“Sessions’ brand of ‘old man’ conservatism hurts Trump among libertarians, young conservatives, first-time voters in 2020, and protest voters who just want to see the two-party system go the way of the dinosaurs.”
It was the middle of winter during an election year where very few had the foresight to predict who the votes would end up going to. Donald Trump, the scrappy international businessman and reality television star, was still considered by the media class as a joke to be laughed at.
Then, on February 28, 2016, Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions handed President Trump his first endorsement before a crowd of 32,000 people, and Trump had some credibility for the first time. Sessions was spot-on to call the Trump phenomenon a “movement” in that speech. Kudos to him for being one of the first to recognize what was happening and to capitalize on it with a major cabinet spot appointment in the Trump administration—but that was six months ago, and a lot has changed since then.
We’re starting to see some major fault lines developing between the president and his attorney general. Those fault lines will eventually lead to a seismic shift in the ground beneath Sessions’ feet at some point. In other words, I believe Sessions’ days as attorney general are numbered.
The first fracture appeared in early March when Sessions seemingly blindsided his boss with a public announcement in which he stated he would recuse himself from any investigation surrounding the 2016 presidential election and Russia’s possible interference with it.
If there’s one thing we should all know about President Trump by now, it’s that he is not the silent type who will let a problem simmer. Whether it be in an interview with a journalist or for an audience of roughly 87 million social media followers, he will always make headlines with an explosive quote or soundbite—and he did exactly that in regards to Sessions this past week by saying:
“Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else.”
I’m not sure why Trump still gives outlets like the New York Times access to his presidency after the way they’ve treated him throughout his short political career, but some call it “4-D chess.” The expression refers to the president being several moves ahead of a national media who—through their inability to cover presidential politics without an anti-Trump agenda—telegraphs every move they are about to make before they make it. Essentially, the 4-D chess theory explains that Trump doesn’t do an interview or publish a tweet without the intention of creating a news cycle he can use to his advantage across a media landscape that is laughably predictable.
Whether he is a master manipulator, a heart-on-sleeve exhibitionist, or both, Trump was 100% cognizant that the NYT would take his pointed words about Jeff Sessions recusing himself in Wednesday’s interview and run wild. He knows that the mainstream media will roll out a who’s who of Never-Trump Republicans and Democrats alike to blast his words, create obvious melodrama, call him un-American, etc. anytime he says or does anything. He might as well show the world how full of crap they are in the process.
Perfectly exhibiting their inability to figure out the Trump movement, The Washington Post picked up the first DC bureaucrats willing to cry “sky’s a fallin’!” that they could find and quote them in this article.
When Robert Raben, formerly of the Clinton administration, says:
“The president plays with fire when he attacks his military, law enforcement, and justice people. They are the bulwark of our safety. Demeaning them harms all of us,” he’s essentially saying this:
“Literally zero people were harmed by the president’s statement, but since you need a salacious quote I’ll say they were. Military and law enforcement personnel have absolutely nothing to do with anything that Trump has said in regards to AG Sessions, but I’ll pander to them and those who support them because I think they’re stupid enough to believe me if I tell them they were slighted by Trump in some way. After all, focus groups and research show us that conservatives will always support the troops. Hey everyone, Trump is demeaning the troops!”
When Mathew Miller, a former Justice Dept. spokesman in the Obama administration, says the country is “headed for a massive crisis” and that Trump’s criticism of Sessions was “an attack on the very independence of the Justice Department,” it translates to this:
“My job title is ‘spokesman.’ I get paid to speak on behalf of my employer’s agenda. If Trump were my employer, I’d be making America great again by talking about how the very independence of the DOJ was under attack constantly during the Obama administration, as evidenced by its failures to investigate federal gun-running for Mexican cartels, ACORN, the IRS targeting conservative political groups, Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, Loretta Lynch, etc. Hey, when does my direct deposit for this quote clear, anyway?”
The Trump base sees these hacks for what they are and then promptly dismisses them when they peddle their nonsense. When the talking heads pile on to denounce the statement, call it something it’s not, or pretend that their criticism is for the good of the country rather that what it really is—a partisan political attack job—the Trump base grows stronger and more unified. It’s that simple.
Amid all the empty babble from the hired guns, there was one partisan hack that actually said something of substance in the fallout this week. When Preet Bharara, the former attorney general of New York who was recently fired by Trump, said, “The president today effectively asked Sessions for his resignation” and asked “Will he resign or insist on being fired?” I thought he was onto something.
While Bharara undoubtedly made this prediction to cast doubt on Trump’s leadership by painting an embarrassing picture of a broken administration, I agree Trump will be getting rid of Sessions in one way or another. The relationship is fractured, and Trump has a re-election bid to consider. Sessions’ brand of “old man” conservatism hurts Trump among libertarians, young conservatives, first-time voters in 2020, and protest voters who just want to see the two-party system go the way of the dinosaurs.
If there’s one thing that many liberty-minded conservatives would praise the Obama administration for, it would be that at least they stayed out of meddling with the states as they went off in their own directions in regards to marijuana legalization. In a time where it can be argued that a Trump bill legalizing marijuana nationally would all but guarantee his re-election, Sessions is showing signs that he is prepared to use the might of the federal government to override states who have legalized the drug for medical or recreational use. Someone needs to tell him that Pandora’s Box has been opened. He can’t close it back up.
When Sessions takes the stance “Good people don’t smoke marijuana” and signals his intent to re-ignite the drug war that we’ve been losing for decades, he becomes a liability to the administration. We’ve got skyrocketing national debt in the 20 trillions, mass immigration problems, radical Islamic terrorism, a failing education system, a corrupt political behemoth that the founding fathers warned us to resist, and an out-of-control media hell-bent on maintaining the status quo. There are generations of Trump voters who will tell you they voted for Trump to get to work on these issues, not for him to reintroduce Reagan- and Bush-era policies against weed. Then more potential 2020 Trump voters could be lost if he continues to let Sessions run around without a leash on this issue.
Whether or not you agree with Sessions’ recent announcement to ramp up civil asset forfeiture at the federal level, it’s bad PR for the administration in the eyes of a good chunk of the Trump base either way.
In the opinion of this police officer, Sessions is out of touch with reality when it comes to the drug war—but I’m not against police departments benefiting from confiscated money and assets of drug dealers so long as money continues to be made hand over fist on the black market. If we’re going to fight this losing battle, we might as well take what we can get.
Then again, when the Washington Post reports on cops taking more money from citizens than burglars in 2015, you’ve got to be very careful with how you defend the practice on the national stage—but careful he is not. Sessions keeps providing fodder for an opposition media to attack the Trump administration where drugs and Russia are concerned.
Sessions has recused himself from the election probe at his own peril. Still, his stances on the drug war and marijuana may end up hurting the administration worse. If he should be shown the door, who Trump names as the new attorney general will go a long way toward his legacy and re-election bid. There is a difference between a Donald Trump and a Jeff Sessions vision of America. Americans wanted Trump’s vision in 2016. They won’t want Sessions’ in 2020.
