Will it ever end?
I am talking about the manic obsession that is known as Trumpism in this country.
The adoration of ex-President Donald Trump by his followers is hard to fathom. The man is a serial adulterer, a misogynist, a pathological liar, a dishonest businessman, a failed entrepreneur (many bankruptcies), a convicted scam artist, and a bosom buddy to dictator/warmongerer/President Vladimir Putin of Russia.
The billionaire loudly brags that he pays no taxes, something that average citizens and his ardent followers must do to avoid Federal fines and/or prison time.
His 2016 Presidential campaign was assisted by Putin’s army of cybercriminals. He is the only President in history to be impeached twice by Congress, first, for extorting the Ukrainian President to help him in the 2020 campaign and, second, for inciting the Capitol Riot of January 6, 2021.
His manic conspiracy theory about a “stolen” election in 2020 has found no basis in fact (by Federal and State agencies, courts, and private investigators), and Trump has turned this imaginary scandal into a fund-raising juggernaut that has put $250 million into his pocket.
Donald Trump is currently under investigation by the State of New York for tax fraud, the State of Georgia for election tampering, and by the Department of Justice for possessing Top Secret classified documents in his private safe in Florida.
Trump followers, Republican politicians, and conservative media personalities spend day after day making up excuses for the ex-President’s actions, rewording things he has said publicly, and attacking anyone (including G.O.P. electeds) who dare to criticize him.
Why? That $250 million available to support political campaigns of Republicans who fawn over him.
Mr. Trump routinely fans the flames of outrage among his core followers. His rhetoric on January 6th, 2021 incited thousands of his followers to storm the Capitol, trash the place, and hunt down (unsuccessfully) legislators and the Vice President who would not support his coup attempt. This past week, one of the Trump faithful stormed an FBI office, intent on killing employees of an agency that the ex-President has termed “corrupt”. Another man crashed his car at the Capitol, intent on doing harm to Congressmen, and then shot himself when confronted by police.
(Interestingly, the man in charge of the F.B.I., Christopher Wray, was appointed by ex-President Trump. At that time, our fearless leader noted that Wray was exceptionally qualified, well-qualified, and a man of the highest ethics. Now… he’s a bum… because the F.B.I. is investigating the ex-Prez.)
Every day, Donald Trump publicly dispenses inflammatory rhetoric designed to undermine the democracy that he once swore to protect and defend. Because of his incessant propaganda against elections in this country, a large proportion of Americans now harbor distrust in the very institution that guarantees them control of their own government.
Surprisingly, this disgrace of a President and a human being appears to be the Republican front-runner for the Presidential nomination in 2024! A poll conducted a week ago indicates that Trump has about a ten percentage point lead over his nearest competitor, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, among Republicans voters.
That is the state of Republican politics in 2022, championing a failed leader for one more bite of the apple in Washington D.C. It is becoming a tougher challenge by the moment, as the investigations and court cases are rapidly approaching critical mass.
Is this guy truly the BEST that the G.O.P. can come up with? He’s already lost the popular vote for President two times in two tries. He will undoubtedly make that three failures if he runs in 2024. He could win the Presidency due to the flawed Electoral College mechanism, but if he did he would begin his second Presidency being unpopular with about 2/3 of registered voters.
The upcoming mid-term elections, where the Republican Party was expected to steamroll Democratic candidates because of inflation, are being lost in the hubbub about Donald Trump, who isn’t even on the ballot. Elected G.O.P. officeholders are being daily queried by the media about the latest Trumpian escapades and are having to invent all manner of excuses and misdirection to keep reporters at bay. Even some of his Fox News cheerleaders are expressing dismay, as new revelations seem to crop up with every news cycle. Trump is sapping the energy out of the G.O.P. midterm campaign.
Dyed-in-the-wool Trump supporters, Republican Congressmen, and the ex-President himself complain that the various investigations about him are “politically motivated” and that he is the most picked on politician of all time. Of course, Trump has said and done a lot of stupid things in business, in government, and on the outside.
Actually, the most investigated politician of our lifetime is likely Hillary Clinton. The Republican Party put her in the crosshairs way back in the 1970’s when the young, up-and-coming Harvard law student worked on the Watergate investigation. From that time onward, conservative media personalities like Rush Limbaugh fomented one after another conspiracy theories about Hillary and her husband Bill. To this day, long after Mrs. Clinton has left governmental service, the far-right wing nuts continue to claim that she and Bill were/are behind some universal cabal enabling pedophilia.
Mrs. Clinton had to endure numerous “witch hunts” (to use Trump’s term) during her career in Federal service. There was the Whitewater land scheme investment, a cattle futures investment, Filegate, Travelgate, the Benghazi hearings, her husband’s Monica Lewinsky impeachment trial, and a lot of hullaballoo over government information stored on her private mail server. Candidate Trump, in 2019, was relishing all of the investigations of Mrs. Clinton and would energize his rally audiences with the phrase “Lock’er Up!”.
None of the aforementioned investigations ever turned up any serious misdoing by Hillary Clinton, despite her being hounded for 25 years by conservative Republicans. One might say that the harassment was “political”, exactly the complaint that Donald Trump is making about all of his current legal problems.
The guy can dish it out, but he can’t take it. He can lie and bully with the best of them, but if it weren’t for the army of attorneys who clean up after him, and the 400 times that he “took the Fifth” when testifying in a recent deposition, he be in prison.
Why is it, then, that Donald Trump is the darling of so many Republicans in our country?
I think it is the “idea” of this manly bull in a china shop, kicking ass where he sees fit, ignoring rules and laws he doesn’t like, and forcing a WASPish agenda upon a Nation whether it likes it or not.
Trump cultists consider him their Superman who is going to single-handedly mold the Nation into something that works for him and them.
The problem is that he is an egomaniac who is not a fan of the democracy that he desires to lead. If re-elected, his authoritarian agenda will undoubtedly involve a lot of “getting even” with politicians and bureaucrats who he believes torpedoed his Presidency.
This is the guy who, angry about protesters near the White House, asked his military and Homeland Security folks if they could just shoot the citizens, who were exercising their First Amendment rights to assemble and protest, in their legs.
If that is the kind of government that people want in this country, then they will surely get it in spades if Trump is re-elected in 2024.