Acting With Impunity

And I thought no one was supposed to be above the law. That's how society works. Cross the line and you might get fined, assuming you're caught and someone has enough money, power and wherewithal to hold you to account. But what if you act in plain sight? Thumb your nose at the system, believe you're untouchable? That's what we're confronted with today. Did Meta, et al, target tweens? That's being debated in court as I write this. Does Donald Trump have the right to tear down the East Wing and build a ballroom? Well, he doesn't seem to care what anybody thinks. Irrelevant of starting a "brief" war sans approval that appears to be endless with no good exit, the U.S. being lucky to walk away with its tail between its legs, worse off than it started. We can debate welfare. We can debate health care. You might have an opinion on either side of the issue. But we were never asked our opinion on the ballroom, or the arch. They weren't even on our radar screen. Rather, we woke up one day and the White House was being torn apart and a hole was being dug... Sure, presidents have changed the interior of the building, but the exterior? What next? A lengthening of the Washington Monument? A closing down of Arlington National Cemetery? Now I know that in tech you act first and ask for permission later. However, in many cases this is done off the radar screen and the system is not equipped to address these breakthroughs. Actually, that's a big problem in Congress. How can you ask people to legislate about that which they have no knowledge? This is why we need a digitally-savvy body, to meet the problems of the twenty first century head-on. But when Trump acts with impunity, doing whatever he wants, what the hell am I supposed to do? I don't drive a hundred miles an hour and then rip up the ticket after being cited by police. I don't refuse to show up to court. And if I do, I don't blame the police person. And, if the judge renders a verdict, I obey it. Otherwise the penalties are too heinous. But the Supreme Court decided that Trump is not liable for any crimes while in office. So, what's to stop him? Once again, this isn't about left and right, this is about a changing of the rules. Imagine if one team had to gain ten yards for a first down, but the other never had to move the ball an inch in order to garner four more plays. How would that work? How could the other team win? Sure, people bend the rules in sports, and even in business. But at least there are rules, and they always do it surreptitiously, they hide their actions, hoping not to be found out. But Trump? He rubs the dirt in our eye. So what do we know... No one is going to stop him from building his ballroom. If for no other reason than he's got teams working 20 hours a day and... "Trump’s Ballroom Is Rising at Breakneck Speed: 20 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week - Although the fate of the ballroom is tied up in court, the Trump administration argues that the project is too far along to be stopped now." Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/18/us/politics/trump-ballroom-construction.html?unlocked_article_code=1.6lA.hjeC.9lmaMbE2jKp_&smid=url-share That's the nature of life. Getting started is the hardest part. And once you have, you're rarely impeded. Especially when you've got a rubber-stamp Congress. That's right, we're going to spend nearly a billion dollars on the ballroom and then tear it down? Not gonna happen. Now when a kid gets caught red-handed he lies, but the parent knows the cookies didn't disappear all by themselves, and the child is punished. Trump lies and is not punished. And in some cases, lives are at stake. Once again, this is not a Republican/Democrat issue. There are not two sides. There is only the law. We have to obey it, why doesn't he? And if you blindly pay fealty to Trump, support everything he does... Is it the substance or the fact that he's the leader of your team? Americans are uninformed. This is what you learn on TikTok. Political questions are asked and true believers come up with such cockamamie stuff. But the ballroom. This is binary, black and white, built or not. You can see it with your own two eyes. Now the interesting thing is that all those protesting in the street, the No Kings people, have crawled back into the holes they came from and are now silent. In truth, many are waiting for the results of the midterm elections. We'll see how that goes down. Then again, you've got Trump saying mail-in voting must go, yet he just used it in Florida. Talk about cognitive dissonance. "Trump Votes by Mail Again in Florida - The president also voted by mail in 2020 and in a Florida special election in March, even as he has railed against the practice and equated it to cheating." Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/us/politics/trump-mail-vote-florida-election.html But the No Kings protesters... They see that their efforts made no difference. Trump ignored them or doubled-down. As for elected officials on the left, wimps you'd never bring to a bar fight. Honestly, I feel powerless, and I'm not the only one. But this is unlike anything I've seen in my lifetime. We hated Nixon, but he ultimately paid the price, he had to resign. There have been a lot of politicians' whose policies I've disagreed with. But dem's the breaks. They were duly elected. But this? Trump acting willy-nilly, doing whatever he wants, even ignoring legal rulings? This is new. This is demoralizing. This is indefensible. But this is what happening. There's a moral rot in America, and the nation stinks from the top. And until we rein in Trump, we're barely different from Venezuela, all these nations whose governments we want to change. If we're not a democracy, how do we expect those outside our borders to take our efforts seriously? They don't. Just know that you are not alone in your frustration. And the next time you see a member of society breaking the rules, ask yourself why they should obey them, when the President doesn't. Morning in America? The sun sank long ago. -- Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/ -- Listen to the podcast: -iHeart: https://ihr.fm/2Gi5PFj -Apple: https://apple.co/2ndmpvp -- http://www.twitter.com/lefsetz -- If you would like to subscribe to the LefsetzLetter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1 If you do not want to receive any more LefsetzLetters, http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=unsubscribe&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25 To change your email address http://lefsetz.com/lists/?p=preferences&uid=0eecea7b60b461717065cbde887c8e25