In the Trump era, time runs faster.
That can be a good or bad thing (though never good when it comes to parking meters). The sooner Trump’s four years are over will be a massive relief to most Americans and people around the world. However, as days and weeks speed by, many events that would haunt a politician to his grave are too quickly forgotten.
It is very important that while living in TrumpTime, we work hard to always remember the offenses, outrages and violations that Trump perpetrates as new attention-grabbing ones quickly arise. Otherwise, the horrible things Trump says and does will become normalized and we’ll be on a slippery slope to much worse in the future.
It’s hard to believe how much happens in a TrumpTime week and how last week in TrumpTime seems so long ago. To help illustrate this, here’s a rundown of just the past two weeks. Keep checking the time, it may speed up even as you’re reading about it!
The end of 2017 came as a rather depressing time for most Americans, as our plutocrat Congress passed a devious tax cut bill that most Americans opposed, to Trump’s glee.
The coming of the new year did come with a silver lining. America had endured one year of Donald Trump’s madness, only three years left (barring impeachment, of course). Also, 2018 is an election year when Democrats could take back at least one house of Congress and restrain him from causing further damage to our country and its future.
The only question was that, having accomplished a massive transfer of wealth to the wealthy (and himself), having approval ratings in the 30s and looking at the probable Dem tsunami coming for Republicans this November (and the real investigations that a Dem-controlled House could launch against him), might the unprincipled Trump perform another betrayal and try to look and act less extremist and offensive?
That question was quickly answered as 2018 kicked off. On January 2, in response to a report about North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un claiming to have a button on his desk to launch nukes, Trump suffered from button envy and had to tweet that he had a bigger one. America was now further threatened with nuclear war because the man in the White House is insecure about his “button” size.
Also that week, excerpts from the book, Fire and Fury, by Michael Wolff, exploded in the media and any possibility of Trump whitewashing his dark soul was eliminated. A devastating expose of him that confirmed perceptions that he is mentally unbalanced, Trump began the year trying to sue to stop the book’s publication, in blatant violation of the 1st Amendment. He launched daily hysterical tweets and threats and stated that he would look to change libel laws so he could stop Americans in the future from exposing detrimental truths about him as Fire and Fury had.
That alone would be enough to damage his second year in office but it was only the first week in 2018, Trumpworld never stands pat when it comes to political disasters. Facing an urgent situation with DACA Dreamers at risk of losing their resident status, expiration of the CHIP program’s health insurance coverage for 9 million children and the threat of a government shutdown if a budget deadline at the end of the second week in January isn’t met, Trump staged a cynical episode of a reality show to counter the damage to his image from Fire and Fury.
In this awkward and uncomfortable sketch, Trump played the part of “Mr. Let’sAllGetAlong” and “Sir WhateverYouSay” as Tea Party Republicans in attendance grew alarmed and spoke like frustrated parents, telling Trump what he thinks and meant to say when he seemed too agreeable with Democrats.
Since Trump is the embodiment of White Privilege and has lowered the bar of expectations with the press to just appearing marginally sane, his charade was unfortunately embraced by many in the media as reflecting what a wonderful deal maker he is. At times like that, one has to wonder whether some in the media have Stockholm Syndrome or grew up with abused puppies as role models.
Trump being Trump, acting sane and acceptable is like needing to go to the bathroom during Oktoberfest, he can only hold it in for so long. Just two days later, he sabotaged a meeting which he had led Senators to believe would be to finalize their bipartisan proposal on DACA. Trump brought in a Rogues Gallery of hard right Congresspeople to outnumber the DACA-deal Senators, Lindsay Graham and Dick Durbin, then raged that he didn’t see why immigrants should be accepted from “shithole countries”, referring to all those in Africa. He also didn’t want immigrants from Haiti and wondered why we couldn’t just get immigrants from Norway. You know, we should only allow immigrants into the U.S. who know how to ski…it’s not a racial thing!
Trump seemed to think it was a brilliant move to insult an entire continent of primarily black people because being openly racist would play well with his racist base, he bragged about his disgusting words to his confidants afterwards.
Then a worldwide…shitstorm…rained down on The Sultan of Shitholes and he followed the current GOP SOP, lie and get other Republicans to back up your lie. Now, he’s decided he’s never said the horrible thing he bragged about saying…because it became a bigger liability.
So there you have the major outrages that have happened in just the first two weeks of 2018…
…except you don’t.
What came out last week during the outrage over Trump’s racist “shithole” outburst is that a month before the 2016 election, Trump paid off a porn actress $130,000 to keep quiet. His affair with her took place while he was married to Melania. The National Enquirer paid off another Playboy model with whom Trump had an extra-marital affair, paying another $150,000 to own and bury that story.
All of this went on while Trump was disparaging the 19 women coming out against him over sexual abuse, calling them liars and vowing to sue them all after the election.
Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about one extramarital affair. And yet, because of the massive, growing tornado of outrages around Trump, what used to stand out as a wrong that was critically damaging to a president, is just swept away into the mass of swirling outrages.
The year began with Trump’s mental stability being question. In trying to answer that question definitively, Trump has simply proven he is mentally unstable.
The downside of TrumpTime is that it makes it harder to keep a grasp on all Trump does that Americans need to be reminded of before they go to the polls in 2018 and 2020. The upside is that the 2018 elections will more speedily arrive and then we’ll see if Dems winning control of at least one House of Congress could help bring time…and government…back to being more normal.
Absolute truth, AdLib — sad as it is. Last week a friend of mine said: “This is it. The end. The ‘shithole’ comments have totally crossed a line. He’s finished. There’s no way he can make a comeback from this.”
My answer. “If only…” followed by a deep sigh. “A week from now we’ll be struggling to remember exactly what he said last week. Because he’ll have said and done 50 unbelievable things in the mean time.”
As you’ve said here: it’s important to remember.
Kes, when I say Trump’s “shithole” comment was a bridge too far, I only mean for voters who weren’t slavishly committed to him. The 33% or so that are cult followers wouldn’t be turned from him if he shot their dog.
To get re-elected though, Trump needs those rubes who voted for him but weren’t 100% behind him. Without those voters, he can’t win and I think the “shithole” comment cemented him as a racist in the eyes of many of those voters.
FWIW, the polling for Trump and Repubs bumped up after those comments. Some may wonder if the corporate propaganda after the tax cut fraud had something to do with that but anyone who would be able to justify, “Well, he may be a blatant racist but I like his tax cuts so I’m with President Shithole,” are a lost cause anyway.
Polls have been consistent about one key thing though, a majority of Americans disapprove of Trump no matter what he says or does now. The Women’s March yesterday affirms that the momentum and enthusiasm is clearly with those opposing him and those numbers grew. I’d guess part of that reason is the “shithole” comment and the many other things he’s said and done over the past year that are an assault on the sensibilities of people of conscience.
And it appears those numbers are only growing with each horrible statement he makes.
Good points, AdLib. I do have a feeling that the shithole comments combined with the government shutdown over — essentially — DACA may have a real impact on Hispanic voting patterns. At least in this area.
I know it’s hard to believe but you’d be amazed at the number of Hispanic voters here who went for Trump in 2016. I could be wrong but I’m sensing some serious buyers’ remorse now. So the votes from those quarters that helped launch him into the Oval Office then may have evaporated (to a much greater extent than he realizes at the moment) into thin air now.