Listening to Donald Trump rummage through his boxes before finding and sharing top secret contingency plans for military operations against Iran, presented to him by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, is simply flabbergasting.
The recordings between Trump and a sycophantic woman reported by CNN are truly beyond belief. Any rational person listening to them would have to seriously question their veracity in our nascent age of AI, deepfakes and other misinformation tactics. It seems impossible that they could possibly be real and yet, they are.
There is a comical aspect to the recordings as if they are a radio serial from the 1930s. Everything is there. The sultry voiced ingenue flirting with the man with the boxes. But there is a wrinkle! Who is seducing whom? Trump entices, woos and teases. He digs hard, and the sounds of his rustling show his indefatigable narcissism perfectly matched with the feral scratching of “a short-fingered vulgarian” clawing for the right state secret which with to show off. Scintillating doesn’t begin to describe it. It is an audio episode of “Veep” merged with “The Apprentice,” but closer to an acid trip. Wow. Just wow.
Of course the leaders of the MAGA party in Washington, DC, will continue to defend the indefensible. They will treat the lives risked by Trump’s cavalier behavior, rank stupidity and criminality with perfect indifference and apathy.
What is the best way to describe the judgement of any person who believes Donald Trump should have the unilateral power to launch nuclear weapons? What is the name for that? What do you call someone who thinks that is acceptable? What’s the word?
Listening to Donald Trump makes another thing perfectly clear. No one ever needs to hear another word to perfectly understand how nearly one million Americans died unnecessarily from Covid because of Trump’s galactic and stupefying combination of delusion, ignorance, disassociation from reality, irresponsibility, narcissism and utter disregard for anyone or anything beyond himself. It will always remain incomprehensible that Donald Trump was actually elected president of the United States. The reality was that it was so much worse than the greatest pessimists predicted that the gap is the size of the Grand Canyon. The man on the tape is the threat from within. He is the greatest domestic enemy since Robert Lee and Jefferson Davis. He combines buffoonery with a cancerous menace that should not be underestimated.
Somewhere in Iran there are Americans doing some of the most dangerous work imaginable. They are American spies and intelligence officers. Their lives and work matter. When a 26-year-old straps into a fighter plane and launches towards the Iranian coast they shouldn’t have their lives risked by Trump’s outlandish recklessness. The tape isn’t just evidence of criminal behavior, but evidence of a breach of duty and immoral conduct that beggars description.
Donald Trump is likely headed to federal prison. He is also the frontrunner to be the Republican nominee. America is in crisis. No one should be cavalier about that. 2024 will be a year of political chaos. A storm isn’t just gathering. It is coming.
For more of my thoughts on this simply unbelievable situation, have a watch:
"He digs hard, and the sounds of his rustling show his indefatigable narcissism perfectly matched with the feral scratching of “a short-fingered vulgarian” clawing for the right state secret which with to show off. " Brilliant descriptive writing Steve. Fucking brilliant.
What does it say about the United States of America that they elected this man to be the leader of the Free World? And worse, they are flirting with doing it again when he almost screams from the rooftops his promise to tear the whole thing down. Is it embarrassment that keeps him free of legal consequence for his unbelievable and outrageous conduct? As much as one wants to write him off as some kind of self-absorbed Superjerk, he is a genius at gaming the system, which, indictments aside, he has been doing for decades and the piper remains unpaid. Yes, a genius at that while being a petulant 10-year-old in almost every other way. He sees himself the victim yet cannot keep his mouth from being his most feared witness. The documents thing is like a kid with his marbles and NOBODY is taking them!!! If the idiots in the House manage to expunge the impeachments as if they never happened, maybe they can extend their skills to do the same for the Trump presidency and, in fact, Trump himself. Cannot happen soon enough.