Donald Trump's world looks like it could be in trouble. Remarking upon his film "The Assassination of Richard Nixon" (2004), actor Sean Penn had the following comment about political power. "Certainty is the disease of kings," he quoted, "and I'm not a king."
Few words better analogize the past couple of days in the world of Donald Trump. With the Cohen testimony serving as another folding example courtesy of Mueller's probe, the president's days in the Oval Office will now likely consist of extended executive time, especially as updates ensue about his calls for a National Emergency being stalled by the GOP bill.
Add to that an additional set of proposed investigations by House Democrats into various aspects of his conduct in office, and you have yourself a hell of a week for the forty-fifth president of the United States.
Holding the Trump Administration 'accountable'
Democratic Representative Jerry Nader told CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" on Monday that the party will continue to scrounge and investigate any and all individuals related to the Trump circle. "Our goal is to protect the rule of law in this country," he said. "We have to find out what is going on and we have to lay a case to the American people and we have to reveal it."
Naturally, of course, President Trump was quick to swing back at comments like Nader's in classic, schoolyard fashion.
"They don't have anything with Russia. There's no collusion," he bantered at the Conservative Political Action Conference over the weekend. "So now they go and morph into, 'Let's inspect every deal he's ever done. We're going into his finances. We're going to check his deals. These people are sick."
While ironic normality is how effective the president's "thou-doth-protest-too-much" rants usually are, and how convincing his uncensored bravado and disregard for the facts can be, increasingly his speeches are beginning to paint a picture of a man starting to lose his nerve.
Someone buckling under the pressure of their whole world being torn apart. The repeated assurances from Trump of there being "no collusion" ring hollow to the revelations unveiled at the Cohen testimony, particularly Cohen's assertion that Trump was well aware of the Moscow deal whilst on the campaign trail.
Unshakable party unity on the rocks
It's no secret the Republican Party has continued to pander to the president's political agenda. Just ask Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, who stated his support of Trump made his political authority and positions "relevant." Yet with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's failure to block the resolution halting Trump's calls for a National Emergency declaration at the border, as well as that bill's support from prominent conservative figures such as Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, the president's stronghold on making conservatives jump to his demands is visibly faltering.
"It's Congress saying: 'This has gone far enough. We're not going to roll over and play dead for the president'," commented Ross K. Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University.
With blind allegiance failing, several Republican lawmakers are trying another angle. Take, for example, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee's proposal that Trump utilizes military funds for wall spending. But with Paul, Collins, Murkowski, and Tillis' support of the resolution securing 51 votes for the Democratic initiative, the main focus will be that of defeat, taking the form of Trump's first veto while in office.
"Congress has the power of the purse," Chuck Schumer said in a statement to the New York Times. "The founding fathers feared probably above all anything else, having dealt with King George in the Revolution, that an overreaching executive was one of the greatest dangers to our democracy.” Indeed, the one trigger word for Republicans is the infamous phrase coined by historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
about the Nixon presidency. The latter had branded Nixon's time in office imperialistic - the words "imperial presidency" continuing to have a notable effect on the party.
It will be interesting to see how this all pertains to the upcoming 2020 election next year, with Trump guaranteed to run again against a slew of Democratic presidential nominees. Needless to say, the outcome will not necessarily be a peaceful one.
