Donald J. Trump is a lying misogynist, a bully and a race-hater who always pushes himself to the front. He demands to speak first, and believes his is automatically the last word on every subject.
Like countless people around the world, I find him repugnant. The sight of his puckered lips is revolting to me. But it’s alright with him that millions, especially Black and Latino and Muslim people loathe him because, whether or not he can articulate the theory or its author, he is a living embodiment of the princely advice of Niccolo Machiavelli: “It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.”
He often seeks to score his bombastic point at the expense of women: “bleeding from wherever,” “Grab them by the…” He knows he could literally shoot someone out in the open, on New York’s Fifth Avenue and not lose a single vote. He has said as much. He knows he’s Mr. White Guy, who’s standing up for the Caucasian Principles upon which the United States of America became to be the manifestation of the fabled Shining City on the Hill. He’s the new Chief of the White Tribe.
Whether he’s successful, or not successful, it doesn’t matter. His job is to reverse the efforts at race-neutralizing the country, to correct the political correctness run amok and to reverse the feeble efforts at equalizing the wealth over the eight years of the Barack Obama presidency.
But Obama and all of 45’s accumulated enemies together don’t suffer as much abuse as do this president’s friends. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is the most humiliating example.
In the first place, the Prez is furious at McConnell over the failure of “Trumpcare,” the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to be replaced with nothing. It’s his own fault, but he does not know how to take responsibility for his own, often unforced errors, he only knows how to blame others. But he can’t fire him. McConnell is elected by the people of Kentucky, and by the Senate Republican Caucus to lead.
He did fire HHS Secretary Tom Price — just like he said he would — because Price (a former member of Congress) did not get the votes to pass Trumpcare. That chartered jet stuff was just a convenient excuse to fire Price.
His Nibs is the king of patronage. He often travels to his private resorts in Florida and New Jersey, where he bills the government for rooms and the works for his staff and Secret Service detail which travels with him. He is no protector of the public purse.
He has mocked and humiliated his own sycophantic cabinet members, especially Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom he verbally beat like a rented mule. But Sessions held on, and went ahead to champion his boss’s putrid policies.
He ridiculed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for being a prisoner of war and worse. Then McCain got payback, returning dramatically to the Senate floor after delicate eye surgery where he could have given the administration a legislative victory with a yes vote on Obamacare repeal, and he voted no, twice, killing Trumpcare and its spawn, the Graham-Cassidy bill which would have also repealed the ACA. His bill doesn’t get the votes, twice, so he fires HHS Secretary Price. Pure Trump.
And then there’s former press secretary Sean Spicer, who had to tell a boldfaced lie on the very first words from his mouth on the job. And don’t forget Steve Bannon and Gen. Michael Flynn and Anthony Scaramucci.
But his greatest abuse was heaped on McConnell, whose wife Elaine Chao is the brute’s Transportation Secretary. Imagine the dinner conversation when they get home on a day when 45 has publicly called her husband “weak.” Imagine the stud-like posturing during Cabinet meetings by 45, as if to say he is a “better man” than her husband, whom he openly insults. Don’t put that kind of behavior past him.
After all, it is thanks to McConnell, that this scoundrel can point to even one legislative victory during his term. The only successful pro-Trump outcome in the Congress this year is the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. And there would have been no vacancy for Gorsuch to fill after 45’s election, had McConnell not frozen the confirmation process of Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to fill the vacancy when Justice Anthony Scalia died, 16 months before the presidential election.
That’s typical payback, Trump style. Get used to it.
