Amid all the other noise there is a growing line of thought that Trump’s only escape from “all of this”, meaning the sledge-hammers Robert Mueller, Adam Schiff ((now head of the House Intelligence Committee) and others are about to drop on him, is “a deal” whereby he resigns and is allowed to chopper back to his faux-gilded penthouse scot-free.
That ain’t going to cut it.
Based solely on what we know now — before Mueller, Schiff and other committee heads show their hands and reveal the totality of Trumpism in all its squalid, gruesome detail — Trump’s kakistocracy. (“noun: kakistocracy: government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state) is easily the worst corruption of “American values” in the country’s history. Put simply, conspiring with a foreign adversary (Russia) to win an election is leaps, bounds and moonshots beyond Richard Nixon conniving with a bunch of rich cronies and third-rate crooks to defeat his political enemies. It’s not even close.
More to the point, Schiff, in every public appearance, telegraphs both that he knows damn well that Trump has been living on Russian mob money for decades and that enough is a-[bleeping] ‘nough. Hell, everyone with a soul and a brain attached has had enough. Not only does this disease have to be staunched, it has to be eradicated from the biosphere.
The Trump Era not only has to be brought to a quick and emphatic end, a permanent historic stain has to be attached to it. A stain that denies anyone — even the most ignorant and pathetic goober — the possibility of “reconsidering” the true history of this moment.
While the sight of Trump (along with Jared and Ivanka ) in an XXXL orange jump suit bunking down with Big Louie would be profoundly satisfying (and legally appropriate), the far more practical resolution of this epic national disgrace is mandated financial and reputational ruin. Specifically, via a “deal” requiring the complete destruction of Trump’s fraudulent “empire” and, as I say, a permanent stain attached to his name.
For a while now I’ve been thinking of Marino Faliero.
Who? Faliero, a 14th century character, was the 55th Doge (i.e. elected leader for life) of Venice. For 1000 years 120 different men ruled as Doges of Venice, a city-state that enjoyed a damn nice run as the capital/nexus of commerce throughout the Mediterranean. As those things go, Venice was fairly enlightened. A kind of representative democracy prevailed. No women in office of course, and constant rule by rich, bejeweled white guys. But things were a lot worse all over the rest of the known world.
Faliero though led a coup to overthrow Venice’s long-standing quasi-democracy, was caught and executed for it. Even better, in the Great Hall
in the Doge’s Palace, a magnificent room encircled by portraits of the 120 Doges, Faliero’s portrait was not only taken down, it was replaced with a black shroud on which are written the words, (“This is the space reserved for Marino Faliero, beheaded for his crimes”).
If you visit Venice today you can see that blacked out frame. Enlightened Venice showed the world what you do with the monumentally corrupt.
I’ll pass on the beheading part. But unmistakable vilification and condemnation is what is needed here with Trump. And I’m not being hyperbolic.
Also … I truly believe we’ll get something close to it. Trump has no way out of this berserk shutdown stand-off, which as we all know is just a distraction for having no way out of the hellstorm coming from Mueller and people like Schiff. (Both of those characters, along with the hundreds of attorneys flooding Schiff’s office with resumes, have to see themselves as ascending to the pantheon of bona fide national historical heroes for ridding the country of Trump … and Stephen Miller … and Betsy DeVos and … well, it goes on as far as the eye can see.)
To my point here, I strongly suspect they [Mueller, Schiff, etc.] see both the need and the opportunity to place a stamp of moral revulsion on this episode. A “deal” allowing Trump to resign can only come with the most severe financial and personal penalties. Such a draconian “deal” would serve as a warning to the “competent Trump” (same fealty to the wealthy, less open stupidity) “small gummint conservatives” will inevitably try to push toward the White House.
Also, a wholly ruinous “deal” — in which Trump would be allowed to live out his years eating fried chicken on the stoop of his double-wide in Immokalee, Florida — would serve as a powerful, unequivocal sign to allies and the rest of the world that the United States has regained its senses, acknowledged the deviancy we briefly allowed to subvert us and delivered a humiliating rebuke to the offenders.
Popular culture alone will ensure permanent historical ignominy for Trump and the gasp-inducing stupidity and corruption of Trumpism. MAGA hats are already emblems of racist ignorance. And I can imagine a day when the number “45” is reflexively associated with a kind of mongrel sociopathy.
But official government action will be what really hangs the shroud over the memory of Trump.
I’m cheering for the same thing you are, for the same reasons. Don’t allow Trump to be martyred by the deplorables and send a clear deterrent signal to other kleptocrats in waiting.
BUT, practically speaking, that empathic shaming only can happen if 1) Mueller will issue criminal indictments while Trump is still President, a huge if given his cautious reputation, and the conservative, executive branch-friendly judicial branch will allow Muller to indict a sitting President, an even bigger if; and/or 2) a large group of heretofore 100% obedient Republican Senators vote to join a two-thirds majority to convict a House-impeached Trump.
Trump richly deserves criminal convictions and bipartisan expulsion from office. But short of something like an unequivocal quid quo pro document or recording laying out a Trump Tower for fealty to Russia deal, and it seems highly unlikely that that was ever formally documented and/or found by the good guys, I just don’t see nearly enough conservative Senators and judges doing the right thing to make either of those two things happen.
Wild optimism in the face of reality – guess it beats hari kari, and delighted at 75 I won’t have to live too long with the reality of what America is teetering on the brink of becoming.
Sadly, factual evidence that our voters are anywhere near wise enough to give Trump the historical ignominy he so richly deserves is entirely lacking. The goobers rock solid 35-40%, plus the 45-50% they become thanks to their voter suppression laws, and to gerrymandering, political and natural, guarantee them the continuing power to command their Trumpublican representatives. Imagining that they will ever command those representatives to repudiate Trumpism is fantasy. Imagining that their numbers will be shrunk to the 20% or less that would be required to loosen their choke hold on Trumpublican primaries is perhaps not entirely fantasy, but seems damn unlikely given the goobers rock solid grip on their gooberism despite the meteor sized chunks of shit they have happily consumed from their man without the slightest dip in their fealty.
Praying I am wrong, but muchly fear my prayer to be, well, just a prayer.
I hope what you say is true, and our trajectory doesn’t follow this one:
A Reading of History (Leonard Nathan)
The good guys lost the city first;
The bad guys never should have won that battle,
But did and turned the good guys out to starve
Or butchered them as they had butchered cattle.
The bad guys lost the city next;
The worse guys swarmed the walls from land and sea
Till heroes of evil parcelled out the widows.
O then how good the bad guys seemed to be!
The worse guys lost the city next;
Shaggy brutes slashed in from west and east
To drag them from their temples by the hair,
For worse guys were too gentle for this beast.
Yet who but this beast assembled later,
Three to a corner, stricken by whispered fact
That powers of darkness hovered off the coast
And nothing could prevent their being sacked.
The future plainly belongs to evil:
To good, the past; and for the present — well,
Good guys and bad guys mingle in the market;
Business was never better. Time will tell.