There is no pardoning the president’s bad behavior, apathetic “governance” and complete indifference to the well-being of the American people
After four wild years, the Trump train is finally careening into the station, swaying back and forth with sparks flying, boilers belching, engine huffing, passengers leaping as they emit blood-curdling screams, and side panels flying off the caboose that is the Trump administration. Given the year America has had, it’s fair to wonder what there is to be thankful for.
I am thankful that come January 20, I will no longer have to shout at work because we will have a new president. During the past four years, covering the White House has regressed from reporters asking about policy nuances to asking (and sometimes shouting) basic questions to which Trump offers no cogent answers.
Four times in two events last Friday I asked Trump and his chief propagandist Kayleigh McEnany when the president would admit defeat. When will he acknowledge he lost? When will he concede? When will he quit tearing the country apart by continuing to push an agenda he cannot win?
These are not supposed to be rhetorical questions.
Finally yesterday, without admitting he lost, Trump acknowledged the protocols for a transition to a Biden presidency could begin. But on Tuesday he retweeted, “I concede NOTHING!!!!!” and then tweeted that the G.S.A. doesn’t determine who wins. He thinks only he has that ability.
The president’s henchmen seem to think reporters, by asking questions, are heckling Trump and shouldn’t be allowed within 10 feet of him, unless they’re asking why he’s so great. These faithful sycophants are the political equivalents of the Bram Stoker character Renfield, the ill-fated insect-eating toady who thinks kissing Dracula’s ass will help him achieve immortality.
In their silence, they have enabled Trump’s destruction of democratic norms. Their cheerfully complicit disposition is chilling in its portent. If Trump is not tossed out with the garbage, many more Americans could end up like Renfield—eating insects and then dead because they chose to follow a selfish leader who didn’t care about them.
But Trump isn’t the only politician who deserves to be discarded.
On Sunday night Carl Bernstein tweeted that he knows of 21 Republican senators who have “extreme contempt” for Trump and his fitness to be president. Fear has kept them in line. Fear of Trump’s supporters, the QAnon theorists, the racists, the misogynists, the white supremacists and the other insect-eaters.
There is no need to keep around those who tacitly approved Trump’s mendacity through their silence.
Had Trump shown the least bit of interest in governing instead of pontificating and staging rallies—and had the GOP held him accountable for anything—perhaps the pandemic that has killed more than 258,000 in the United States could have been mitigated.
But Trump is too lazy and too distractible to govern. He wants all the perks and none of the responsibility. He said back in the early days of the outbreak that he accepts no responsibility for it. It was one of the few times during his administration when he wasn’t lying.
As his horrific administration comes to an end, Trump continues to be Trump, saying he will veto a military policy bill because it includes a provision to strip names of Confederate leaders from military bases. And he continues to lie via social media about the election results. He tossed Sidney Powell from his defense team—he can promote asinine conspiracy theories himself. Somewhere Rudy Giuliani is adding more shoe polish to his thinning hair and sweating at the prospect of holding another press conference between a dildo shop and a crematorium.
When all is said and done, Trump is sad and done.
Trump is leaving public life as he entered it: a big screaming baby. He has conned many Americans and will continue to do so no matter where he is or what he does after January 20, 2021.
When all is said and done, Trump is sad and done.
What have we learned from four years of Donald Trump? His base thinks Donny is the ultimate messiah. His haters see him as the ultimate devil of democracy.
The Republican Party is like a china shop, and Trump is an especially destructive bull. Most GOP members are scared of upsetting him because if they did, the bull’s crazy fans—those who swallow the bullshit—would boycott the shop. And the shop needs those crazy fans because Trump successfully harnessed them and turned them into a powerful voting bloc.
But the Democrats never figured out Trump. Joe Biden won only because he came across as decent, while Trump came across as a stooge. Down-ballot the Democrats took a beating, losing at the federal, state and local levels. For some people the only thing worse than a Republican is a Democrat, but on November 3 a majority of Americans seemed to agree there’s nothing worse than Trump.
Trump is still stretching out his endgame, perhaps setting himself up for a 2024 run he’ll never make and intent on bilking his supporters for money for as long as he can. Last Friday McEnany hinted that the drop-dead day for Trump is December 14, the date when electors from all 50 states cast their ballots, at which point the election is officially over.
My guess is that Trump will never admit defeat, never concede, but will accept his loss that day and vow vengeance while pounding his fist somewhere in the South at a rally made possible by Richard Nixon’s infamous “Southern strategy” (in which Republicans drum up support via racist appeals).
Trump may then disappear to Mar-a-Lago or stay at the White House and rant on Twitter until Inauguration Day. But on January 20, he’ll be out.
He will exit the White House facing large debts, possible state prosecution and a variety of unfavorable consequences. His presidential library may end up a dusty second-floor flat above a porno shop in Miami, especially if Giuliani is in charge, but Trump won’t care. The Donald doesn’t read much beyond plaques engraved to his greatness. That’s why he doesn’t want those Confederate names erased from the military bases. He identifies with them.
Geraldo Rivera suggested naming a Covid-19 vaccine after Trump. I have a better idea: Let’s name the pandemic after him. It would be a small bit of appropriate justice.
Then release the Kraken!
Happy Thanksgiving.