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| Metropolitan Museum of Art |
In Al-Anon, the organization serving families of alcoholics and addicts, one of the first messages they impart to desperate wives and husbands, parents and children, is to step away from the drama of their loved ones thrashing about in recovery.
You can’t fix them. You might not even be able to help. The afflicted have to figure it out for themselves. Or not. For the time being, rather than argue and grapple with their lies and ego and excuses, just turn away. Attend to yourself.
Approaching the eighth year of all Donald J. Trump, all the time, first as presidential candidate, then president, defeated ex-president, and now, full circle, presidential candidate once again, leading the Republican pack for 2024, I’ve finally reached that step-back part. I can’t fix him. Can’t make him go away. There hasn’t been anything to write about him. Readers don’t need guidance: they either figured out Donald Trump long ago, or never will.
There’s really nothing new to say. Being an expect-the-worst kind of guy, I simply assume Trump will win in 2024 against a senescent Joe Biden. Of course he will. The whole thing will begin again, the lies and bombast, grievance and cruelty, will roll over the country like a tsunami. Worse this time, because the shock has become blunted, and helpers have stepped up and are ready, with a Supreme Court, a third of whom he picked himself, ready to sing “Amen” to his every overstep. Abroad, tyrants like Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu will be comforted by the success of a kindred spirit, and at home the people who live for this kind of thing will ululate like true believers, clap like seals, salaam in adoration, and the whole madhouse will thunder on for another four years.
I don’t see how any of that changes because Trump now faces criminal charges in Manhattan for his botched attempt to cover-up his copulation — “affair” seems too elevated a term — with porn actress Stormy Daniels. The $130,000 Trump funneled to Daniels through fixer Michael Cohen, days before the 2016 election. Caring about the law, about morality, or even about the outcome of any given election, has become a partisan divide.
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| "Man Seated in Prison," by Victor Jean Nicolle (1781) (Metropolitan Museum) |
I guess it sounds a little schadenfreudistic, but I keep hearing a voice in the back of my head chanting "lock him up, lock him up."
ReplyDelete"his adulterous liaison with a porn star didn’t make his conservative Christian allies blink — their standards are for other people"
ReplyDeleteAmid the white noise, I sometimes forget - this amoral, ethics free, criminal, democracy destroying, blowhard, serial adulterer gets his power from the "religious" right.
Astonishing.
Astonishing, indeed. For example, take the white-haired white guy who the Biggest Loser was willing to sacrifice to the Jan. 6 mob, Mr. Pence. Whose religious bona fides are pretty much supposed to be his main characteristic, such that he won't be alone in a room with a woman who is not his wife. His take on arranging an illegal payoff to keep the truth squelched right before an election: "I think the unprecedented indictment of a former president of the United States on a campaign finance issue is an outrage."
DeletePorn star? You don't say. Trump cheating on his third wife 4 months after she gave birth? Whatever. Paying hush money to cover it up? Eh. Lying about that, and so many other things that one can't even keep track? What're you gonna do.
But holding him to account for his actions -- you know, equal treatment of this lifelong grifter under the law, at this belated date? THAT'S an outrage.
It's one thing to say the teakettle's been boiling for a long time. It's another thing to say it's "always" been boiling.
ReplyDeleteWell, it's been boiling since the Constitution enshrined it's putative liberties for White Men Only...
DeleteWith all due respect, I hope you are wrong and that he goes down for good. There's some upcoming charges too that might help.
ReplyDeleteJust about the time I began reading EGD, Mr. S, you predicted he would win in 2016. If I remember correctly, you did the same thing in early 2020. And now you're predicting another triumph in 2024? I guess this one will be your tie-breaker...the rubber match.
DeleteI like Joe. The Plague kept me from working for Joe. Not this time. I despise phone banking, but I'm ready to start dialing for the donkey. Whatever it takes to keep Joe Biden from becoming this century's Jimmy Carter..
A Queens paper I've never heard of...the Daily Eagle...headlined their indictment coverage as "Queens Man Indicted"...and called him that throughout the story. Which is exactly as it should have been--for the last two years. The press and the networks have fawned over him ever since he left office, and have given him far too much ink and air time. He should have been laughed out of town...and then ignored completely. Fat chance
Truth is, he should have been indicted two years ago...for treason, insurrection, attempted murder of the Veep, and inciting a fatal riot. The American Idol and Biggest Loser needs a few more charges...Federal ones that will stick. Then he needs to be handed at least a five-year stretch, so he can run as hard as he likes...from behind bars.
Capone got eleven years for tax evasion. Orange Julius needs to be put away for at least that long, which would probably mean doing life in a jumpsuit. Then he can go home in a plain wooden box. Harsh? Tough. I've never hated another living human being as much as I hate him.
Chances are slim that he'll be convicted even though I'm sure the prosecutor has a ton of evidence. There will be at least one Trump sympathizer on the jury and that's all it takes.
DeleteI'm waiting for the Georgia case where he asked the state to find 11,000 votes. That is by far the biggest crime. That may not be as easy for him.
Harsh? You're too kind. I'd like to see him get the Full Mussolini...
DeleteI hope I'm wrong too. But if we're hoping, then let's hope a hellsmouth opens up under him right now and sucks him down to eternal damnation. In general, I do not find that hope, alone, is a success strategy.
DeleteThe Full Mussolini? Hanging around a gas station is too good for him. He needs to die in the gas station. No, no..not the gas chamber--he needs to be sentenced to work in a gas station for the rest of his life.
DeleteI’ve had the same fears, but have not voiced them for fear my exultant friends would think me hypocritical. Nothing good can come of this — and though I am a card carrying (ACLU) liberal, our best friend is a retired political writer for Mother Jones, etc., I agree with you about Joe Biden. He seems to be trying to operate at full capacity past his expiration date. His clear dependence on others to help hold him up is at odds with Trump’s dictatorial affect - wish the guys would retire. Linda.
ReplyDeleteNot so much a comment, but a question. What is that wonderful image at the top of the page?
ReplyDelete"Man Seated in Prison," by Victor Jean Nicolle (1781). Originally it topped the blog post too, but I thought the picture there might scan better on people's phones. I'll add it to the bottom.
DeleteVOTE!
ReplyDeleteGERRYMANDERING!
DeleteTrump being charged for the Stormy Daniels entanglement is like Capone going to prison tax evasion, or a mass murderer being charged only with auto theft. That's the best the legal system can do? The average schmuck gets so many counts copping a plea seems like the only choice.
ReplyDeleteThe system that grinds the unconnected into bone meal is far too lenient on white collar thugs whose crimes are arguably more destructive and on a wider scale.
The notion - no the reality - that Trump is still the viable Republican candidate, combined with the Democrats' ineffective opposition on nearly every right wing boot heel on the neck of the American people has passed from discouraging to terrifying. The judicial and political systems in the US needs a 12 step program. Unfortunately, as a country, we can probably only make it to seven before relapsing in 202.
Trump with Netanyahu AND PUTIN. Where does George W. Bush fit in? He starts a war that kills and displaces over a million people and he's being rehabilitated as an elder statesmen. What did Bibi do anyway, take some cigars as bribes?
ReplyDeleteI'm hardly an optimist, and you make good points, as usual, Neil, but "Trump indictment changes nothing" is a bit too strong for me. This lifelong cheat and charlatan, who's gotten away with so much, is finally going to be personally indicted for *something*. Is it the worst of his crimes? No. Will it change the minds of the run-of-the-mill Cult 45 devotees? Very doubtful. But it's a start, and a start that others have not been willing to make. I don't know how this matter will proceed, but I've long been of the opinion that if the orange guy ever had to testify under oath about ANYTHING, he couldn't do it without perjuring himself repeatedly. Of course, the Fifth Amendment is the friend of the mob boss, so he's got that going for him, as have so many of his crooked minions. His former opinion of the Fifth Amendment, before #5 shot up to being as significant as the Second Amendment in Trumpworld, actually made more sense than most of his hogwash: "You see the mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?"
ReplyDeleteIf nothing else, the oh-so-important precedent of no former president having faced criminal charges is gone. Maybe that will inspire the folks investigating his other crimes.
"It's a start?" The man was impeached twice. Was that a start?
Delete"Was that a start?"
ReplyDeleteYes, it was. In the first Senate trial, there were 48 votes to convict on one of the charges. In the second trial, there were 57 votes to convict. Clearly, if he had been impeached two more times, there would have been 66 votes the third time, and he would have easily been convicted with 75 votes the fourth time. That's just math! ; )
"They ... still ... want ... him. No addiction is easy to break, particularly not one offering blanket permission to live in your own fantasyland of perpetual grievance and self-assigned victimhood. It’s too powerful a potion for millions of Americans to pass up."
ReplyDeleteBoy, oh boy, Neil...did you hit the nail on the head or did you hit the nail on the head?!!! His supporters, as you so succinctly write, do perpetually whine about being perpetually victimized, just as he does. He is them and they are him in this regard but that's as far as it goes. They think he cares about them because they, like him, feel ignored by the "popular, elite kids" who never allow them to sit at their lunch table. The saddest part, imo, is he very obviously views them as "marks"...rubes who are expected to support him with their votes and, just as importantly to him, with their cash. As that popular proverb states, "A fool and his money are soon parted."