The U.S. vs. Donald Trump: The High-stakes Legal Battle of The Century
Can the U.S. take down Donald Trump — or will Trump and his MAGA minions take down the U.S.?
I just read a rather demoralizing Politico article titled “Trump continues to suck the air out of the GOP primary.” This article rightly points out that, despite many Americans’ — and also many Republicans’ — fondest hopes, Trump has not receded into the background or quieted down. Not at all.
Nor has Trump allowed (as cult leader of today’s submissive, fawning GOP) any significant, viable primary competition to arise — with the possible exception of his hated nemesis, the Dark Lord of Florida, Ron DeSantis — as he runs for president yet again.
Instead, like the brash, shameless narcissist that he is, Trump keeps on reasserting his dominance and inserting himself and his MAGA movement forcefully into … everything political, especially all things Republican. And a swarm of looming, likely criminal indictments is also keeping him directly in the public spotlight — which he, of course, loves.
He even boasts that being indicted would vastly increase his popularity (and he may be right)!
In the above-named article, Mike Noble, from the Arizona-based polling firm OH Predictive Insights, described today’s weird, weird politics this way: “This [primary] is, right now, going to be the Trump show … The oxygen is just going to be sucked out of the room, focusing on Trump.” Ouch.
I’d take this situational analysis several steps further, though.
While I agree that as a society we’re still (ridiculously) embedded in “the Trump show,” I’d argue that the ruinous effects of the last 8 years extend well beyond our politics and our elections.
To my mind, Trump has been greedily sucking the air out of our entire nation and our overall societal functioning, and he and his MAGA minions have been relentlessly undermining America for many years now.
And today, Trump, his followers, and various Trump wannabes continue to do exactly that — undermine American democracy — loudly and relentlessly. Yet they call themselves “patriots.”
It needs to stop. America desperately needs it to stop. But unfortunately … it won’t.
I have to say: For the good of our nation, it would be wonderful if some benevolent fairy or godlike entity came along, right about now, and just … disappeared Donald Trump from American politics. (And no, I’m not advocating assassination!) Then most of us, including many Republicans, could breathe a deep sigh of relief — and get on with the business of running our country and improving our society.
But there’s no “good fairy” or deus ex machina in sight, and Trump and Trumpism look like they’re here to stay for the foreseeable future (at least through 2025, minimum).
So I think it’s worthwhile — crucial, really — to examine in detail exactly how Trump has impacted and deeply affected our lives and our politics. We need to fully grasp what we’ve all been through, as a society … and also what we’re in for during and especially after the looming 2024 election.
It’s an ugly, horrifying scenario that’s been emerging — but we have to confront and face it head on, if we ever want to truly put Trump and Trumpism behind us.
Confronting the effects of Trumpism head on
I’d argue that there are eight main areas (minimum) in which Trump has had — and continues to have — a lasting, very destructive effect on American life, society, and politics. Here they are, in no particular order:
1) The modeling and mainstreaming of constant public lying and open, shameless deception — and the simultaneous mainstreaming of ruthless, rage-inducing, fact-free demagoguery.
2) The mainstreaming of juvenile, adolescent-style reactivity, name-calling, and wild partisan hijinks. Making it perfectly OK, even cool, to act out publicly and insult and shame your opponents. Goading Americans into a noxious, nightmarish “junior high school” mentality. (Do you recall what junior high felt like? It was the pits … the absolute worst!)
3) Mainstreaming the idea of “fake news”, and successfully branding real news media as the “fake news media” — while he and partisan outlets like Fox “News” endlessly spread actual fake news. Moving the focus of politics off of solving crucial social and economic issues — and onto endlessly divisive, angry (and unsolvable) culture war issues.
4) Undermining the basic moral foundations and so-called “guardrails” of our democracy, and constantly testing and blowing past the limits of both our unwritten and written laws. Modeling utter contempt for the law and the rule of law.
5) Modeling contempt for democracy by rejecting, undermining, and constantly challenging the valid results of the 2020 election. Deliberately creating a vast group of enraged partisans who believe the presidency was “stolen” from Trump, want the 2020 results overturned — and are willing to use violence to get their way.
6) The mainstreaming of extreme selfishness and narcissism, and the increasing dissolution of moral codes, empathy, consideration, and public restraint.
7) The increasing tacit, and sometimes explicit, acceptance or promotion of political violence to attain partisan goals.
8) Tacit, and sometimes explicit, support for racism and white supremacist groups and organizations.
Diving deeper into the gritty, ugly details
That’s quite a long, pernicious list. It’s a formidable set of almost entirely negative “accomplishments” — and now, let’s hold our noses and examine them and their societal effects in greater detail.
I. The modeling and mainstreaming of constant public lying and open, shameless deception — and the simultaneous mainstreaming of ruthless, rage-inducing, fact-free demagoguery.
As we all know, almost all politicians and public figures lie from time to time. For Trump, however, lying is his fallback position, and it’s what he does naturally, many times each day. As I’ve wryly commented to friends, “How do you know Trump is lying? Answer: His mouth is moving and he’s speaking.”
This is an incredibly serious problem — both for our nation and our social and political interactions. Trump’s constant lying and over-the-top demagoguery have created a huge trust gap, leading to a collapse in interpersonal communication and even to bitter, broken families. When shameless public lying becomes normalized … watch out! Society is in big, big trouble.
II. The mainstreaming of juvenile, adolescent-style reactivity, name-calling, and wild partisan hijinks. Making it perfectly OK, even cool, to act out publicly and insult and shame your opponents. Goading Americans into a noxious, nightmarish “junior high school” mentality.
Trump was the first presidential candidate and president who routinely name-called, shamed, demonized, and personally attacked his political opponents. But due to his powerful and continuing bad influence, he certainly won’t be the last. He’s contributed massively to the further dumbing-down and destructiveness of American politics, and propelled our primary and election systems into disarray and chaos.
Then there’s the awful effect he’s had on many Americans’ public demeanor — think about the rapid rise of “unruly” passengers on airline flights (read: obnoxious, violent A-holes) and enraged, entitled parents disrupting school board meetings, etc. Under Trump, much of America has devolved into something resembling a giant junior high melee and emotional free-for-all.
III. Mainstreaming the idea of “fake news,” and successfully branding real news media as the “fake news media” — while he and partisan outlets like Fox “News” endlessly spread actual fake news. Moving the focus of politics off of solving actual, crucial social and economic issues, and onto endlessly divisive, angry (and unsolvable) culture war issues.
This aspect of Trump’s influence has been deeply disastrous. Throughout our history, the free press and trustworthy media sources have always been a bulwark of our democracy — but now, due mainly to Trump’s endless attacks on mainstream media and “fake news,” that bulwark is failing and collapsing, while partisan propaganda increasingly reigns supreme.
Trump and media outlets like Fox “News” and Newsmax have successfully turned truth on its head, made the truth out to be lies, and converted bald-faced lies and lying into “patriotic” truth-telling. And instead of communicating actual news about real events, they focus almost exclusively on highly divisive right-wing culture war issues and fomenting hate and partisan rage.
This was (and is) a major political and propaganda coup — in both senses of the word. It helped set the stage for and promote the actual coup attempt of Jan. 6, 2021. The grim “success” of Trump’s “fake news” campaign has become very bad news, indeed, for American democracy.
IV. Undermining the basic moral foundations and so-called “guardrails” of our democracy, and constantly blowing past the limits of both our unwritten and written laws. Modeling contempt for the law and the rule of law.
Trump has always acted like he’s above the law: before, during, and since his presidency. He seems to live a “charmed life,” in which he always manages to evade consequences for his overt criminal, corrupt, or immoral actions or activities.
Over the past 8 years, his aggressive, in-your-face style and total disinterest in playing by the rules have fascinated, and then infected, many Americans. Due to his psychopathic and amoral tendencies, Trump almost succeeded in taking down American democracy — and he may yet succeed in this selfish, destructive quest.
Truth be told, he doesn’t care about our nation, our laws, or our people one bit; what he cares about — and this is all he cares about — is Trump “winning” and coming out on top.
V. Modeling contempt for democracy by rejecting, undermining, and constantly challenging the valid results of the 2020 election. Deliberately creating a vast group of enraged partisans who believe the presidency was “stolen” from Trump, want the 2020 results overturned — and are willing to use violence to get their way.
This highly dangerous election-challenging mindset was deliberately cultivated and promoted by Trump — loudly and forcefully — both before the 2020 election and ever since.
Together with far-right media, he has fractured many Americans’ trust in our election systems, and has badly undermined confidence in our election results. This is now a huge problem for our nation, going forward — with no healing or adequate resolution in sight.
Primarily due to Trump’s lies, constant airing of grievances, and ongoing claims about “stolen elections,” we have many of his “true believers” making vicious death threats against dedicated election officials. Death threats! And the 2024 presidential election and its aftermath promise to be … a total nightmare.
VI. The mainstreaming of extreme selfishness and narcissism, and the increasing dissolution of moral codes, empathy, consideration, and public restraint.
Many psychologists consider Trump to be a “malignant narcissist,” which is one of the most dangerous of all personality types. He is famously self-centered and devoid of empathy. And these personality traits have become increasingly normalized and prevalent among Americans, during and since his presidency.
It’s obvious — they’re sprouting up everywhere we look these days. Many Americans revere and have emulated President (now ex-president) Trump — and in this case, they’re emulating a severely self-centered, manipulative, lying narcissist.
That’s very bad news for our nation. It’s a true disaster: an ongoing, slow-motion train wreck — no exaggeration — for our society as a whole.
VII. The increasing tacit, and sometimes explicit, acceptance or promotion of political violence to attain partisan goals.
While president, Trump had many opportunities to directly condemn and reject white nationalism, white supremacy, and other far-right, violence-prone ideologies and groups. He never did, at least not forcefully and believably. Instead, he equivocated, made excuses for them, or famously asked them to “Stand back and stand by.”
And on Jan. 6, 2021, he directly encouraged his followers to rise up and “fight like hell” to “take back” their country. He actually incited violent insurrection in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election (though he and far-right media have whitewashed the violence ever since).
The result of all this? According to several recent polls, over 40% of Americans expect our nation to split asunder and collapse into a second Civil War within a decade — while over 30% now say that it’s OK to use violence to attain political ends. Yikes.
VIII. Tacit, and sometimes explicit, support for racism and white supremacist groups and organizations.
See section VII above. But even beyond that, Trump fashioned and still leads a right-wing, quasi-racist movement — his MAGA movement — to “Make America Great Again.” Here’s the dirty secret of MAGA: the only people for whom America used to be “great” were … white folks.
So the idea of making America “great again” not-very-subtly implies that the days when whites were on top and fully in control were … “the good old days,” the best days of our nation — a “great” period which we now want to reinstate, as if all the social and political changes of the civil rights movement never should have even happened.
It’s basic racism, in reality — and it’s not subtle, or “nice.” MAGA is a direct appeal to white folks’ latent or inherent racism — and it promotes and encourages racist ideas like restricting voting for minorities, and using intense gerrymandering to pack Blacks and Hispanics into fewer voting districts to minimize their power and impact.
The obvious intent of MAGA is to force America to reverse course, and become more white-centric and racist again.
The endgame: we’re stuck in a nightmare scenario
Nice, huh? As the saying goes, with “friends” like Trump and his MAGA minions … who needs enemies?
Given all the horrors, deceptions, and racist hatefulness that can be directly traced to Trump and his malign influence, what are we to make of his continuing power and overwhelming impact on the Republican party and on America itself?
It’s terrifying. And — how is all this reactionary hysteria even possible in “modern” America? It’s crazy, disgusting, and … pathetic.
And it’s all … continuing … and going on and on and on, like a demented Energizer bunny — with no end in sight.
Truly, as a nation, we’re embroiled in a dark nightmare scenario, and it’s very hard to see any positive outcome emerging from all this — especially from the coming 2024 election and its aftermath, including the looming possibility of civil war or intense, localized insurrection(s).
As I recently remarked to my partner, I’m looking forward to the 2024 primaries, election, and post-election craziness about as much as I’d look forward to having a simultaneous root canal and open-heart surgery!
As noted earlier, America really and desperately needs Donald Trump to disappear from our political scene. We need him to go away and just let us be, so we can recover and heal somewhat, and get on with the task of governing and running a fairly sane society.
But Noooo …! Given Trump’s intensely narcissistic and needy personality, there’s exactly zero chance of that. There’s simply no way he’ll voluntarily give up the limelight, and all the fame and power.
So nope, NO, that’s just not in the cards, folks. Unless the Feds manage — quickly! — to prosecute him, convict him, and put him away, we’re stuck with him and all the violence-promoting MAGA ugliness.
Lacking decisive, rapid prosecutions and actual convictions (which both look increasingly unlikely), I’m very much afraid that in the short term — meaning the next two years — we are all just … screwed. Again.
Sadly, horrifically, it looks like we’ll all have to suffer through years more of this utter insanity, racist nonsense, and nasty, amoral B.S.
Get ready, ’cause it’s going to be a very rough and c-r-a-z-y ride.
