When and how does the appalling masquerade end?
Historians will enjoy a ludicrous superfluity of catch-phrases to best summarize one-term Trumpism. Is this deviancy of scandals not captured by the following: Deception and Dissension? Racism and Rancor? Malice and Malfeasance? How about Braggadocio and Blundering? Narcissism and Nepotism? Denial and Derangement? How can we ignore Ignorance and Ignominy?
Or even the ultimate summation, in a triplet alliteration: Grievance, Grudges and Graft. So many choices, so little space for this mother load of compact exposés, nearly as infinite and expansive as the universe. Anything but law and order.
Trump isn’t good at unity, fairness or democracy, honesty or justice – but he’s a cracker-jack sitting target for wit, satire, and derision. Despite being a pretend, clown president, no one ever stuck out more blatant backside – as bullseye target – than this blackguard of infinite variety. He really can’t help from turning himself into a national, egregious laughing stock.
My ultimate nomination, per my headline, is Law-lessness and dis-Order, the transcendent pair that captures the other distillations. Criminality and Callousness fit too, for this mock president brashly violates the law (and so much else), then brags about his special entitlement from any rules that he thinks contradict his greedy self-preservation. Trump will indeed make history, though not exactly in his favor.
After all, the rule of law is the basis for democracy, let alone what still qualifies as civilization. Even imperfect past presidents acted as if they respected this foundational element: none scoffed at the idea of justice and equal treatment before the law. There is no slippery slope here: either we have leaders who endorse the rule of law (whatever the drastic shortcomings) or we have a circus of chaos by which might makes right – and a lurch into systematic oppression.
Trump doesn’t just violate the law: he brandishes his gangland chin as if proving he’s the reigning con artist par excellence. Gall mixed with sneering bravado is his media persona, but Trumpism comes down to scoffing at law, precedent, statute, and the Constitution. Of course lying and manipulation are necessary cohorts since Trump is convinced he can get away with anything (and has prospered with shocking, heedless abandon in this capacity, to our national shame).
Trump the early criminal pandemic
Law-breaking goes back to his 1970’s federal racial housing discrimination indictment – when the government defeated the Trumps by forcing an historic settlement (though without eliminating racist rentals). Or his fraudulent property bank applications and countless tax dodges, evasions and improprieties (he bragged only only suckers pay taxes). This outlaw really thinks rules are made to be broken but only by special, incredibly smart operatives – though he’s anything but savvy. Otherwise his criminal tracks would not be so extensive and self-evident. His cover-ups are total screw-ups — no better than his crudest cons, leaving mine fields of unexploded bombs.
He reign of criminality as president needs only a brief summary here, beginning with grossly inciting violence against peaceful campaign rally protestors, his crude slanders against opponents, in his party and out, plus denigrating federal judges and the patriotism of Gold Star families. His flagrant collusion with anyone who will willingly join his conspiracies, whether business partners, his children, Russian oligarchs, or assorted foreign powers like Putin, is already legendary – and he’s not yet left office when the legal fun will really begin.
His conspicuous, never-ending emolument lawlessness is so well substantiated it parades like an open national sore (or pandemic?). The Ukrainian shake-down (and undeniable corruption) is so ladened with Trump guilt, his escape from Senate conviction will for decades taint this country’s honor and justice – plus the McConnell majority. Illegally firing duty-bound, authorized investigators of Trump’s own malfeasance merited its own indictment and trial (more evidence of our broken legal system). A president need not be jailed to be found guilty of a crime.
Countless acts of sexual abuse and harassment – made worse by surreptitious payoffs that violate fundraising disclosure laws are confirmed by dozens of victims and his lawyer-fixer, inmate Michael Cohen. That Trump knew all and authorized the payola, then concocted repayment maneuvers testifies to the graft at play. When it comes to sex, women and mistreatment, anything goes – before, during and after the non-stop duration of degraded acts. No one sane any longer argues Trump isn’t a serial law-breaker (Trump U., cheated vendors and partners) and, worse still, a serial conniver at cover-ups, then denial and outlandish attacks against legitimate accusers. Perhaps, like Al Capone and Nixon, Trump’s downfall will come from illegal financial repercussions.
That Trump knew from the start, thanks to Bob Woodward, how deadly and virulent was the corona virus but schemed, buried and deceived the most vulnerable (the elderly, the compromised, the poor) – if that’s not a moral crime of epic proportions, with blood on his tiny hands, what is? We trust the upcoming election rout will confirm this most scandalous, unnecessary crisis will go down as the ultimate political malpractice. Who doubts there are other, still covert Trump crimes dying to surface, before the election, then comes the flood of indictments befitting our greatest private suspect.
America’s greatest joke — on itself
Consider the epic joke America brought down on itself: the greatest White House criminal (who was already our most indictable candidate) gets himself elected on a fluke, thus avoiding the power of law and justice that would crush anyone else. This is a mafia boss’s dream: find the only office shielded from legal onslaught, then seek every criminal way to stay in office. If anyone had dared writing a fanciful novel about what seemed five years ago a virtual impossibility, no publisher would have touched it as too preposterous even for degraded times.
Thanks to the employment depression, no jobs training, no infrastructure program, stupid (criminally-enacted) tariffs based on phantom “national security” threats, Trump has lost his (illusory) electoral pitch as “better on the economy.” That leaves only one fake card in his hand of dirty tricks: the old “law and order” ploy. But polling indicates that’s not playing any better than the other cons, arguably the final nail in the his political coffin. Of course, Trump has little choice, despite having stomped on the rights of innocent, legally-protected protestors by ordering federal troops in for that PR church play (with the upside-down Bible). Only the greatest criminal con artist would dream of leaning on law and order when all else fails.
Only this illegitimate president has the gall to march around as the “law and order” candidate, playing the con to the hilt. The idea is simple if not well-worn: brazenly contradict reality, then find appalling ways to make the pliant, unthinking suckers believe black is white and up is down. Trump has no more respect for “law and order” than for women, minorities, or cemetery-bound victims of a plague he misplayed – and for the worst reason: because he feared bad press. There ought to be a law against that by next February.
Presidential hypocrisy has never reigned supreme as it does today. And someday I may express what I really think.
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