Donald Trump wants one thing to solidify his legacy: A Nobel Peace Prize.
After years of a cornucopia of abusive life choices – both self-inflicted and parentally initiated, Trump clings to a single strand of cogent thought with the tenacity of Sisyphus; how do I glorify myself?
Money couldn’t fill the hole in his soul. Power only widens it. He is an increasingly desperate man as time catches up with him. All of the makeup, clothes, bronzer and gold toilets cannot slow the march of time that will inevitably make Trump as inert and irrelevant as his poorest victim.
His instincts are theatrically based. He’s as virulent as he is shallow and his thoughts are no deeper than what he sees on television. His flights to deport immigrants without benefit of due process is a knock-off version of “Con Air.” His central act in the Oval Office is reminiscent of “The Apprentice.” His declarations that he “is the law” evoke memories of Sylvester Stallone’s version of Judge Dredd. Trump only wishes he could wear the helmet and growl out “I AM the Law” with the fury of Stallone. Unfortunately, when he strays into that territory he sounds more like Don Knotts’ Barney Fife screaming at Andy Griffith’s sheriff Andy Taylor. You can almost hear Trump burping out “Nip it. Nip it. Nip it in the bud,” like a corpulent toad with the face and voice of Deputy Fife.
Trump is currently engaged in his latest theatrical release — “Peace Maker” — wherein he pretends to solve the problem of world peace by threatening to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, prompting World War III. Stay tuned. The next day he boasted that he had a great talk with Vladimir Putin and that there’s now a chance for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Trump and Putin agree an improved bilateral relationship would have a “huge upside.” This includes “enormous economic deals and geopolitical stability when peace has been achieved.”
Trump and Putin have a common adversary; China. And Putin has already stretched his resources to the limit in a vain attempt to increase his resources by conquering Ukraine. Having failed thus far during the last decade to do so, he’s now trying to get what he wants through negotiations. It won’t stop his desire to put back together the old Soviet Union band he so famously covets, but he now does have the advantage of having the United States as a potential primary trade partner.
Putin seeks survival and domination. He’s likely using Trump’s single desire for a Nobel Peace Prize to get it.
Meanwhile, Ukraine, remember Ukraine? This is a war about Ukraine. Ukraine never started it. Didn’t want it — but Ukraine has been fighting it for 11 years. This is a fact Trump conveniently fails to mention as he and his Presidential Pep Secretary Karoline Leavitt spout slogans like, “Biden’s pathetic weakness” caused the war and, if Trump had been in office it never would have happened. It actually began under Obama’s watch, and normally Trump would love to beat up Obama, but he has recently developed a soft spot for the guy. More importantly; to mention it happened under Obama’s watch would also call attention to the fact that Trump did absolutely nothing about the war in Ukraine during his first term.
Since Trump doesn’t mind lying when it comes to accepting responsibility he conveniently forgets that uncomfortable fact as he declares, “There’s a new sheriff in town and his name is Donald Trump.”
Folks that’s not from some B movie. The Pep Secretary actually said those words and followed it up with a warning— no one should “cross President Trump again” - from the White House briefing room.
It sounds like “Howdy Doody” diplomacy a Republican told me – both dating the source and giving me pause to laugh – which I suppose dates myself.
The president’s actions underscore his desire to make a difference on a world stage that laughs at and manipulates him. World leaders who embrace democracy look at him derisively. Some find him to be a joke, while minor and major despots look upon him in a combination of wonder and fellowship. Minor dictators look at him with inspiration while his mentor looks on with approval and wariness.
Donald Trump is, after all, volatile. His stability is transactional. His ability for rational thought is limited to his survival instinct.
In many ways, Trump is a human virus. He’s not unique, but he is an aggressive viral infection.
He infected the Republican Party with his parasitic MAGA proteins. They attached themselves to certain receptors in the party, hijacked those and began replicating themselves. They were able to overcome all rational members of the GOP who were either expelled or fled. Gaining power gave MAGA energy. Expelling opposition gave MAGA safety.
The Republicans fell quickly. The Trump virus raged. Trump won the presidency in 2016. But the virus had expanded too far and too fast. It couldn’t control all the levers of government yet because there were those unaffected party members still in positions of power. Then came the COVID-19 virus. While Trump was busy preaching fiction, “we’ve got it under control,” and “there won’t be any deaths,” the real virus began killing thousands of Americans.
So, in 2020 the American body politic, with the influence of a real virus, shook off its political virus. But it didn’t end it. The festering virus mutated and became even more virulent
As scientists developed effective vaccines and countermeasures to COVID, the MAGA virus spread — there was no effective vaccine against a cult mentality. Its members denied so many basic facts while pushing Trump's fictions that millions of people became confused — unable to tell fact from fiction. The disinformation helped spread the virus. Biden’s inability to effectively communicate aided and abetted the disinformation.
The sluggish response by the Department of Justice to pursue Trump on a wide variety of crimes, coupled with a complicit or inept judiciary gave the virus time to explode.
The depths of Trump’s depravity are matched only by the shallowness of his soul. Thus to this day, he denies he lost the 2020 election. He claims to support free speech while destroying it. He denies the actual start of the war in Ukraine because he loves pretending that he’s coming to save the day.
The unflinching fact is that the Trump virus is still virulent and viable. It is unaware, like most viruses, of the cost it takes on others and itself.
It is affecting our closest friends and our greatest enemies. It threatens to be all-consuming and unmanageable. Its most cancerous component may be acting Ice Director Tom Homan, a gentleman that political analyst Norm Ornstein calls a “psychopath and Nazi.” Homan recently identified the next, and perhaps, last domestic enemy against the MAGA virus; the judiciary. He doesn’t believe the judiciary is independent and defies any attempt to keep him from deporting anyone he chooses without due process of the law.
“We are going to make this country safe again ... I'm proud to be a part of this administration. We are not stopping. I don't care what the judges think. I don't care what the Left thinks. We're coming," he said.
The Pep Secretary echoes Homan’s theme but denies the Trump’s administration’s defiance against the courts out of one side of her mouth and defends it out of the other side. Wednesday was just another day of nonsense in the briefing room. “The judges in this country are acting erroneously. They are trying to dictate policy . . . it’s unacceptable,” Leavitt exclaimed.
She defended the concept of co-equal branches of government while at the same time saying that the courts are wrong and can’t do what they did. Not one reporter in the briefing room pushed back against that statement, just like no one pushed back when she claimed Trump had an overwhelming mandate, or the war wouldn’t have started if Trump had been President.
The virus is indeed strong in that one. “This is lawfare,” The Pep Secretary told us Wednesday. “Partisan activists,” she declared, were behind recent judicial setbacks. The president himself had called for the impeachment of justices who disagree with him. Trump posted on his Truth Social site Tuesday morning after a judge ruled that he couldn’t deport anyone without due process: “This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! . . . MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Chief Justice John Roberts attempted to corral Trump within hours of Trump’s social media post. “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in a Supreme Court-issued statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
The Trump virus is immune to rational thought and devoid of reality, yet it still thrives. Every press briefing begins and ends with blaming Joe Biden for everything Trump claims is going wrong – while genuflecting at Trump’s knees for making things right again.
The virus has overcome the Republicans, laid low the Democrats who seemingly have no answer to Trump other than to cower before him and let him have his way. They may say they are adopting a “F*ck around and find out attitude”, but to millions of voters not currently overcome by the Trump virus the Democrats appear weak and ineffective.
Right now Trump owns the executive and legislative branches of government. He has effectively compromised the press. He thought when he successfully stacked the Supreme Court in his first term that they’d have his back now. So with recent lower court decisions and a rebuke by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, it appears that some attempt to cure the country of this caustic virus is underway.
It is a classic struggle; The courts versus the executives with the legislators sitting on the sidelines ultimately cheering for whoever wins. Trump, so far, has vowed to follow the rule of law and respect the courts, though the actions of his administration demonstrate that is a lie. He currently is nibbling around the edge of judicial authority: testing it to see how stiff the opposition will be. If he senses weakness, the virus will overcome the last remaining guardrail and obstruction to totalitarianism — the judiciary branch of government.
The last stand is underway.
It’s another Donald Trump production brought to you from the mind of the man who just wants a Nobel Peace Prize – no matter who he has to kill to get it.
