Last week we learned that President Trump pardoned former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Sheriff Arpaio is certainly a colorful character. He was sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa County from 1993 to 2017. While in office he became a fierce critic of the undocumented. He encouraged his officers to “profile” Latinos, arguing that checking their legal status protected the people of Maricopa county.

In 2011 the Department of Justice found that the Sheriff’s office created “a pervasive culture of discriminatory bias against Latinos.” In 2012 the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit. The next year a federal court found that Sheriff Arpaio violated the Constitutional rights of Latinos and created a pervasive culture of discriminatory bias against Latinos. Sheriff Arpaio was ordered to stop profiling Latinos.

He didn’t. In 2016 the same court ordered Sheriff Arpaio be prosecuted for contempt of court. He was convicted last month and was awaiting sentencing.

That is, until last week when President Trump pardoned him. Mr. Trump has the power to do this. In Article II, Section 2 states that the President has “the Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences [sic] against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

No one argues the ability of Mr. Trump to do this, but we do argue his wisdom. Sheriff Arpaio clearly acted in contempt of federal court and since he was pardoned before sentencing he will forever avoid punishment for his contempt.

For his part, Mr. Trump fell on back on a word that he often uses and the rest of us find juvenile: “unfair.” He claimed that Mr. Arpaio was prosecuted for “doing his job.”

In our history we’ve seen other controversial pardons. In 1974 President Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon shortly after President Nixon’s resignation. Nixon resigned because he faced impeachment for his role in covering up the 1972 break in at the Watergate. Mr. Ford’s pardon created a great deal of anger (and many feel it cost him re-election in 1976) but he felt our nation would suffer greatly from a public trial of a former President. Frankly, I agreed with him then and agree with him now.

But the pardon of Mr. Arpaio carries none of the concern for our nation or our future. This pardon clearly signals that our current President uses his power not for patriotic reasons, but to settle scores. Mr. Arpaio’s fondness for Mr. Trump is well known.

Only 1166 days left until the next election.

In a previous post I suggested that Donald Trump is not a Republican but is instead a Fascist.

I don’t mean this as a judgement statement. Virtually all Republicans agree on the role of government. It should do fewer things and do them better. It should not spend (or collect) more money than it needs. It should trust that the free market knows what it’s doing and not interfere unless absolutely necessary. In other words they are optimistic about our future.

Fascists, on the other hand, care little for the Republican agenda. They are decidedly not optimistic about our future. They believe that we (and those we love) are in grave and immediate danger from people who are different from us. Even those who look like us (and most don’t) want what we have and will do anything to take it away from us.

Simply put, fascism is based on fear. And it’s based on a fear that they will steal what we have earned by hard work and give it to those people who have earned nothing.

Fascist leaders depend on their ability to continue to fan the flames of fear. Their leadership survives only if they continue to convince their supporters that I alone can fix it.

So here’s the problem: if you’re a fascist leader you need to continue to fan these fires. You can’t rest on your laurels because your only support depends on your followers’ belief that only you can protect them from immediate danger. Good news for your people means bad news for you.

In other words the fear of immediate danger matters more than anything else. It doesn’t matter if the leader ran on a platform to build a wall on our Southern border or provide affordable health care or lower taxes. For the fascist leader, only loyalty matters.

Additionally, a fascist leader needs to convince his followers to ignore evidence that does not advance his message. It doesn’t matter how he does it. He can claim that “they” conspire to lie to “us.” Or he can claim the banner of “fake news.” Or he can claim that only he can be believed. It’s a little like the guy whose wife catches him in the arms of his lover; he responds by telling her: “Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?”

By now you have to know that I’m describing President Trump. Believe your eyes.

Dear Mr. President:

I don’t know how else to say this: Your responses to the events in Charlottesville stun even those of us who already believe you to be a racist.

I’ll be the first to admit that we have a complicated history of race relations and slavery. I used to live in Manassas Virginia, site of the first major battle of the Civil War. The National Park Service manages the site of both battles (the first in 1861 and the second in 1862). There is a statue of Confederate General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson on the battlefield site.

And while the Civil War ended in 1865, even today we have citizens who believe the “South will rise again.” They’ve gone by many names: The Ku Klux Klan, White Supremacists, White Nationalists, etc. In 2008 and 2012 by popular and electoral votes we selected President Barack Obama as our 44th President. This so enraged your racist groups that they insisted that the United States belonged to White People. They felt that President Obama’s election betrayed who we were and what we stood for. You participated in this by advancing the false belief that President Obama wasn’t born in the United States and therefore wasn’t eligible to lead our nation. You abandoned this only when you saw an opportunity to attack Hillary Clinton by falsely accusing her of starting the birther movement.

When you began your Presidential run, these same racists embraced you and you have been loath to recognize their damage to our nation. Even after the horrific events in Charlottesville (including the deaths of Lt. H. Jay Cullen, Trooper Berke M. M. Bates, and Heather Heyer) you continue to insist that there was blame on both sides.

Your advisor Steve Bannon coined the term “alt right” as an umbrella term for these what nationalists groups. Your response? You made up the term “alt left” in a desperate attempt at creating a false equality.

Yeah, there isn’t. There are not, as you said, “very fine people on both sides.” There are no very fine people who advocate hate and violence toward people of color and Jews. And while we’re on the subject, when they chanted “Jews will not replace us!” they were talking about your daughter and son-in-law.

OK, cards on the table: I’ve never accused you of being courageous or willing to do the right thing even if it costs you. But your unwillingness to stand up to these racists amazes even me. I understand that support from thugs like David Duke and Richard Spencer make you feel better about yourself but it horrifies the rest of us. You’re already losing support from those who thought you would be good for business. Fortunately the alt right, while loud, is not large. Your decision to ignore the rest of us to fawn over then will only further diminish your popularity.

PS: You still haven’t called me.

This week’s news has been dominated by the escalating and dangerous rhetoric between President Trump and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. It’s not been pretty.

We were at war with North Korea from 1950-1953; the war was concluded with a cease fire, not a surrender. Technically we are still at war.

In the 64 years since the cease fire North Korea has become more and more isolated from the rest of the world. At first they were closely allied with the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. The dissolution of the USSR moved China into the only true ally of North Korea.

As with (let’s face it) all communist nations, North Korea faces horrific poverty. Several times they’ve refused to negotiate with the free world and accepted famine as a cost of maintaining their independence. We can’t know exactly how bad it was, but there is reason to believe that up to 2,000,000 North Korean citizens starved to death between 1993 and 1999.

Most of us have looked on this with a mixture of horror and anger. Those unlucky enough to have been born there did not deserve their fate and we recognize that their suffering resulted from the poor leadership of Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), his son Kim Jong Il (1941-2011), and his grandson Kim Jong Un (b.1983).

The Kims have always favored their fate above the people they lead, but things took a decisively bad turn in 2003 when North Korea announced it had nuclear weapons.

Presidents from Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969) to Barack Obama have recognized that they needed to be the adult in the room. They’ve known that a little boy with a loaded gun needs to be taken seriously and they’ve looked for ways to ensure that whatever Kim led North Korea, he would be placated.

And by and large it’s worked. North Korea has rattled sabers, made threats, and generally frightened much of the rest of the world. But it hasn’t delivered on its threats.

But last November we elected another little boy. It’s generally understood that good leaders command respect while poor leaders crave affection. We’ve understood for 64 years that North Korean leaders have craved affirmation, but late last year we elected a President who does the same thing.

And while our little boy previously argued that we should negotiate with North Korea he has now decided to meet Kim’s juvenile rhetoric with juvenile rhetoric of his own.

Last Wednesday he threatened “fire and fury like the world has never seen” but didn’t explain what that meant. It’s a little like “You had better do what I want or else!” It’s never clear what “or else,” or for that matter what “fire and fury” really means.

And while Kim Jong Un’s threats make clear his targets (Guam), our little boy continues to make vague threats that nobody can interpret.

Many of us found his threats alarming and even his Secretary of State hoped to walk back his remarks.

Last December I wrote about my fear that our little boy would not be prepared for a complex international crisis. Nine months later I fear this crisis has landed.

I pray these little boys listen to the adults in the room, but I have no confidence they will.

Almost from the beginning of his campaign for President we’ve known that Donald Trump has, at best, a casual relationship with the truth. Web pages like Politifact and Snopes fact check what we hear to determine the difference between what’s true and what’s false. Politifact sorts stories in several categories, including the lowest one, “Pants on Fire”.

They’ve done heroic work even while being under attack. On September 28, 2016 conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh instructed his listeners to ignore fact checking organizations because they operate under the “guise of fairness.” I guess he sees no need for Mr. Trump to tell the truth.

This recently came into focus. On Monday, July 24th, Mr. Trump spoke to the annual Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia. By any measure his speech insulted the young men and their families who worked hard and saved money to attend. After promising not to talk about politics he then spoke about his greatness, complained about how he had been mistreated, and gossiped about someone he met decades ago.

When his speech faced justifiable criticism he claimed to have received a phone call from the “head” of the Boy Scouts who told him that his speech was the “greatest speech that was ever made to them.”

Except that call didn’t happen. A few days later his press secretary insisted that he didn’t lie. Instead Sarah Sanders insisted that this was a live conversation and not a phone conversation. And while a phone call can be traced, a conversation cannot. I think most of us believe this conversation never happened and he lied to make himself look better after an offensive speech.

Simply put, President Trump lies, and lies often. This goes back a long way. In 1991 he called People magazine claiming to be “John Miller” to give himself good publicity. After denying he made the call, he later admitted it.

In his ghost written book The Art of the Deal (no way I’m linking to this) he said this:

“The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people’s fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That’s why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration—and a very effective form of promotion.”

That may have made him a success as a real estate developer, but as President it makes him a liar. More than six months into the job I don’t think he understands that he is accountable for what he says. I don’t think he understands lying to boost his brand undercuts his credibility.

I understand that this bravado emboldens his base, but his base was dangerously small on election night and is shrinking. My fear is this: as his base declines he will respond by increasing his inflammatory rhetoric. Much like Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny his paranoia will only grow as fewer and fewer people find themselves willing to accept his narrative.

He may call what he does “truthful hyperbole” but the rest of us call it lying.