If anyone in recent American history - and perhaps all of American history - has had the luck of the devil, it would be Donald Trump. He had pretty much made a career out of bad behavior, screwing people over every time that it suits his purposes, and largely getting away with it, time and time again. It helped him build his business empire to ridiculous proportions, and even helped launch a political career despite a complete absence of experience or actually qualifications, built largely on a huge gamble of spreading the hatred, which clearly is very much in vogue in the United States today.
Not only has he gotten away with this for a very, very long time, Trump continues to get away with it. He got away with saying things of mind-numbing stupidity and ignorance, literally since his first speech announcing his candidacy in the 2016 presidential race. Past presidents have perhaps managed to overcome enormous scandals and controversies, and some seemed to take this as a lesson on how to get away with bad behavior in the future. But Trump went in with every intention of conducting himself and the country with reckless bad behavior, and to then walk and talk with a swagger at his own invulnerability. Nobody, but nobody, has ever made such a point of pushing the envelope and finding ways to get away with not merely bad, but even criminal behavior quite like Trump.
So after seeing this, you can understand how some people - myself admittedly being one of them - got very tired and discouraged watching all of this over and over again. It cemented the sense that this nation, and the democratic institutions and practices that have weather the storm for centuries now, have essentially broken down and stopped functioning properly. For too long, we have allowed our leaders to get away with bad behavior, finding excuses for their bad behavior and naked power grabs. It seemed that Watergate, far from being an example of American democracy working and bringing down an arrogant would be tyrant, instead made Americans lose their stomach for holding leaders accountable. And when leaders, from Reagan to Clinton to Bush Jr. and especially to Trump, took exactly the lessons from this that we can expect, that they should test how much they can get away with. By the time of Bush Jr., who's administration survived numerous corporate scandals and even waging an unjust and illegal war based on lies, it was growing to ridiculous levels. Yet, Bush looked downright tame, almost like an amateur, when compared with Trump and his team. Trump seemed to systematically, and right in broad daylight, undermine as much of the Constitution and American democracy that he could. The more he did it, and the stronger his base of support grew, cheering more and more with every bad behavior. It was exactly the opposite direction of where the country should be going.
After that, and four long years that somehow felt a whole lot longer, many of us are exasperated by now. If I absolutely had to put money on it, I would bet that Trump will get away with everything still. Yes, even his criminal role in what to me was nothing short of an attempted coup on January 6th. In fact, I suspect that he may be rewarded this worst of all of his behaviors yet with another term in office. And this time, if he gets in again, Bill Maher may prove to be right, because this time, we truly might never get rid of him. At least not until what remains of our obviously now very fragile democracy is long gone and buried.
Now, this is one thing that I would love to be wrong about. Increasingly, I feel that the United States is almost tragically drifting towards totalitarianism and a perhaps a new, uniquely American form of fascism, and turning it's back on what remains of our democracy. However, that is hopefully excessively pessimistic. Sometimes, you need someone who still has some positive faith. Lately, obviously, I have been listening quite a bit to Glenn Kirshcner, a former high-ranking and high-profile prosecutor who has every faith that the Department of Justice will do the right thing and go after, and he believes indict, Trump. He believes that the case against King Con Don is open and shut. That is it just a matter of time.
God, I hope he is right. For the sake of the nation, and perhaps even the world, saving the United States from the greatest threat to it's democracy and to a possible outbreak of a civil war, not to mention constant regression. Let us hope that, for once regarding Donald Trump, justice actually is served. Then, as Kirschner likes to say, justice will truly matter.
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