The fanatical GOP defense of Trump
Reading the federal criminal complaint against Donald Trump was akin to a hallucinatory experience, where the words yielded to flashes of imagination that pixilated into grainy images in my mind’s eye. It was like a movie unfolding with Trump and his valet squirreling boxes filled with America’s most sensitive secrets all around Mar-a-Lago — like Lord Grantham and his faithful Bates hiding a surprise from Lady Mary at Downton Abbey. Apparently everyone knew, including the Dowager Countess, and they all cooperated fully with the FBI investigation.
Here is what Trump had in his possession:
The classified documents Trump stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack. The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.
The alleged crimes are serious and his breaches are a deep betrayal of Trump’s oath of office, duties, responsibilities and obligations. He did not protect the Americans in harm’s way whom he endangered with his brazen incompetence and malice. It also demonstrated that Donald Trump is an imbecile of the highest conceivable level. He is a supernova of narcissistic idiocy. The US government literally begged him to return the documents, but he would not. He just wouldn’t do it. He wanted them.
His petulance is simply staggering to comprehend. Donald Trump is a real-life, combined Veruca Salt and Augustus Gloop. He is sloppy, spoiled, self-indulgent, destructive, arrogant, selfish, and ultimately, a cartoon villain who exists in flesh and blood. He is America’s toxic clown, our most dangerous fool and gravest danger. He is the perfect reflection of what is most broken and corrupted in our land. Donald Trump is America’s champion of indecency, dishonesty, treachery and weakness. He is a liar, a nihilist and an extremist, who stands for himself against the ideals that America proclaims — faith and fidelity — but none of this is new.
We have arrived at the tragic destination that was always inevitable. This moment has come because the American people allowed it to happen. We gave Donald Trump political power by choice. The American people elected him in 2016.
Thousands of elected Republican officials at the local, county, state and federal level capitulated to his insanity and venality through a thousand acts of cowardice, appeasement and fearful submission. They allowed him to lie at will, grift at will and abuse his power at will. There was never any bottom because there was never any barrier or net to stop Trump from swimming lower. There was no degenerate statement, no malfeasant action, or disgraceful conduct that would break their devotion, which was built on silence, accommodation and deference to actions they had once disdained and condemned. Donald Trump became more important for them than everything, including their integrity, honor and country.
The evidence is the fanatical defense of Trump against the indictment. Fundamentally, the GOP response is an attack on the American justice system that rivals their collective and years’ long attack on the American electoral system.
These attacks are a societal cancer, and they threaten to kill American democracy. The overwhelming majority of elected Republicans have long ago decided that there is no issue or solution that is more urgent or important than Donald Trump’s ego and feelings. There is no national purpose or challenge that is greater. There is no sacrifice that has ever been made in the defense of liberty, the creation of the republic, or its sustainment that ranks above Donald Trump’s whims and feelings. What is true is what Trump says is true. If he wants something, he gets it, and that’s the way it is. John F. Kennedy Jr. once asked a rhetorical question: what is the purpose of a political party if not for the achievement of a great national purpose? The answer is, of course, that there is none.
What purpose does the Republican Party have in this moment? What do they stand for beyond Trump and his lies?
There is no person who has ever held a security clearance and been trusted with government secrets who is not shocked, dismayed and alarmed after reading the indictment. Any person who cares about America’s national security would be. There is no question or debate about that. The question at hand is this: why does seemingly no one — with the exception of a small number, like Senator Mitt Romney — in one of the two parties care? That is the abomination. It is far more dangerous to our future than Trump’s alleged criminality. In the end, America’s politicians can only take the rope they are given by the American people. We should be careful we never give them enough with which to hang us.
If you didn’t get a chance to watch my reaction to Donald Trump’s indictment, you can listen to it here:
The morning after the indictments were announced, an elderly relative posted on social media that she would be donating money to him - her first donation ever to a politician. This is a woman on fixed income with little to give. I can guarantee you that Trump didn't do a damn thing to make her life better when he was in office. But it's never about what he did for them, it was about what he made them feel and the dopamine rush of confirmation bias and "othering" the undesirables. There is no bottom for MAGA diehards and they will never abandon him.
Traitors to our country, every one who still supports, lies, twists facts and kisses the orange ass of trump. How any American can read the indictment, or the many excellent authors who concisely give a summation of what's in the indictment, and say anything other than trump's a traitor to America. It's both scary and sad that this has happened.