Many were concerned, upset, even horrified at Donald Trump’s public hissy fit in the East Room of the White House Thursday. If you were one of them, a simple question: where have you been these past three years?
Childish tantrums? Business as usual.
Trump is, after all, basically a caricature of a bit player in a B-movie, basking in the role he was destined to play—an absurd stand-in in an absurdist tragedy, the spoiled brat with the persecution complex whose parents are afraid to upbraid him for fear he will ridicule them publicly. His current parents, in fact, from a "coequal branch of government" have washed their hands of their offspring and decided to let him run wild. Thursday was merely an hors d'oeuvres. Friday's firings were the appetizers. The main course will be so very much worse as the vengeance tour continues. If there were just des(s)erts at the end, he would conclude the meal in prison, but I think we all know that no such denouement is in the offing, even for a movie this bad.
(Many mixed metaphors back there—please unmix them at your leisure.)
I would say there is no stopping this runaway Trump train, but that would be adding another, so let's just say that indigestion remains a possibility. Not for us—we already have it; but for him. And that will involve sending an opposition candidate out there who can go toe-to bone spurs with him. And if we use last night's Democratic debate as a barometer, Amy Klobuchar had a good performance. She talked about policy and personality and expressed a clearer vision than most. That's why it pains me to point out her major mistake:
“People don’t look at the guy in the White House and say, ‘Can we get someone richer?’
Sorry, but I disgree. That's exactly what we need.
Let me explain. We all know, if we've been even semi-conscious for the past four or five decades, that Trump is motivated only by greed and acquisitiveness. He's a money-grubbing, employee-stiffing, tax-evading con man, whose inferiority complex (well earned, I might add) is due less to his hand size and more to his not being as wealthy as the truly wealthy. Like Mike Bloomberg
And...enter Mike Bloomberg.
I'll admit that Mr. Bloomberg is not my first choice, but I doubt if he would stiff America by not paying taxes, or build a hotel near the White House where his cronies would be "advised" to stay. Bloomberg doesn't have to fake his wealth the way Trump does, and though it's hard to imagine any billionaires who haven't cut some shady deals, Bloomberg is a lot cleaner than the president. Yes, it's damning with faint praise, but it's true.
Even so, I would rather see someone like Amy Klobuchar delivering the State of the Union address in the future, so why don't we do this: forget the need for a filthy-rich president, and in its place elect a president who won't break the law. That's all. Just don't break the law. Reveal those tax returns, obey the Emoluments Clause, don't kowtow to murderers like Putin and MbS, stop paying family members out of my tax money.
Maybe it's a low bar when all we want in a president is a law-abiding citizen, but it's a bar Trump continues to slither under. As we saw in the debate, there are some good Democratic candidates out there, Klobuchar among them. Let's elect one of them and (reverting to that earlier metaphor) stop this indigestion.
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