At some point in the future, folks will look back on the 2015 – 2024 era of American politics and ask, “What the hell was that all about?” The reason is that during this period, a significant number of Americans actually took seriously the malarkey that Donald Trump spewed. “Were they drinking the Kool-Aid?”
The answer is “yes”. A significant number of Americans joined the MAGA cult. They decided to frolic arm in arm with a con man to perdition. But by 2024, even die hard Trumpians have to admit that Trump’s delusional grifts are getting long in the tooth. And I suspect that Trump’s convictions in Manhattan for 34 felonies will be a turning point. Even more so than the ginormous fraud judgment that he suffered just a few months before. And even more so than the ginormous defamation judgments that he suffered in the E. Jean Carroll “rape” cases before that.
But these are just a few incidents in Trump’s long and sordid legal history. As shocking as Trump’s conviction may be, his atrocious record as a plaintiff merits attention as well. Not only does Trump lose cases that he brings, he is often sanctioned for abusing the legal system for the bogus nature of his claims. Most recently this involves a court order that Trump pay costs to Christopher Steele and Steele’s organization — costs that Trump simply refuses to pay.
Imagine — if the GOP has its way, America would elect a man to lead the nation who cannot travel to the UK for fear of getting served with deadbeat papers. Indeed, he could be barred from traveling there anyway due to his felony convictions.
And there is more.
Even though Trump has been in the public eye for years now, the public still does not know all that much about his personal life. I do not refer to his various marriages and relations with his family. Nor do I refer to his “business” affairs.I refer to his history of philandering and perhaps worse. The Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal affairs give us a glimpse. But it is just a glimpse.
Taking just one step deeper into this muck, the Trumpster was buddy buddy with Jeffrey Epstein and Epstein’s madame, Ms Maxwell.
Like Epstein, when it came to women, Trump was a predator. Did he violate the law in chasing after under age girls? We do not know. But based on reporting from the 1990’s, Trump was definitely in the market for young models that Ms Maxwell was trawling. And most likely, he knew about Epstein’s criminal “business model”.
Meanwhile, Donald claims that his favorite book is the Bible … errrr … though he won’t reveal which are his favorite passages in the Bible.
You could not make this stuff up and sell it as a novel. It is too real. And it is the history that is being written today. My question — have we reached the low point yet? Or is there worse to come?
Stay tuned!
A quick follow up: As we look ahead, we might keep in mind that the Victorian era — that we consider to have been rather pedantic and prudish — was a reaction to the shocking lack of moral and ethical standards that was evident in the prior regency and Georgian periods. To get a sense of those prior eras, check out Hogarth’s work. It is eye opening in its candor about low things can go.
I would not be shocked if we see a similar reaction in American politics down the road.
Second Follow Up: Many years ago (1963 to be more precise), a dude by the name of Richard Hofstadter wrote a book entitled “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life“. Hofstadter argued that going way, way back, a thread of American culture has been to reject science and reason in favor of spiritual visions, etc. The democratic party embraces the intellectual, along with the idea of excellence in policy making. The GOP under Trump seems to embody Hofstadter’s anti-intellectualism. Trump is its hero as he poses as the successful anti-intellectual self-made man..
While Trump is not articulate enough to express his anti-intellectual ideology, we see it in his references to outsiders like Al Capone, and his weird affection for authoritarians like Putin. And while I would not compare Trump to other presidents, I would argue that he is not our first anti-intellectual president. Andrew Jackson comes to mind.
This raises an interesting question. Can American political culture figure out a more constructive way to nurture a credible anti-intellectual political movement? By this, I do not mean to embrace stupidity, but to enable us to see more clearly that our intellectuals tend to exaggerate their competence in policy making?
Buzzography 