The Final Solution: State of Emergency

One of the most disconcerting parts of Trump’s press conference on Friday in which he announced he would declare a state of emergency, was the evenhandedness of the language. Teams of negotiators were working with the Chinese to hammer out a trade agreement. Trump appeared to like President Xi and his policy towards drug dealers ("we give death penalty to people who sell drugs," he said apparently trying to give a flavor for the Xi's accent). The summit with the North Koreans was coming up and great progress was being made. He boasted of a "good relationship" with Chairman Kim, different from the one his predecessors had before. Obama was according to Trump a hair’s breath away from going to war with North Korea. And as for the state of emergency. There had been lots of states of emergencies. It was no big deal. Obama even declared a state of emergency against the cartels and some of the language of that state emergency was going to be used in current efforts against drug lords. Crime was increasing on the border (this Trump repeated several times in response to reporters who pointed out that statistics didn’t bear this out). Trump did refer to “fake news” and CNN, but the ad hominum attacks and outrageous remarks were at a minimum. One was reminded of Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil.” The speech was procrustean in a different way than other Trump fiats. It was like a silent steamroller. Though it was far less outrageous and entertaining, whoever advised Trump on his performance was doing a good job. The insecure madman had become dangerously confident, displaying all the un self-questioning characteristics of a common- place tyrant. The only real state of emergency would be for the democrats who were trying to unseat him in 2020.