Trump can’t fight nature
Trump’s doomed. There’s no way out. He may struggle on a year or two but he’s like a water buffalo I once saw in a nature documentary. (Oh where would we be without nature documentaries? They hold the mirror to us all.)
The beast had been bitten by a Komodo dragon. The wound wasn’t severe but a Komodo dragon’s saliva contains a slow-acting toxin, so the buffalo was effectively dead already. All its assailant had to do was to follow it. For several days the buffalo lumbered on, growing weaker. Whenever it looked behind it saw a giant lizard waiting for it to die.
And that’s how it is with Trump. Wherever he goes the Special Counsel Robert Mueller follows him in silence. Already Trump is lashing out in fury born of fear. He’s screaming abuse at Mueller. He’s calling for his head, for help, for mother, for anything. It won’t do any good. He’s had it. And he knows it.
Others know it too. They’ve started to abandon him. His former lawyer’s pleaded guilty and flipped. His deputy campaign manager’s pleaded guilty and flipped. Others are primed to flip. His campaign manager’s in jail already. The more obvious Trump’s guilt becomes the more his accomplices will turn on him. For as the fool in King Lear put it: ‘‘There’s not one nose in 20 but can smell him that’s stinking.’’ It’ll be a pleasure to watch Trump fall.
And when he and his no-good henchmen and his no-good family are in disgrace and prison, what will we have learned? What will be the lessons from his brief ascent to the most powerful office on the planet? The answer’s nothing new. The lessons to be drawn from Trump have been around for thousands of years. They are truisms. I could point out 50. Here are just six.
That people like a populist bigot. They always have. The founding fathers of the USA knew this and wrote safeguards into the constitution to keep such a bigot in check. And yet still in the 21st century the people elected Trump. Our technology may have advanced since 1776, but our judgment hasn’t.
That like attracts like. Trump is dishonest and grasping, so every dishonest grasper in Washington flew to him like pins to a magnet. Trump took with him into the White House a pirate crew of misfits and parasites, frauds and thieves. From Cohen to Gorka, from Miller to Manafort.
That there’s no honour among thieves. Trump demanded loyalty from his followers. But loyalty is founded on trust, and trust is founded on love and courage and kindness, and love and courage and kindness are founded on putting others first. Trump could never put others first. So Trump trusted no-one and no-one was loyal to Trump.
That actions speak louder than words. Trump can say what he likes but when he lobs paper towels to hurricane victims as if throwing fish to seals, or when he boards his plane under an umbrella while his young son walks behind him in the rain, or when he shoves aside the prime minister of Montenegro for daring to stand between him and the television camera, you see the man whole and you see him clear.
That money and power are different brandnames of the same drug. And addicts can never get enough of either. Most of Trump’s cabinet are multi-millionaires. They had everything they needed but they just couldn’t help themselves. They were willing to sit alongside and flatter a narcissistic bully just to get more.
And finally, that hairstyle is a window to the soul.