The Gates of Hell

I was in Tijuana once. For twenty minutes. I had taken the light rail from San Diego to the border and then tramped up these endless ramps and at the top looked down on what seemed an endless traffic jam and then tramped down more endless ramps into Tijuana and it was like a teeming street scene in New Delhi during the Raj.   

Everybody either wanted to sell you something or just wanted you to give them money. I knew Tijuana was gamey but not like this. Back up the ramps  and back on the light rail. Adios Tijuana.

This was a while back, and I don't know how it is there now except that some of the people there are giving arriving caravans a hard time using a lot of Trumpean dialog. Dig it: to my knowledge, Trump has never set foot in Tijuana, but he has still been able to infect it – or enough of the city to make the news.  

I've always thought of the bottom of the ramp into Tijuana back then as the Gates of Hell. That metaphor might be apropos today in a couple ways. Donald Trump has made our southern border crossings from welcoming sanctuaries into literally the Gates of Hell with his state-sponsored kidnapping program. 

But the Gates of Hell swing both ways. Doubtless, Trump is going to try to do as much damage as he can before the Democrat-held House takes over in January, but then the fun begins. Subpoenas will be flying and Democrat-led committees will be seriously looking at sketchy issues that their Republican predecessors turned a deaf dumb and blind concern to. You know what they say about paybacks. Trump does because he is the Payback Man. His slack-jawed press puppet Sarah Sanders – what happened to the Huckabee, sweetie? – has boasted of the fact that the President strikes back “ ten times as hard” at any perceived attack.  What goes around etc., right, Prez?  So there are for Donald Trump et al a set of Gates to Hell that now lead into the vast chambers of the House of Representatives.

There are also some Trumpean Gates of Hell leading into the nondescript,  cramped chambers of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his staff of bloodhounds. The word is that they're about to bust out some new indictments that might even include Trump family members. Like Donnie himself always says, “We'll see.” He sure as shit will.

Trump doubtless is being fed whatever info his boy Whitaker can catch about the so-called Mueller Investigation, but it's really chess and checkers here, folks. Whatever Whitaker comes up with is going to be too little too late. Mueller has fail-safes; he ran the FBI for – what?_ – 14 years and they're like the Mounties – they always get their man. Ask Nixon.

Trump is like some cheap club fighter who telegraphs all his punches, while Mueller floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee. Remember how Ali let George Foreman punch himself out and then knocked his ass out? 

So far, Trump doesn't have the balls to fire Mueller, who is the gatekeeper now to Trump's own personal hell. Coal-fed, that is.