Donald Trump under the microscope

Donald Trump is an idiot.

Yes, of course that’s obvious. He has always been an idiot. Anyone who lived in New York and witnessed his revolting activities over the past four decades could have told you that. And, believe me, we did try to tell you. Really, we did.

But it takes a very special kind of stupidity to land yourself in this kind of mess.

Yesterday the Chicago Tribune reported that “Two years after Donald Trump won the presidency, nearly every organization he has led in the past decade is under investigation.”

Trump is under siege from all sides, his every action, his entire history being vigorously dissected by Special Counsel Robert Muller, by numerous other investigations, by the incoming Democratic majority of the House of Representatives, and by the press.  As the pressure continues to mount his sycophantic followers are at last beginning to jump ship in order to save their own skins.

Trump could have, should have seen this coming way back in 2015.  But no, as always, he just had to be the center of attention. He just had to run for President, consequences be damned.

I don’t know if Trump actually wanted to win. More likely, as others have reported, he never expected to win, and he believed that his candidacy would give him a massive public profile on the far right, and that when he lost he could claim he was cheated, and then parlay all of the attention & anger he had cultivated during his campaign into a highly successful ultra-conservative “news” channel where he could spend the next four years criticizing “Crooked Hillary” and boldly claiming that if he was President he would be doing a much better job.

Whatever the case, it really demonstrates a grotesque combination of arrogance, stupidity, and short-sightedness for someone with as many skeletons in his closet as Trump, as many blatantly illegal actions & associations in his past, to seek out the most high-profile, critically scrutinized position on the planet. It’s astonishing that he could not foresee that this would lead to every single one of his dirty little secrets being examined under the microscope, which is exactly what is now occurring.

It would almost be amusing, if it was not for the horrible damage that Trump has already inflicted on this country, and the further harm he is certain to cause now that he is the equivalent of a rabid animal cornered by his pursuers, violently lashing out at everything around him.

Certainly it amply demonstrates the ideological rot, the sheer naked lust for power, the wholesale embracing of racism and misogyny and homophobia and religious fanaticism and anti-intellectualism and runaway greed, and the abandonment of any interest in the democratic process that has steadily consumed the Republican Party over the past half century, that they could foresee what an utter inevitable train wreck Trump would be, but they nevertheless embraced, and then attempted to shield from justice, a narcissistic, sociopathic con artist in order to ensure their own personal short-term gain.

I hope that Trump finally lays bare for everyone to see the festering disease at the heart of the Republicans, that his downfall at long last serves as the bullet to finally put down the monstrosity the GOP has become.

I also pray that Trump has finally served as the wake-up call for America to at long last acknowledge the pervasive racism and misogyny that pervades our society, the sick worship of wealth & fame, the rejection of reason and science that has taken hold of a good portion of this country’s population.  Trump’s election is but a symptom, and unless we confront the causes, there will inevitably be many more like him.