Author Archives: Paul Steven Stone

HOW COULD TRUMP ATTEMPT A COUP D’ETAT AND NOBODY SEEM TO NOTICE?

coup d’é·tat: a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government. Typically, an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power by a political faction, the military, or a dictator. 

At the risk of stepping into an ongoing conspiracy, I must question why everyone from President Biden to the House Impeachment Managers to the New York Times have worked so assiduously to avoid the use of a simple and totally appropriate designation for the events of January 6th?

Is it so far from reality to accept what happened as the final act in a failed COUP D’ETAT? Not an insurrection, or a riot gone wild, or even an accidental act of treason, but Donald J. Trump’s final desperate effort to nullify the results of his election loss by overthrowing our government and usurping its powers?

The fact that it was so dismal a failure—so poorly planned and ineffectually executed—does not erase the fact that a failed coup d’etat is as much an act of treason as one that succeeds. 

The amazing thing to me is that the elements of the coup were never hidden. Trump in his delusional quest for a second term, began his campaign to undermine the election results by declaring them rigged and illegitimate far in advance of November 3, 2020.  

The fact that Trump fired the Secretary of Defense and installed a crew of loyalists atop the Defense Department less than two weeks after the election was a coup-warning red flag to ten former Secretaries of Defense, as well as to anyone with a sense of how delusional Trump had become. 

And how dangerous.

Trump bootlickers and pardoneers General Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon were seen everywhere after the election calling for military action, martial law and fighting in the streets to “Stop The Steal,” the battle cry for Trump’s coup-focused insurrection.

Even Trump’s clumsy attempts to overturn Georgia’s electoral outcome can be seen as a desperate attempt to secure even the flimsiest shred of evidence that a rigged election had occurred. Evidence that might be seen as justification for some sort of military action. 

There was no other discernible reason for attempting to change Georgia’s certified election results. There weren’t enough electors at stake to justify the risk to Trump for coercing a fraudulent outcome. 

Without intending a coup, there would have been no justification on January 6th for Trump to organize, incite and direct a mob to violently storm the capital and prevent Biden’s certification as President, and maybe, perhaps, eliminate top leaders in American government while they were there. 

So, with all the transparency surrounding Trump’s failed coup d’etat, why the refusal to acknowledge what anyone can plainly figure out for themselves? Why would President Biden denounce the coup in Myanmar yet remain silent about our own homegrown infamy?

The answer remains something of a secret. One can surmise all sorts of reasons why the Powers That Be, and their media allies, would want to sanitize the events of January 6th, to downplay the instability and uncertainty that scarily surrounded America and its vaunted democratic ideals and institutions on that day. Not to mention its position as the world’s bedrock of financial stability.

This question of Trump’s failed coup becomes very much like the conundrum about the tree falling unseen and unheard in the forest. 

If a coup happens and everyone pretends not to have noticed, will a coup actually have happened?

Only if we pull our heads out of the sand.

A NATIONAL HOLIDAY TO HONOR DONALD J. TRUMP

The Scoundrel in Question.

Welcome to NATIONAL SCOUNDREL’S DAY. On January 6th of every year, Americans should gather in civic assemblies, high school auditoriums and American Legion Halls to honor the only president  in United States history to attempt a coup d’etat. 

Also notable as the only a coup d’etat in American history that failed, or was so poorly conceived that it never had a chance to succeed. A political power grab unlike any coup d’etat ever seen in this modern era. Not a swift military tactical movement, nor an unexpected detention of authorities in power, but a painfully protracted, 5-hour coup d’etat planned by the three stooges of the Donald J. Trump presidency—Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and Roger Stone.

A coup d’etat noticeably absent of battlefield commanders, or any set of detailed plans or clearly communicated objectives. A coup d’etat carried out by a ragtag army of hoodwinked malcontents, Halloween-garbed Viking imitators and hundreds of right-wing tourists lured to the nation’s capital for what they believed would be a political rally and a Make America Great Again Festival, hopefully featuring free beer. 

Fear not, if you worry that there aren’t enough political figures whose infamy and stupidity qualifies them to also be celebrated and scorned on NATIONAL SCOUNDREL’S DAY. The rolls of the January 6th accomplices, whether before or after the fact, reads like a Who’s Who of Trump’s Republican bootlickers: Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell and dozens of others who either refused to certify Joe Biden’s electoral victory or voted for acquittal in Trump’s senate impeachment trial.

And what would a NATIONAL SCOUNDREL’S DAY be if it failed to honor and ridicule those titans of the right-wing media, those fabled curators of the President’s lies and malfeasances—Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lou Dobbs and Jeanine Pirro, among many others, including Rupert Murdoch—whose daily serving of lies, rumors and conspiracies fed, fostered and festered discontent and outrage throughout America’s heartland?

Yes, it’s way past time we set aside a single day in our crowded calendar every year to honor those whose misconduct and sociopathic behavior put at risk those values and hallowed traditions we honor as loyal, god-fearing Americans.

At long last Benedict Arnold and Joseph McCarthy can rest easily in their graves, knowing they will never be forgotten. Not as long as we have a holiday to celebrate NATIONAL SCOUNDRELS’ DAY. 

Not as long as Donald J. Trump will be remembered for all his accomplishments as a National Disgrace.

TRUMPED, THUMPED AND DUMPED, REDUX

A man and his toys.

In a blog post from last April, I predicted that with Trump Past would always prove to be Prologue, and that his history of grabbing for anything he wanted, like a toddler on a playroom floor, had repeatedly resulted in his destroying or severely damaging those playthings before finally letting go.

When something or someone has been Trumped, Thumped and Dumped, you know it and they know it. it’s as devastating and unforgiving as a tornado moving through a trailer park. 

Trump’s record of serial bankruptcies in business, six in all, and a similar history as an unrestrained libertine, with 23 women claiming sexual grievances that range from groping to rape, only adds to his legend as a man who damages almost everything he puts his hands on. 

Now, as I watch history being made with Trump’s second impeachment trial, I recall that I also predicted in that eerily prescient essay that Trump would damage and possibly destroy the Republican Party. An achievement he will soon accomplish, I expect, with the unwitting assistance of sycophants like Senators Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley and Lindsey Graham.

What I did not foresee was the massive damage, if not destruction, Trump would inflict on our country. On America. On our values, our institutions, our traditions and, most seriously, on our sense of ourselves. 

Trump took charge of an America with immense power to lead and benefit the world, and twisted its institutions to serve himself—always himself! Nothing you can point to has more importance, in Trump’s ever-lusting mind, than his bloated ego and selfish appetites. It was never America First; but always Trump First, even when that put America Last. 

In the end, Trump could not accept the American voters taking back the power they had temporarily granted him four years ago. He would ultimately trample on the Constitution, his oath of office, his duties within that office, and his vow to protect and defend America and its citizens. All in service to his own outsized dreams of rarified privilege and entitlement. 

And so as we watch the House impeachment managers make their irrefutable case for Trump’s impeachment, we know they are fighting in a losing cause. In a Senate half-filled with politicians who cannot see beyond their fear of Trump’s reprisals, Truth and Justice will never prevail.

They don’t know it yet, but these Senators of lilliputian courage, in sacrificing their honor and integrity, have already been Trumped and Thumped.

And judging by the lessons of history, it won’t be long before they are rudely Dumped.

Just ask Mike Pence.

As I mentioned, this essay is a revisit of a blog post from last April, titled “TRUMPED, THUMPED AND DUMPED.” Click here if you would like to read that essay.

COWARDS, SYCOPHANTS AND ACCOMPLICES, OH MY! (REDUX)

Swearing an oath, but to whom?

THIS IS AN UPDATE OF AN EARLIER ESSAY

Careful, Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas anymore. 

We’re in a land where nothing is as it seems. Where the truth is never real, and the real is never true.

Welcome to the land of Republican Senators. Or, as they are often described by journalists and observers—and will be remembered by future historians—“Cowards, Sycophants and Accomplices.”

Oh my! 

Yes, in this land, you do not need to be true to your vows, or vote by the light of your conscience, or speak the truth about what you see with your own eyes, or act in a way that will make your children proud. 

In this land, the thing of most importance is to remain true to Donald J. Trump, no matter how dastardly his deeds, no matter how violently he desecrates the Constitution, even if his most damning behavior cries out for condemnation and abhorrence.

In this land, an attempted coup is of no great constitutional importance, nor is the death of six individuals whose lives were lost to the lies and lust of a man who would not relinquish the power bestowed upon him by the electorate and taken away by that same sovereign body.

In this land, political power is supreme, so unstoppable in its sweep that time and again it upends reality and turns common sense on its head. When that happens, falsehoods and lies light the fires that lead the way in the dark. 

In this land, there will never be a final word on the crimes and unspeakable villainies of Donald J. Trump. Just when you sigh in the belief you have seen the limit of his Evil Enterprise, he shocks you once again with his unlimited capacity to broaden its harmful effects. Nor will there ever be an end to the bottomless treasury of excuses or deflections used by these spineless desecrators of their office in shielding a man who deserves neither the respect of the office he defiled or the obeisance to the power he has amassed.

Twice these handmaidens to a man whose behavior resembles a mob boss more than a president have refused to set a high water marker on the limits to the evil they will accept and condone from Donald J. Trump. Twice they have seen him desecrate his office and the constitution, and twice they have declared him innocent and free to commit harm in ever new and creative fashion. And now we are seeing them rush to defend their mob boss against the perils he has created by stealing vital state secrets for a purpose we can only shiver to imagine.

In February of 2020, those lies allowed Donald J. Trump to escape conviction for his crimes in the first impeachment trial. An escape that led as surely to this second impeachable offense, a year later, as night follows day. Thus the 52 Republican senators who voted to acquit Donald J. Trump in his first impeachment trial, and the 40 in the second, were not only his jurors, but his accomplices in all subsequent crimes since his acquittal.

It is on their heads that the ultimate responsibility and guilt for Trump’s crimes must lie.

Cowards, Sycophants and Accomplices.

Oh my!

THE WIND’S TALE

PROLOGUE: You and I, my friend, we share a secret. We know that our bodies are like houses. And inside each house there lives a quiet person who can see all the magic in the world. It is that person inside who understands the laughter of seagulls, the joy of the setting sun and, of course, the stories told by the wind.

Once there was an apartment in a city where two eyes looked out a window and watched the setting sun.

The eyes knew the sunset like an old friend. They knew its colors, and its changing moods. Each sunset was an old friend wearing new clothes.

There were other friends in the sky. The eyes watched them with the warm feeling that old friends bring.

There were seagulls fluttering through the reds and oranges of the sky.

They rode the wind . . .

and fought the wind . . .

and let the wind tell them its tale.

The wind had a sad tale to tell. It told of a lonely ship lost at sea. The seagulls laughed at the story anyway. Seagulls will laugh at almost anything.

The eyes dropped from the sky to the darkening shadows on the ground, and rested on a tree. This tree never laughed. It was a happy tree but still it never laughed.

“It is not in my nature to laugh,” the tree once explained. That’s why the wind sang to the tree and saved its stories for those who knew how to laugh.

The eyes returned to the room. Somewhere in this room a babysitter was calling out to him. 

       “Bobby?” she called. “What are you looking at?”

       Then he heard his brother’s voice.

       “You know he can’t answer you,” his brother told the babysitter. “You know he can’t speak, or turn around.

       “If you want him to answer you, you have to look into his eyes.”

The eyes tried to search out the voices, but could only turn far enough to reach the corner of the room. There was adventure in this corner. The eyes had seen it. But only in the late afternoon . . .

. . . when the shadows fell.

Then all the shapes that were hiding could come out. Bandits chasing little children, wild horses stampeding towards freedom, jungles filed with uncaged animals.

And when the shadows melted in the late afternoon darkness, the shapes would flee to the crowded sky.

So many shapes, all puffed into shifting clouds . . .

cats chasing dogs . . .

lambs searching for their mothers . . .

sailboats racing out to sea.

The eyes grew sad. They remembered the wind’s tale. They remembered the lonely sailboat lost at sea.

Once again, the eyes heard the babysitter speaking to his brother. 

       “Do you think Bobby would like something to drink?” the babysitter asked.

       “No,” his brother answered. “I think he’s happy being left alone.”

       “Alone?” the eyes wondered. “Who’s alone?”

       The eyes looked to the night that was spreading like ink across the sky. The night was an old friend who often came to visit.

Sometimes the night hid its beauty in black clouds. Other times it wore stars, as if to light a party. But the night was best under a moon. It had so many moons to wear . . .

a moon to keep little boys from getting lost . . .

a moon to brighten up the branches of leafless trees . . .

a moon for nights when bad dreams shook the tears from your eyes.

But tonight there was no moon. The stars had asked to shine by themselves.

The eyes heard the babysitter getting up from the chair.

       “Time for bed, Bobby,” she called to him.

       “Just take things slow when you move him,” his brother told the babysitter. “Bobby likes to watch things as they go by.”

       “How do you know that?” the babysitter asked.

       “I look into his eyes and they tell me things,” his brother answered.

       “Watch, you’ll see.”

The eyes watched as a familiar face came into view. It was a friendly face. A smiling face.

       “Time for bed, Bobby,” his brother said.

       The eyes stared into the face, into his brother’s welcoming eyes.

Somewhere, as if in another world, the eyes heard the babysitter whisper sad sounds to herself. “Poor boy,” the sounds seemed to say.

       But his brother’s eyes said something different. They were not sad. They stared at him deeply and seemed to ask, “Tell me what the sunset was like, Bobby.”

Out in the night, the eyes could hear a seagull laughing. Laughing at the wind’s tale. Laughing to think of a sailboat lost at sea.

And the eyes wondered . . . maybe the wind’s tale wasn’t so sad after all.

But then again, seagulls will laugh at almost anything.

The End

Proud to say “The Wind’s Tale” will be published soon by Eifrig Press, a publisher whose mission is to distribute empowering children’s books to underserved populations. Usually at no cost.