As we’ve noted before, The Hot Screen has a predilection for fire and brimstone. But look at who we’ve got in the White House — can you blame us, really? A couple of recent articles by Michelle Goldberg of Slate, though, have got us thinking about the most methodical, effective politics for raining holy hell upon Donald Trump and the Republican Party to ensure that nothing like we’re currently experiencing happens again for — well, for as long as humanly possible.
We’re writing hours after the New York Times broke today’s huge news that back in February, President Trump asked FBI Director James Comey to back off the investigation into Michael Flynn. Part and parcel of this story is that Comey apparently memorialized their conversation in a memo, and also shared it with a few colleagues at the time. The White House is denying that such a request occurred, which seems to have backed Team Trump into a pretty undesirable corner, given that in the opposite side of the ring is a man dedicated to the legend of his own probity who, let us repeat, memorialized the conversation.
The Hot Screen is confident to a high degree of certainty that only one man is telling the truth about the conversation between the president and the FBI director, and that it’s not Donald Trump. The Hot Screen is also of the opinion that we are now well on our way to a fight over impeaching and removing the president from office.
As we stand at the cusp at how the body politic responds to Trump’s corruption, Goldberg’s essay titled “Democrats Must Investigate Every Trump Scandal, Even If It Takes Decades” provides a broader context for how the opposition party should think about taking on Trump's malfeasance. She makes the case that Trump has continued, on a larger scale, a pattern of corruption that has become institutionalized by the Republican Party over the past several decades: not only major events like Watergate, Iran-Contra, and the bogus arguments for the invasion of Iraq, but the pressing of fake scandals against Democratic presidents, such as Whitewater and the Benghazi imbroglio. “Every day, Trump shows us what politics look like when the rules only apply to one party,” Goldberg writes. “Already, because of Trump, America is a more cynical, corrupt, lawless place than it was 100 days ago.”
The solution she suggests: once they’ve gotten back the House, Senate, or both, Democrats and the left should investigate the living shit out of Trump, as a means of restoring transparency and balance to our political system. The Hot Screen couldn’t agree more, and believes that accountability must be the name of the game for Democrats going forward. But along with this must be a relentless effort to trace the ways that Trump’s behavior indeed fits a larger Republican pattern, and how his specific corruption has been aided and abetted by the party at large. Since his election, after all, the G.O.P. has largely chosen to look the other way as an avalanche of evidence has continued to pile up regarding possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, all in the name of pushing through a Republican agenda very much at odds with majority opinion in the country. The Republicans have chosen tax cuts for the rich over extirpating the influence of a foreign power from our politics, and they need to pay a maximal price for their staggeringly immoral and unpatriotic choice.
The other piece by Goldberg that's caught our eye today is a not-entirely tongue in cheek cajoling of Trump advisors to speak out against their feared leader, not simply for the good of the country, but because they have a decent chance of scoring some sweet tell-all book deals. This is far better, she writes, than sticking around too long and getting irrevocably mired in the scandals sure to come. The Hot Screen finds this perspective welcome and refreshing; we’re persuaded that in the case of this deranged presidency, the profit motive might do some good when folks see a choice between big bucks and obeisance to a twisted man-child.
But just as it’s important for Democrats to investigate and expose Trump’s deeds for all voters to see, it’s also crucial to balance rewards for those who speak out against Trump with appropriate shaming and career punishment of those who stick by him. Lickspittles like Sean Spicer should receive a message that their services in the public sphere are no longer required or respected. They need to be shunned in such a way as to create a deterrent effect for anyone who might consider serving in a future Trump-like administration. The same goes for the politicians who have stood close to him, like Mike Pence, Jeff Sessions and frankly anyone else who was willing to join his cabinet.
