President as pariah: Trump faces torrent of retribution over his role in Capitol siege.
Trump loses support from GOP politicians, celebrities, social media
He has been banned on social media, shunned by foreign leaders, impeached (again) in the House, threatened with censure by Republicans, deserted by Cabinet members, turned on by Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell, R-KY., canceled by his hometown of New York City, dropped by the PGA golf tour and snubbed by New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick.
And that’s just in the past few days for President Donald Trump, who after ruling Washington for nearly four years through a mix of bullying, intimidation, patronage and a sense that his willingness to spew lies and disinformation would have no consequences, is suddenly facing a torrent of retribution from those who long excused his behavior or were too scared or powerless to confront it.
The fallout has intensified quickly — leaving the world’s most powerful leader as a pariah in many quarters, more isolated than ever.
Trump won 74 million votes in the November election but Twitter, Facebook and Youtube have cut him off from easily reaching them. Three banks, two real estate companies and the 2022 PGA Championship tournament have severed ties with the Trump Organization at a time when Trump and his family are facing mounting pressure from massive financial debts.
Leaders in tiny Luxembourg canceled meetings with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Belgian leaders condemned the attack on the Capitol.
“The House of Trump is unraveling and it’s what happens when he’s about to lose power,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said. “He was a bully president and so people were fearful of him, but with only a few days left in his tenure people realize he’s about to be an expresident with a boatload of legal suits and a brand that is no longer neon.”
Trump and his allies lashed out at the widening condemnation.
Trump’s son, Eric, blamed the damage to the family business on liberal “cancel culture” ahead of Democratic New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s announcement Wednesday that the city would cut $17 million in contracts with the Trump Organization over operations of two ice rinks, a golf course and the Central Park Carousel.
“It is something that they have been doing to us and others for years,” Eric Trump told the Associated Press. “If you disagree with them, if they don’t like you, they try and cancel you.”
The moment has marked a dramatic turnabout for a president who had spent four years using his private resorts and golf courses as places of official government business, charging taxpayers millions of dollars.
And despite his son’s eagerness to pin the notion of cancel culture on liberals, Trump has often governed as the cancelerin-chief, calling for boycotts of brands including Goodyear tires, Macy’s, Harley-davidson, the National Football League and a host of media organizations.
For years, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube resisted public pressure from liberal groups to moderate or suspend Trump’s accounts. In the wake of the siege, all three have blocked his access or taken them down.
“The platforms definitely didn’t want to be in this situation —they arrived here under unprecedented circumstances,” Daphne Keller, a former legal adviser to Google. “The cynical way to look at it is that before the election, they were afraid to antagonize Republicans too much because Republicans could punish them politically. After the election, the Republicans did not have as much power and it became politically easier. Then, the flash point last week provided a clear moment when the decision seemed very justified to many people.”
Keller cautioned, however, that the backlash to Trump has been limited to “an abrupt shift among elites” that has not yet been reflected in the president’s far-right base.
Still, the rejection of Trump is hitting closer to home. Belichick, the Super Bowl-winning coach who Trump views as an ally, took the extraordinary step of declining his offer for the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. Several highranking White House aides have resigned in the wake of the siege.
And Mcconnell on Wednesday left open the possibility of voting to convict Trump in the Senate after House impeachment.
Tim O’brien, author of the biography “Trumpnation,” said the backlash from Republicans is likely “creating vast wells of unquenchable resentment” in the president. He predicted Trump will seek revenge on GOP leadership by continuing to hold campaign-style rallies and supporting insurgent candidates. But O’brien said it was the economic pain to Trump’s businesses — and the blows to his self-esteem through the loss of his social media platforms and snubs from the PGA and Belichick — that are probably more hurtful.
“For someone who has had his nose pressed against the glass of public approval for most of his life over things that others find silly,” O’brien said, “Donald Trump can’t live without them.”