means anything. If that’s the case and it’s all just empty talk, we are in terrible shape. His campaign rhetoric was scattered and confused and his character came into question because of all his meaningless words. If he didn’t mean what he said and was still willing to risk American Democracy with hate filled words, like his assertion that the election would be rigged, it shows a man so concerned with getting elected that his words meant nothing.
The fact that his nominees disagreed with him really doesn’t mean a hell of a lot when we remember that these men and few women work at the President’s pleasure. He can fire any of them at will. Nothing strikes me more than the testimony of some of his top people that the Russians constitute a threat to the United States. So we have Trump decrying the top intelligence people and, at the same time, the top Trump nominees essentially telling us that the approach of the Obama administration was correct.
Into all of this comes the specter of all the rumors recently floated that the Russians had something on Trump. While the press is busy beating itself up for using unsubstantiated accusations, we are left putting two and two together. We are talking about the Russians and their KGB-Colonel President here. Just take a look at their troubling history. Even Trump has come around to the fact that it was the Russians who were hacking in the election. We know that they were hacking in his favor and that he was, from the very beginning, saying that he and Putin would be friends. One and one make two — all very suspicious indeed. There will be more surmising. Several people have noticed that Trump can’t stand still when others are talking. It doesn’t stop there. He has that mysterious sniffing thing that he does when he is speaking. All of this leads to increased speculation.
If, in fact, Trump has any peculiarities that will lead to gossip it is inevitable that they will find their way into wider circulation and will surely be known to the Russian spies. Trump has suggested that it would have been really dumb for him to go into a Russian hotel room and consort with prostitutes when the Russians have television cameras that are microscopic in size. That from a man who bragged to the lout Howard Stern about grabbing women by their genitals! That was not exactly a man who was unaware about hidden electronic devices even if it was before his presidential run. Put another way, if Trump does have any hidden vices. someone will know about them and as the old saying goes, if more than one person knows your secret, it isn’t a secret anymore. If, for example, his sniffing is more than a cold that never goes away, someone will know about it.
Just ask a very long line of politicians about that. They’ll tell you that the first thing anyone who knows your secret will do, especially if they are of bad character, is throw you under the bus.
