I had an acquaintance whom I considered to be just about as wise a humorist and social commentator as the immortal Will Rogers.
Jerry Washington, aka Wash aka Sarge the Bartender aka The Bama, was his name. Illustrative of The Bama’s wisdom, is this advice concerning interpersonal relations. It’s all you need to know about the subject: “Never trade one who will, for one who might.”
The Bama had an expression which is instructive about the current situation in which Donald J. Trump finds himself — facing that impeachment and all. “Don’t say I’m broke and be right.”
What that meant to The Bama — who fancied himself to be a financially independent, gambler and man of means — was that he never wanted it to be truthfully said that he was insolvent. Don’t “be right” with a bad report about The Bama’s finances. The Bama worked diligently to always be “standing pat,” so to speak, supporting as he boasted three separate households — his wife, his young mistress, and himself.
Trump is just the opposite. The true circumstances mean nothing to him. He just doesn’t want the truth to be known. Trump knows how much a scoundrel he is. He looks in the mirror. He signed his tax returns. He knows he’s a fraud and a liar. He just doesn’t want to have to confess that truth to the world.
Donald J. Trump is clearly unfit to be president of the United States.
What I can’t cotton to is the idea that Republicans seem to be content with such a flawed and embarrassing poster child for all their conservative policies. Everything about this guy is loathsome and disgusting: Trump University, Trump bankruptcies, Trump’s missing tax returns, Trump hotels and golf courses; a revolving door of trampy, Trump thieving appointees, the most ever in the first two-and-a-half years of a presidency!
Are all Republicans on the take, receiving bribes under the table in order to pretend this is not the ugliest scandal ever? You mean they can’t see what a disgusting human being and lying hypocrite Trump is? They can’t see he’s openly betrayed the principles they claim to revere? Is this the best that “American Exceptionalism” can produce in a leader?
This is greatness? No! It is not! It’s Trump! The man only thinks about what’s good for himself and himself only.
To paraphrase The Bama: Don’t say Trump’s a Tramp and be right. Don’t say he sold out the office of the presidency over some cheap gossip about a political rival who might not even win the nomination next year, and be right. Sadly though, he is a Tramp who happens to be in the highest office in the land. He thinks that makes him above the law. He committed multiple impeachable offenses, but he doesn’t think anyone can make any of the charges stick.
It doesn’t matter if the charges are true — they’ve always been true. He’s a grifter and a lout. It doesn’t matter if he’s guilty — he’s been wrong since Day One. What matters to him is getting off.
So in this episode of the Ukrainegate impeachment proceeding, the Trump strategy will be stall out the clock, prevent the most humiliating revelations about the lying bum from reaching the public, so he will be able to — despite falling popularity, everywhere, including key battleground states — rely on his legions of “Deplorables” (as Hillary Clinton tagged them) who are his “ride or die” posse until the bitter end, to render an election outcome that will be close enough for Trump to steal the victory again, or declare the election invalid, pronouncing himself — wait for it — President for Life.
This impeachment thing got put into the Constitution 200-some years ago because the Founding Fathers were worried about the notion of an elected despot or a king for four years. The idea that someone would win the election and then suddenly disregard the rule of law then operate as a king, at least during that period, and use their power to try and make sure that they maintain their power.
Trump far exceeds any previous boundaries of impeachable presidential behavior. And let’s face it; the impeachment process has missed several other gross presidential offenders in the past: like, George W. Bush, for illegally and immorally leading us into the war in Iraq; and Ronald Reagan should have been impeached for Iran-Contra, flooding the inner-cities with drugs to finance an illegal war in Latin America.
Sorry to have to tell you, Donald Trump: all the terrible things the impeachment investigators are saying about you are true. But you already knew that. And whether you stay in office or not, everyone in the wide world is learning that truth, and it’s not you’re the victim of an unfair witch hunt.
