ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR, EMPTY BOXES, BOTOX

Events of the past week or so bring to mind the Mike Luckovich political cartoon, where he illustrates the Devil looking into an empty box labeled ‘Trump’s Soul,’ with the realization that he has just been suckered. Many of us have read the January 8 two-hour interview with the president in The New York Times where he was asked if there are any limits to his power following his destruction of Venezuelan boats and the raid on that country when President Maduro was kidnapped. “Yeah,” was his reply, “There is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me. I don’t need international law.” As Kristin Monroe writes on MS NOW online, “Apparently we can all now rest assured, knowing that Trump’s finely tuned sense of morality will guide him as he navigates his Machiavellian world of might-makes-right, with or without the constraints of international law. Clearly, with Trump’s sense of morality as a guide, the US no longer needs to stay in the dozens of international organizations from which Trump just withdrew us.”

Monroe goes on to say that Trump is at odds with the reality of what Americans consider moral, and based on psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg’s study, our president’s moral development resembles that of a toddler — not of a seasoned statesman or thoughtful head of state. Kohlberg’s study led him to develop a six-stage theory describing an individual’s morality as evolving sequentially, the subsequent stages building on earlier reasoning, with Stage 1 involving avoiding trouble and following authority figures. Stage 2 finds individuals seeking reward and personal gain, after which Stage 3 will result in subjects seeking approval and wishing to be judged ‘good’ by their peers. Stage 4 eludes Donald Trump, as it calls for respect for authority, a wish to maintain social order and obey laws out of a sense of duty. Rarer are the later stages which require individuals to contemplate abstract principles — such as justice, extremely rare for Trump, as Stage 5 recognizes the greater good in recognizing the importance of individuals rights. The pinnacle of Stage 6 shows universal ethical principles emerging, care about concepts such as justice and human rights.

President Trump seems to be stuck at Stage 2, with only a glimmer of stepping into Stage 3, as he behaves like a child who expects the world to reward him with what is best only for him. He lacks compassion with not a concern for justice and human rights, with no understanding of America’s outrage over the Minneapolis killing by ICE agents, a mother who drove her car into a chaotic scene spawned by Trump and his gang. Stripping away health care and food benefits, separating immigrant families and putting the desaparecidos into cages gets no sympathy from Donald. He has no understanding about Canadians or Greenlanders feeling threatened by his annexation threats — Canada should relish being the 51st state and Greenland should be just fine with acceptance of US greenbacks for taking over their country.

Monroe believes Trump’s greatest crime might not be the damage he has inflicted on our political system or desecration of our democracy, but what he has meted out to us by altering how we see the world and leading us to believe what was once intolerable to us morally, is now perfectly acceptable behavior. On a positive note, she thinks Trump has misjudged Americans, and even his Congressional supporters are starting to break ranks to escape his trap of ‘morality.’ Based upon her interviews with Holocaust survivors, she is convinced that there are absolute moral values; and though leaders like Trump can ignore truth and human decency, to manipulate words and try to legislate away morality, moral values still exist and that innate human desire to protect and promote human flourishing is in our DNA. She cites the January 6 Insurrection as crossing the line for most of our citizens.

Political slogans may bombard us, “but a desire for warmth, compassion and kindness exists in all except the psychopaths among us,” Monroe says. And we know who they are! “We are born wanting to be loved. Most of us eventually learn that we cannot expect to receive love unless we are willing and able to give love in return. Claiming humanity in ourselves means recognizing and honoring it in others. Trump ignores this reality. He doesn’t see the disconnect between what he finds acceptable moral behavior and what the American public considers moral behavior,” Monroe concludes.

Trump’s White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, Stephen Miller, on the other hand is assuredly forever doomed by having an empty box labeled ‘Miller’s Soul.’ And Satan will not be fooled as he cheers from the sidelines. On Fox News he greenlighted abuse in his message to ICE officers in a Will Cain interview. He maintains that ICE agents have “federal immunity in the conduct of your duties,” declaring that anyone who so much as touches or obstructs the is “committing a felony.” Legal experts have fired back by stressing that prosecution is possible, though difficult in the present political climate. Critics of Miller’s comments called his statements “utterly chilling,” amounting to “open season on immigrants AND citizens alike,” as he encouraged officers to “go and spread violence and terror.”

Miller’s stridency was especially noteworthy as he made comments amid the heightened criticism and scrutiny after ICE killed Minneapolis’ Renee Good. Trump’s deputy told ICE officers, “You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one — no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist — can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties.” He assured officers that anyone crossing the line “will face justice.” The Department of Homeland Security has also shared the Fox footage on X as a “REMINDER” to ICE officers.

Slate journalist, Laura Jedeed, conducted her own investigation into the ICE hiring process, and in her exposé, she was able to get a job offer despite failing a drug test and without completing any of the background checks. In attending an ICE recruitment session, she found that the process was “astonishingly superficial,” even after she had overlooked the initially emailed paperwork and was using cannabis before the event, which should have disqualified her. Nevertheless, in checking back she found that she had been offered a job as a deportation officer — no completed paperwork, no background check, no identification verification. Jedeed wrote, “By all appearances, I was a deportation officer. Without a single signature on agency paperwork, ICE had officially hired me.”

The article brings to light the dangerously minimal vetting in ICE recruiting, and pinpoints why the agency’s confrontations with everyday Americans have grown more violent. Improper screening allows anyone, regardless of history, criminal record, or personal beliefs to walk out with a badge, a gun and the power to enforce deportations. Incompetence? Assuredly, but it’s a policy choice as Trump and Kristi Noem recruit those willing to intimidate and harm communities with no accountability, endangering everyone in its path.

Targeting Kristi Noem, satirist Andy Borowitz tells us in The Borowitz Report: “A new study published on Wednesday by Harvard Medical School has found a link between the overuse of Botox and pathological lying. “Repeated injections of Botox to the face interact with proteins in the brain,” Professor Harland Dorrinson, who supervised the study, said. “The result is an acute allergic reaction to the truth.” Though over-injecting Botox makes it difficult for a user to move the facial muscles necessary for speech, he said, “to the extent that the person’s mouth is capable of moving, it will be lying.” The study revealed other negative side effects of Botox, such as swelling in the cranium that requires the user to wear an enormous hat.”

In a turn away from Trump, podcaster Joe Rogan voiced sympathy with Americans who have expressed anger and frustration at the way Trump’s administration has conducted immigration enforcement. “You don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching up people — many of which turn out to be US citizens that just don’t have their papers on them,” Rogan said on his podcast. He added, “Are we really gonna be Gestapo, ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?” Being a prominent media voice with young men in particular, Rogan has been outspoken on a number of issues, breaking with the president even after supporting him in the 2024 campaign. Just before the election, Trump gave Rogan a three-hour interview as he attempted to shore up his support among younger members of the electorate.

Since the killing of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, a revolt within the Department of Justice has resulted in the resignation of six senior career officials from the Criminal Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Harry Litman, a contributor on Substack, wrote on Bluesky that the resignations were “metastatic and spreading quickly. Clearly one of 2-3 biggest scandals in DOJ history.” Following the Trump administrations justification of Good’s death, Litman wrote, “First, the highest government officials circled the wagons around Ross,” relating how both Trump and VP Vance blamed Good for her death, and Secretary Noem labeling the incident “domestic terrorism.” “At the same time, leadership of the Civil Rights Division, under Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, informed the Criminal Section that it would not be investigating the case at all — a spectacular departure from past practice. Multiple career prosecutors offered to go to the scene but were told not to,” Litman wrote.

Litman added, “It was like a fire chief watching smoke pour from a burning building and ordering the crew not to respond, even as firefighters volunteered to go in. The resigning officials, then were not merely objecting to a particular judgement call. In effect, they were saying that if the Criminal Section does not have jurisdiction over a case like this, its role has been reduced to near irrelevance. Excessive force by officers is not new. What is novel for the United States is the use of federal power afterward to stifle investigation and shield wrongdoing. That turn — from lethal force to enforced impunity — is an abuse of authority and a hallmark of authoritarian governance.”

Scary turn of events! About all we can do now is follow one of the final quotes of the late recording artist Warren Zevon: “Enjoy every sandwich.”