Trump made his bed and now he'll sleep in it
These are the last days of Donald Trump. In a dizzying American moment, he has been defenestrated, deserted and disgraced. On Jan. 20, he will be dethroned — and his real agony will begin.
Trump's impeachment this week is the latest punishment in a life largely without consequences. After escaping or surviving military service, bankruptcy, infidelity, divorce (twice), lawsuits, a regime of lies and allegations of sexual assault, fraud and defamation, he is fleeing the law of averages.
He is being cancelled. He has lost his platforms on social media. He has lost the vice-president, cabinet secretaries, advisers, his lawyer and prominent Republicans.
He does not know the purgatory that awaits him politically, legally and financially as a private citizen. Or, maybe, he does, and it torments him. Congress, the courts and creditors are coming for him.
He will face trial in the Senate. If 17 Republicans agree, he'll be convicted and barred from holding public office.
He will lose his pension and other privileges.
Prevented from running in 2024, he will be unable to freeze the field and keep others out. No doubt he will have millions of followers — “fine people” he “loves” — but he will be a spent force.
Unlike Grover Cleveland, he will not lose office and win in four years. Unlike Napoleon, there will be no return from Elba. Trump will go straight to St. Helena — or more likely, Sing Sing.
As politics will punish him, so will the law. He faces prospective charges in Georgia for interfering in the election there and in Manhattan for business irregularities going back years.
The conventional wisdom a week ago was that Joe Biden's attorney general would not pursue Trump for federal offences. That may change. In a garrisoned Washington, there is white-hot anger over his inciting the assault on the Capitol, which was to anarchists what the raid on Harpers Ferry was to abolitionists.
Trump's claims that his language was “appropriate” on Jan. 6 will wither under scrutiny. The more we learn of his role — and that of his allies in Congress — in this insurrection, the greater the public revulsion.
Imagine day after day of televised hearings with witnesses describing what they saw in the White House on Jan. 6. One damning image: while the mob ran amok, Trump “enjoyed” the spectacle on television and refused to try to stop it.
Democrats will examine the entrails of the Trump administration. Beyond committee investigations in both houses, expect a national commission of inquiry.
Meanwhile, Biden will rescind Trump's executive orders, move to raise taxes and appoint moderate judges. Trump will watch the dismantling of his legacy, squirming when the files are opened. What evidence of incompetence and malfeasance will emerge?
After the legislators and the law, the third horseman of Trump's Apocalypse are his creditors, with a debt of at least $1 billion. Deutsche Bank is just one institution that has dropped Trump.
All want their money. Then there is the revenge of corporate America, from Twitter to Shopify, which is abandoning Trump's brand.
As Trump goes down, watch Republicans disown him. This began with Liz Cheney, the third-ranking House Republican, and her nine colleagues who voted to impeach. If convicting Trump in the Senate makes political sense, Mitch McConnell will do it.
Hypocrisy? Of course. McConnell and the Vichy Republicans were charter collaborators. But with the occupation over, these Pétaintistes are adjusting to the new order.
The question is whether their chances of retaking the Senate in 2022 are better without Trump, whom they blame for losing both seats in Georgia. Republicans will defend 20 of 34 seats, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which Biden won, as well as North Carolina and Iowa. All are vulnerable.
The Republicans are unsentimental. They have what they wanted from Trump: three new conservatives on the Supreme Court and scores on the lower courts. They got tax cuts, deregulation and tighter borders.
There was a price. Under Trump, the Republicans have lost the House, the Senate and the presidency. Trump has twice lost the popular vote by record margins. Now he's been impeached twice, which is unprecedented.
He's the biggest loser in America. And now, life is presenting a bill.