In a recent “60 Minutes” interview, former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe dropped the bombshell news that he had opened a counterintelligence investigation into whether President Trump has acted as an agent of Russia. Except it wasn’t a bombshell. The story is making its usual rounds through the media, but where’s the public outrage? The widespread calls for more transparency?

McCabe is suggesting that Trump could be removed from office on account of essentially serving as a Russian spy. He added that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had mentioned invoking the 25th Amendment to evict Trump from the Oval Office. The 25th Amendment was adopted to the Constitution in 1967 and clarifies the process of presidential succession in case the president dies, resigns, or is removed from office. Rosenstein and McCabe are referring to the sections of the amendment that involve the inability of a president to perform their duties and responsibilities.

Twenty, maybe even ten years ago, this would have dominated national headlines. Not anymore. Nothing shocks us anymore, and therein lies the greatest threat. After two years of nonstop scandals, breaking news revelations and criminal allegations, we’ve become desensitized to the sensational.
It’s not entirely our fault. The Trump administration has been a hotbed of embarrassments and scandals since he first took the oath of office. His family businesses are still up for debate over whether they violate the Constitution’s emolument clause. We have yet to see any information regarding the president’s controversial tax returns. His hush money payments to Stormy Daniels faded from the public consciousness as quickly as Stormy’s case against Trump was dismissed.

The citizens of the United States are understandably sick of hearing about it. In the midst of it all, we’ve learned to brush off the latest controversy and ignore the headlines. We at The Voice believe that, as difficult and as tiring as it is, we have to continue to be surprised. If we fail to treat the Trump presidency like the carnival of scandals and controversies that it is, we make ourselves more vulnerable to what’s known as gaslighting. This has been a hallmark of Trump’s approach to the presidency, and it’s his weapon of choice for fending off criminal accusations against the members of his administration. Gaslighting is defined as psychologically manipulating someone into questioning their own sanity.

Trump practices this with a simple application of two words: fake news. He and his cohorts aim to convince people, through repeated denial even in the face of overwhelming evidence, that what we hear is fabricated

We have to stay shocked and appalled and continue to call out Trump and his administration for flouting the rules of democracy. Otherwise, Trump and company will have carte blanche to engage in criminal acts and avoid the controversies that have dogged them at every turn.    

– The Voice