by Lynn Mandaville

For as long as I’ve been writing this column, and for probably a lot longer than that, Townbroadcast editor David Young has said that Donald Trump is not the disease that plagues America.  Donald Trump, he asserts, is merely a symptom.

At first, I didn’t agree with that assertion.  I was too angry at Trump for all the foolishness, chaos, and deceit he was foisting upon the American populace to see past the smoke and mirrors.

In the two-plus years I’ve been writing, I’ve been trying to set aside emotion and look critically at facts.

Though I still fall victim to the angry woman inside my head, I know now that Mr. Young is correct.  Trump is not the disease.  He is a symptom.

BUT.  Here’s the rub.

He is a damn pervasive and persistent symptom, and in attacking the bigger disease that threatens us, it is my opinion that this symptom is so severe as to make treating the disease all the more difficult.

This particular symptom, the Donald symptom, is so unpredictable and fluctuating in nature as to camouflage the disease (Trump Derangement Syndrome?) in varying degrees.

This is a symptom that has to be conquered in order to get down to the nitty gritty of the disease.

So the question becomes, how do we conquer the symptom?

The easy way, of course, is to exercise our power of the polls.  Vote!

But November 2020 is a long way off, and the president can wreak a lot more havoc in the 14 months until the next inauguration.  That’s why it’s important to fully support the impeachment initiative currently under way.

For much too long the president has had virtual free reign.  He speaks blatant lies almost constantly.  He speaks of things he should not, revealing things to heads of foreign governments out of turn.  He demeans people, friends and foes alike, with no regard for civility.  He enacts or alters foreign policy on personal whim, without consultation with appropriate government officials.  He refuses to read daily briefings, or to consider opposing points of view.  He disdains becoming educated on issues, preferring to fly by the seat of his pants.  He relies on emotion rather than intellect to conduct affairs of state.  He has made America a laughing stock on the international stage.

Democrats have attempted to correct him, offering advice and criticism.  But, with only a couple of exceptions, Republicans have maintained a hands off attitude toward Trump, even during the most serious transgressions.

Probably the two most critical cases in point have to be the current Ukraine debacle, and the shameful abandonment of our allies, the Kurds, in Syria.

With regard to Ukraine, Republicans choose to either turn a blind eye, or go on the defensive against evidence provided by the president himself, spinning the narrative in a theater of the absurd, a theater in which gaslighting is the device used to obscure what has happened.  Even in the face of an impeachment inquiry, they choose to prop up a dangerous president and help to erode the protections of the Constitution that were put in place precisely for a loose cannon despot like Donald Trump.

With regard to the Kurds in Syria, the president has single-handedly given up an important ally in the middle east and set up the conditions for genocide of the people we had come to rely on for eradicating ISIS terrorists.  He has sent a message to the rest of the world that the United States cannot be trusted to stand by its allies, that long-standing allegiances can evaporate overnight on the basis of a phone call made by an unstable genius.

The impeachment inquiry is much too long overdue.

Democrats have sat with their thumbs up their… well, they’ve been twiddling their thumbs when they should have been rallying the nation behind a call for the rule of law where the president is concerned.

They have been avoiding this necessary confrontation with Trump, this calling-on-the-carpet, as it were, maybe in hopes that the problem would go away?  Or that Republicans would come to their senses and see that their party is being horribly co-opted by a megalomaniac?

Our representatives, Republican and Democrat, have abdicated their responsibilities to protect and defend our Constitution in the face of a domestic enemy.  They have forgotten whom they serve.  The operative word being “SERVE.”

At one time in our recent history, it seemed unthinkable that we could ever possibly, in all our wildest nightmares, live through the likes of Watergate.

But here we are.

And it’s not just an out-of-control president who believes he can manipulate an election with petty burglars and an inept cover-up.

It’s an out-of-control president who believes that it isn’t verging on treason to involve foreign governments in the scheme to defraud the electoral process.  It’s a man who thinks that the entirety of America is a ripe victim for his mob mentality, that America can be coerced to serve him – instead of the other way round – through inference, innuendo, veiled threats, and selfish disregard for the republic he swore to protect and defend.

I’m not so naïve as to think that The Donald will be removed from office through an impeachment trial by the Senate.  God knows Mitch McConnell will never allow his Republican lackeys to abandon party over country.  And even if the unimaginable removal from office could occur, it probably won’t happen before the election in 2020.

But at the very least, something will be being done to call out this charlatan-thief, to expose his tyranny to even the staunchest disciple of a false prophet.

To remain silent is to be complicit in the carnival of corruption that operates within the Peoples’ House in Washington.

So far our small voices have not raised the alarm loud enough, nor shined enough light on the morally deformed president, to stanch the bleeding from our founding documents.

Let’s hope this impeachment inquiry, and subsequent trial, are not too little too late.

At least there is the 2020 election as our backup plan.