I saw Andrew Card, George W. Bush’s chief of staff, on T.V. yesterday, blaming Senate Democrats for all the problems Trump is having (the gaffes, lies, policy failures, and so on). Card’s excuse: Senate Dems won’t confirm Trump’s appointments for mid-level executive positions, so Trump doesn’t have enough “truth to power” people around to give him sound advice.

When I heard that, my jaw just about dropped into my lap. Two problems: first, there’s no reason Senate Dems (or House Dems, for that matter) should cooperate with Trump on anything. When the reporter who was interviewing Card pointed this out, Card replied, “It’s not a partisan or political matter, it’s national security.” In other words, he suggested that Democrats must get behind this president if they love their country.

Look, this is the oldest lie in the book. Dictators are always arguing that the people have to support them to avoid chaos, invasion, etc. Patriotism, as Samuel Johnson reminded us, is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Hitler did it. Pol Pot did it. Kim Jong-un does it. Scare the hell out of the people, and you can get away with anything. Well, Democrats know that game, and we’re not going to play it. That’s why I’ve told my California Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, in no uncertain terms: Do not cooperate with this illegitimate president. Resist!

Second problem with Card’s assertion: it pretty much comes right out and admits that the emperor has no clothes—that Trump is such an immature, foolish boor that he needs baby sitters 24/7 to keep him from crapping up the house. Well, Democrats know this. We’ve known it ever since Trump announced his candidacy, and we know it more than ever, after his disastrous first three months in office. But for a Republican “senior eminence” like Card to come out and say it is pretty breath taking.

Why would Card, or any powerful Republican, support a man who they admit is incompetent and unworthy of respect? In a word, power. Trump may be a ridiculous fool, a schmuck, a pathological liar, but he’s their fool, schmuck and liar. I heard Kelly Ayotte, the former Republican Senator from New Hampshire, the other day, being interviewed. The reporter went through the litany of Trump horrors (the pussy groping, especially) and asked Ayotte how she, as a woman, could possibly continue to support him. Ayotte’s reply (I paraphrase): “He may be a horrible person, and I deplore that, but as long as he espouses political beliefs I agree with, I will support him.”

That is simply dreadful. I think Kelly Ayotte, and lots of Trump supporters, must be having tough conversations with their daughters, their granddaughters, their women friends. In my view the essential quality a U.S. president must possess is leadership. And leadership is a moral quality. It has nothing to do with particular issues. I didn’t agree with Reagan on lots of things but he was a real leader. As another Republican president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, observed, “The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.”

Is there a single Republican who would profess that Donald J. Trump possesses integrity? Why, now that you mention it, there is: Ann Coulter! Who, by the way, still insists she’s coming to U.C. Berkeley next week to talk to campus Repubs, even though officials canceled her speech—not to “silence” her, as she falsely alleges, but to prevent violence. With her race-baiting, mean spirit and snark, Coulter is the perfect Trump surrogate, as morally abject a human being as her idol.

In the early days of the Trump regime the observation was made by pundits, mostly on the left, that so tarnished was the new president’s reputation by his repeated lying that, in the event of an authentic national crisis, Americans might not believe anything he had to say.

For instance, there was this article in The Atlantic warning that “the president’s cavalier disregard for truth [will] have real-world consequences.” The Washington Post—no friend of liberals—similarly editorialized, “President Trump will need to rebuild his credibility for the next crisis.” Even the conservative Wall Street Journal famously opined (March 21) “The words of President Donald Trump and his White House staff are, in no small way, a matter of national security and credibility, and those things have entered a danger zone.”

Well, the crises are now upon us: North Korea, Syria and Iran, in particular, and Trump is reacting in ways that are predictably belligerent, with bombs, bluster and (fake) threats about “an armada.” So how’s his credibility doing?

For historic perspective, one needs to look to past threats of war to see how important the issue of presidential credibility is in uniting Americans.

In the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, Franklin D. Roosevelt was famously cautious about getting America involved in the European war that already had broken out in September, 1939. He understood that, if and when he made the decision for war, he would have to be utterly believed. Of course, the surprise attack made the issue moot, but America would eventually have become involved anyway, because FDR did a superb job of rallying both Democrats and Republicans against the prevailing isolationist opinion.

President George H.W. Bush faced similar difficulties when he rallied the nation for Desert Storm, a task he performed admirably. Americans believed that earnest, sincere man, and so they trusted him. His son similarly convinced most Americans to support him in his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, although of course Sept. 11 made his task a lot easier. The point, however, is that presidents need to build up a deep well of credibility, so that when the time comes, they can draw upon it.

On the other hand, President Lyndon Johnson never did quite convince a majority of Americans that the Vietnam War was worthwhile, and the Tonkin Gulf incident, which many believed was manufactured, didn’t help boost his credibility. Thus, Johnson was forced from the White House.

This current president has no credibility at all, outside the lowering percentage of supporters who mindlessly believe anything he says. And yet, the times truly are dangerous; if America must get involved in yet another war, it’s imperative for the country to be united.

But it’s hard to imagine anyone uniting behind a President Trump sending troops to Syria, or North Korea, or Iran, or conducting an Air Force war against them. The reason is not because Democrats aren’t patriotic. It’s because this president lies so spectacularly and guiltlessly that most of us believe he will say and do anything he can, in order to hold onto power and remain in office. Indeed, the latest Gallup Poll found that “Trump has lost significant ground with a public that only two months ago, credited him with having one of the key characteristics of a successful president.” His credibility has “flopped,” says Gallup, a sign that more and more Americans, even those who voted for him, realize that they have a pathological liar and a cynical manipulator in the White House.

It’s satisfying, for me anyhow, to witness this historic turn of events—to watch the Trump presidency unravel, and for Trump himself to suffer embarrassment after embarrassment, scandal after scandal, even as his paid surrogates—especially the hapless Spicer—are increasingly challenged to defend him. Tempting as it is to take unbridled pleasure in Trump’s pains, though, my concerns are really about my country. We’re not at war, yet, but we seem likely to be, sooner rather than later; and it will be ugly. I’m old enough to remember the Vietnam protests, which tore this country apart. Given Trump’s utter lack of credibility, when war comes America is likely to be riven as never before, and it will be the fault of that awful, greedy, mendacious man in the White House.

I heard yesterday that the lovely Ivanka Trump, whose fashion empire is crumbling in the U.S. because consumers are demanding stores stop selling her schmattas, just scored a huge deal in the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese government approved three new trademarks for her “the same day she and husband Jared Kushner sat next to Chinese President Xi Jinping and wife Peng Liyuan…at a Mar-a-Lago state dinner.”

I would have loved being a fly on the wall overhearing that conversation.

The news came just days after Ivanka tweeted,

Ivanka Trump
(@IvankaTrump)

“Thank you Prime Minister Erdogan for joining us yesterday to celebrate the launch of #TrumpTowers Istanbul!”

Honestly, the corruption and nepotism of this regime are stunning. Has America really turned into a banana republic, where the ruling family siphons millions from the public treasury, while the paterfamilias builds a cult of personality?

Apparently so.

Speaking of personality cults, here’s your giggle of the day, and it comes from—where else?—the Wall Street Journal. A right wing writer, Rod Pennington, wrote a pro-Trump op-ed in which he refers, not facetiously, to “President Trump’s mystique.”

How’s that again? When I think of “mystique” I think of glamorous Hollywood stars like Greta Garbo, not politicians. But closely related to “mystique” is the more male “charisma,” and certain U.S. Presidents certainly have possessed it: JFK, Reagan, Barack Obama. But Donald Trump? Do you think Trump has that “it” factor? More like the “yuck” factor. Really, it’s so laughable to see Republicans try to build this guy up, even as everything around him is falling apart.

Who is this “Rod Pennington,” anyway? He’s insulted Hillary Clinton for her “age, weight, thyroid problem, fainting spells and frequent coughing fits,” fake smears that put him squarely in the Alex Jones-Donald Trump camp of people who deliberately lied about Hillary’s health. Of Trump, Pennington tried to normalize the liar by saying, “You’re not worried about all the nonsense Trump says since you’ve never seen a politician keep a single campaign promise in your entire adult life.”

Really? I could write a thousand words on recent Presidents who kept their campaign promises (one example: Obamacare), as opposed to this one, who hasn’t kept a single promise and appears not likely to. In Pennington’s manipulative, utterly cynical way, credulous low-information voters are persuaded by propagandists like him that Trump’s insanity is just like other presidents’.

And now, for the latest example of what is giving Trump and his surrogates headaches, late yesterday the news broke that the FBI is using the dossier—yes, that dossier, the one with the sex stuff in it. Apparently they’re taking it seriously enough to have brought it to the FISA Court to get permission for a wiretap on someone close to Trump, probably Carter Page.

How long will it take for Trump’s remaining supporters to just get really, really tired of this nonsense? The lies, the corruption, the ignorance, the shady business dealings, the refusal to release his taxes, the pussy groping videotapes, the incompetence, the attention-diverting bombing, the sad, increasingly bizarre tweets–it’s all piling up into a huge slagheap of baloney. Being a Trumpist has to be deflating for all those rust belters who counted on him.

Here’s an idea: a religion forms its own police force. Not just a private security force, mind you, like, say, the Episcopal church down the street from me, but an official police force, with the powers to detain, arrest and use lethal force. Good idea or bad? Most Americans would probably say, bad. Very bad. After all, this isn’t Iran, where there is no line between the official state religion and formal law enforcement. We started America, in part, to get away from that kind of theocratic nonsense.

With that in mind, consider the Briarwood Presbyterian Church, in Birmingham, Alabama. “Briarwood Presbyterian Church Wants Its Own Police Force To Patrol Campuses,” the Huffington Post, in Canada, headlined yesterday.

The Alabama State Senate already has approved a bill authorizing the church to create a police department with “all of the powers of law enforcement officers in this state.” The author of the bill is a parishioner in the church, A. Eric Johnston; the Wall Street Journal identifies him as the author of a 2014 ballot initiative, which passed overwhelmingly, that prohibits foreign laws being used in Alabama courts. You know what “foreign laws” Johnston had in mind, don’t you? Right. That’s why the initiative is known as the “anti-Shariah amendment.”

I’ve said it before, anybody who’s worried about Shariah law in the United States is completely insane, and needs psychological help. Bulletin: Muslims are not taking over America!

If Alabama passes this stupid proposal—the new Republican governor (who, let us remember, just stepped in when the old Republican governor had to resign after a sex scandal) hasn’t yet indicated if she’ll sign it or not—Alabama will be the first state to have allowed a church to have its own legal police department. Not just in Alabama—in America.

This is certainly one of the troubling signs of our times: a country in which a Donald J. Trump, who probably is agnostic if not atheist (having never in his 70 years given the slightest sign of being religious) made phony appeals to evangelicals, and even once claimed that the bible is his favorite book after The Art of the Deal. Empowered by this friendly nudging, Christians are now feeling their oats. Why can’t they depend on the local police the way everybody else does? What if gay people in Oakland wanted their own police force? Can you imagine the howls from Christians, especially evangelicals? They’d be screaming bloody murder about the gay gestapo forcing the gay agenda down their throats. Yes, that’s exactly what they would say. But now, the shoe’s on the other foot: it’s the Christians who want that unlimited power, the power of policing.

You know, some right wing Christians are always sticking their camel’s nose under the tent of society, trying to increase their authority. They don’t seem to understand or respect the First Amendment. The Founding Fathers were very explicit over the fact that they wanted a complete, utter separation of church and state; the fact that the Establishment Clause is the very first amendment they passed testifies to the alarm they sought to raise about religion trying to seize the levers of power in America, at the federal, state and local levels.

One would hope the new Republican governor, whose name is Kay Ivey, will not sign this dreadful piece of legislation when it reaches her desk. However, Ivey is another literal-interpretationist Christian who does not believe in evolution; when she was State Treasurer, she told a group of school children, according to a mom whose son was there, “If you are one of those people who believes we evolved out of a pile of goo, that you have no purpose in life…then you should just crawl back to the pile of goo you came from.” This is not a good sign. The least we can expect from our political leaders is a certain base intelligence. The new Republican governor apparently does not possess the intelligence to understand science, even in its most basic form; after all, you don’t need a pH.D to understand that evolution is real. Will Gov. Ivey have the intelligence, not to mention respect for the Constitution, to reject an appallingly stupid bill? We’ll see.