As Donald Trump gets ready to do his perp walk this week, we really have to ask the most important question, which is this: How could a guy who built a big business and also had a reality-TV hit for fifteen seasons screw things up as badly as Trump has screwed things up?
It’s all well and good that various pro-Trump noisemakers like Steve Bannon are saying how the coming New York State indictment will serve to make 2024 an easy win for Trump, or that Mike Pence doesn’t think an indictment should push Trump out of the 2024 race.
Last night the NBC Evening News played a tape where Trump is heard telling Michael Cohen to pay Stormy Daniels in cash. Cohen says, “I’ll write out a check,” and Trump answers, “No, no, no, pay her in cash.”
Now maybe Bill Clinton behaved like a jerk by telling a grand jury that he and Monica didn’t have sex. But at least he didn’t slip the kid a few Franklins after she gave him a pipe job – standing up.
Trump may not be as smart as he thinks he is, but he can’t be all that dumb. He had to know that he won the 2016 Presidential election because Hillary couldn’t pull out Democrats in three states. Trump also had to know that the Democrats won the House in 2018 because he made the midterms a plebiscite on himself. Finally, he had to know that the Pandemic caused his campaign to crater in 2020, no matter what he said about election ‘fraud.’
But above and beyond all that stupidity looms the dumbest thing of all, namely, how Trump promoted and embraced the asshole element of the population which gets turned on by the idea that Trump represents some kind of heroic figure which will protect America from the depredations of the Deep State.
In an interview on one of the major news channels (I can’t locate the link) Ann Coulter said she didn’t think Trump’s indictment would produce another riot like the January 6th event because, “people just aren’t that stupid.”
They’re not? If Trump managed to get one thing right over the last eight years, it’s that he’s developed a personal following which can only be described as being people who have decided that he really does represent everything they want to believe, regardless of whether these beliefs have any connection to reality at all.
I can’t imagine having a rational conversation with anyone who considers themselves followers of QAnon. I can’t imagine having a serious verbal exchange with any of those ‘good people’ who cheered when the Nazis marched past them in Charlottesville. I can’t imagine trying to communicate with the woman who told CNN at a rally hosted by Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene that Biden’s victory in 2020 was a ‘big lie.’
The bad news for Trump is that this collection of weirdos, idiots and PWNBTT (read: people with nothing better to do) will never be large enough to swing a national election in his stead.
But here’s the real point about everything I have just said, which is that Trump doesn’t care whether or not he’s elected to another Presidential term, and for that matter, I never thought he really cared whether he would win in 2016.
Yesterday one of Trump’s lawyers said that if he were indicted, he would surrender right away. What’s he going to do? Not surrender?
But I guarantee you that when he does turn himself in, he’ll make it a big, public event. Trump’s appearance to hear the charges against him will be the biggest perp walk you’ll ever see.
In fact, there won’t be one perp walk, there will be two – going into court and coming back out.
The big question, however, is whether Trump’s perp walks will be the beginning or the end of the reality-TV show episodes which he has no doubt been filming for the past seven or eight years.
After all, once he checks into Otisville or Butner, the wig has to come off and contact with outside media isn’t allowed.
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