Isn't "Self Harm" Enough Reason to Remove a President

 

For decades, Donald Trump and the entire Trump Organization have had one asset - the Trump brand. The most unlikely president plastered the name, Trump, on buildings, on airplanes, in casinos, a supposed university, books, wine bottles, steaks, and golf courses. Even his kids are branded. 

Winning (in a way) the presidency four years ago has not been good for the brand.  He's been overexposed, subjected to the sort of scrutiny he avoided for so many years as he established and groomed Trump the Myth.

Serving as president takes a toll on even decent human beings such as Barack Obama.

Trump has also aged but it's hard to tell without removing the makeup and the engineered hairdo. Still there are occasional signs of physical decline as when he has to hold a drinking glass or water bottle with two hands or becomes visibly unsteady negotiating a ramp off a stage. One can only imagine what might emerge if he accidentally tripped into a swimming pool. 

Trump is also showing mental decline, especially when he blurts out "orange" when he means "origin" or can't pronounce "Yosemite." I suspect that's why DJT prefers to go off script on rambling, disjointed monologues. At least he doesn't have to read from a teleprompter. He can stick to monosyllabic words. He can communicate on a Grade 3 level. That's his comfort zone.

Being president is hard. Most get tested. Just in the past couple of decades presidents have had to deal with 9/11, multiple unwinnable wars in the Middle East/South Asia, a truly Great Recession, the rise of hegemonic rivals, an avowedly subversive Congress - it never ends.

What must Trump have thought as the New Year ushered in 2020, the year of his re-election? He had the Gullibillies (wrongly) and the extremely wealthy (rightly) convinced of his brilliance in managing the economy. His base remained devoted notwithstanding his outrages such as separating infants from their mothers and consigning kids to chain link dog kennels with concrete floors. Even that he got away with. He must have felt invincible.

Then, in January, word got out of a strange new virus emanating from the city of Wuhan, China. It was the sort of problem that might throw shade on Trump's "Master of the Universe" charade. It might damage, even derail the economy, the Holy Grail of electoral fortunes.

Trump had some difficult choices to make. He had to choose between his personal interests and the wellbeing of the American people. He decided to go with his gut instincts and those instincts are always focused on what best suits Donald Trump. He would bluff his way through it as he had so often in the past. 

The rest is history, sordid to be sure, but on the record. Each lie succumbed to facts but the base didn't care and, if the base still backed Trump, Congressional Republicans wouldn't dare challenge him at the risk of being primaried out of their own jobs.

You can find the clips of Trump's litany of lies just about everywhere. They make great fodder for Democrat campaign ads. More than enough lies to bury a normal human being but perhaps not the Grifter in Chief.

Trump needed a distraction, something to divert the Gullibillies. He got it when four cops put George Floyd to death on an asphalt street in Minneapolis. For a racist, race-baiting president that was "manna from Heaven." He was going to defend the base against these uppity blacks and their radical leftie supporters. He would not let them endanger white supremacy. He would send in the troops.

To those who harbour the basest instincts - racism, xenophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny, all the "us versus them" fears and anger - the Black Lives Matter protests became a recruiting poster to Trump's tribal America. Lincoln's warning that a house divided against itself cannot stand didn't bother Trump. He saw a means to turn division to his personal advantage. He knew what his base expected - cruelty, violence, ugliness - and he delivered.

Despite his worst efforts, Trump wasn't able to stay ahead of the pandemic. He couldn't escape the numbers. America, that boasted of the best health care system in the world, was beaten by a microorganism smaller than the smallest bacteria - the novel Coronavirus SARS-2, Covid-19. With just four per cent of the global population, the United States logged twenty per cent of the global pandemic deaths. 

All Trump's reassuring lies failed, one by one. True to form he tried to shift the blame. When asked by a reporter Trump replied, "I take no responsibility whatsoever" for the deaths of his people by the tens of thousands. No Responsibility Whatsoever. Instead he claimed that he and his administration should be praised for their efforts in fighting Covid-19. As the deaths mounted, Trump heaped ever more praise on himself.

The American people got to know Dr. Anthony Fauci, the CDC's infectious disease expert. For a while, Fauci was a fixture at the regular White House pandemic briefings. Unlike Trump's stooges within the White House and Congress, Fauci was honest, a sore thumb who stood out from the Cabal of Contrivance. 

It became Fauci versus Trump in many minds, a contest Trump could not hope to win. And so Fauci was sidelined, replaced by the suitably sycophantic Dr. Deborah Birx. Before long she too reached her point of exasperation with Trump's lies and, like Fauci, was sidelined.

As the CDC and its counterparts across the G-7 nations warned - from the outset - the end of summer has brought the dreaded "second wave." During the killer Spanish Flu of 1918-1919, it was the second wave that claimed the bulk of the victims. We were warned it could happen again.

Trump, however, had an election to fight. He utterly failed to prepare the U.S. for a second wave, perhaps imagining he could will it away. Trump kept up the bravado, staging a succession of rallies at which there was neither social distancing nor face masks.

At one big rally, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, former presidential aspirant, Herman Cain, attended representing Black Voices for Trump.  Within a week Cain was diagnosed with Covid-19 and admitted to hospital. A month after the Tulsa rally, Herman Cain was in the ground. His death presaged the arrival of Covid-19 in the White House itself.

The Tulsa rally was a watershed event. Prior to the rally, six members of Trump's advance team tested positive. At the rally, attendees were required to sign a waiver releasing the Trump campaign from liability should they contract the virus. A few Secret Service agents assigned to the rally contracted the virus forcing Trump's then campaign manager, Brad Parscale, who had traveled to Tulsa with the agents to self-quarantine.

The Presidential Pandemic continued to claim victims at a gradual pace until last month when it was announced that Trump aide and confidante, Hope Hix, had tested positive.  It's believed she may have infected Donald and Melania Trump while aboard Air Force One. The rest is history. Since then the Covid-19 virus has cascaded among the staff and visitors to the White House. Trump's White House has been transformed into a Plague Den. 

Trump staged two receptions for Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, at which there were few masks and no social distancing. A number of attendees tested positive including the president of Barrett's alma mater, Notre Dame, a couple of Republican senators, even the Admiral of the US Coast Guard. That Coast Guard admiral then attended a session of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That sent the entire Joint Chiefs into precautionary, self-isolation. Good thing no foreign power is looking to poke America in the eye with a sharp stick.

Most recently Trump's utterly dishonest and nasty press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, contracted the virus followed by two and then three of her staff. Now Trump's own Prince of Darkness, Stephen Miller, is positive. The White House is said to be deserted, the West Wing personnel either under treatment or working from home. The whole place is in need of a thorough disinfecting.

And amidst the carnage what is Trump's response? He's again downplaying the virus, claiming it's no worse than the flu and telling the American people to just get over it. As this Kabuki Theatre grinds on, Trump's poll numbers are sinking. Yet he can't seem to help himself. He seems incapable of staunching the damage. It's self-harm and Congressional Republicans are getting very, very nervous.

Is it possible that Trump is just looking for an out? Has he had enough? Is he throwing in the towel? 

Donald Trump is beyond erratic. Yesterday he announced that negotiations for another round of Covid relief funding would be suspended until after the election. The reaction was swift and negative. Today, less than 24 hours later, Trump has reinstated the negotiations. This is a guy in pinball mode.

He's unpredictable, unreliable, erratic. Even Team Trump can't pretend this guy is competent.  He should have been ousted months ago but Pence was never up to that, not with Congress full of GOP bootlickers. 

Perhaps the Republicans, including Veep Pence, know there's no use removing Trump now. They've left it too late. The GOP is in terminal Thelma and Louise mode. At this point they're just along for the ride.