There is nobody left to take Trump gently by the arm and say, ‘It’s time to go.’
by Tom Toles
All the adults left the building some time ago. Adults don’t stay where the rules say that the 2-year-old is in charge and will make all the final decisions.
And so this is going to be awful. Not that it hasn’t been awful so far, but it will get worse. That was foreordained on election day, or on electoral college day if there is any consolation in that distinction. A Trump presidency was never going to end well. The only variable with the Trump reckoning is that the later, the worse.
How do we know? History is not always a reliable guide to the future, but with some people it is. Character might not be destiny, but character tells you what to expect. With Trump there is a long and lurid trail of failure to look back on. The only one who has escaped unrepentant is you-know-who. He has stayed one step ahead of the reckoning with bankruptcy laws, new suckers, new scams and an army of lawyers and fixers.
And it’s always all or nothing for Trump. He bets big, because he always assumes that somebody else will get stuck with the tab. And now it’s us. The United States made perhaps its worst bet ever when it bet on Trump and his ludicrous promise that he and only he could fix everything with his special blend of simple-mindedness and ruthlessness. We got the simple-mindedness all right, but we have yet to plumb the depths of his ruthlessness.
Trump will not go quietly, no matter how bad it gets for the nation. He will double down and down again, daring everyone to take him on after it is clear that he is holding the nation hostage. Nice country you have here, be a shame if something happened to it.
Trump has to be the hero or bust, and it doesn’t matter what gets busted. Everyone has let him get away with this until now. It was the Republicans’ job to apply the checks and balances that the Constitution gave them to keep someone like him in line. But they decided to throw in with him, in exchange for their shameful tax cuts for the rich.
It’s now up to the rest of us, whoever is left, to bring him to justice, however bad he is willing to make it, and then deal with the wreckage.
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OCU
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