Trump, the coward who loves violence

A mid the lies about how he won the 2020 election “in a landslide,” Donald Trump’s incitement of Wednesday’s assault on the U.S. Capitol included what may have been his first-ever promise to join followers. As he encouraged thousands “to show strength as they” marched on the United States Capitol, he promised: “Now it is up to Congress to confront this egregious assault on our democracy. After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you.” But as the ginned-up mob dutifully attacked the building and rampaged inside — four individuals would die as a result of the ensuing mayhem — Trump’s golden-haired presence was noticeably absent. He had fled to the White House, where he watched it all on TV, like it was some sort of reality show. No paired events could better fit the end of the Trump presidency than marauding MAGA mob inside the Capitol and Trump, whom some call their “god emperor,” watching television inside one of the safest buildings on Earth. It has always been thus for Donald Trump. A rich kid who claimed a fake disability to weasel out of the Vietnam-era draft, he is a coward. Though a tough talker, there’s no record of him ever getting into a fight as a youth. As an adult, he let Roy Cohn and other lawyers fight his battles, and if he ever did take on someone himself, it was almost always a woman. Then he fought dirty, insulting their looks. And about that guy who used to say, “You’re fired!” on television? That was an act. Trump is so afraid of confrontation that he hardly ever dismissed someone face-to-face. Like so many cowards who know that deep inside they are afraid, Trump has tried hard to present an image that suggests the opposite. This was obvious in the 1970s, when he began hiring armed men to protect him and let the press know about it. As a thirtysomething dandy who had done nothing to cause anyone to notice him, let alone come after him, Trump needed a gun-toting chauffeur like a fish needs a bicycle. But he liked what the fact of these bodyguards communicated: menace. Most of Trump’s guards were retired, or off-duty cops. Many gave off a thuggish vibe. Keith Schiller was one of the few to gain notoriety. During the 2016 campaign, he roughed up a protester who had been picketing outside Trump Tower. He was also caught on video physically removing reporter Jorge Ramos from a press conference after Trump grew irritated with the Univision correspondent’s questions. While big strong men have done his physical dirty work, Trump has limited himself to violent language. In his private citizen days, he famously called for the Central Park Five to be executed by the state. (They happened to be innocent of the attack for which they were charged.) In less public cases, he asked flunkies like his former lawyer Michael Cohen to make threats for him. When asked, Cohen once estimated he made 500 threats in a span of 10 years. Among them were school officials whom he threatened so they would not release Trump’s records. Cohen didn’t note that he also threatened me before by biography of Trump was published in 2015. I actually got him to laugh about the fact that his boss didn’t like the title of the book, “Never Enough.” “C’mon Michael, when was anything ever enough for Donald,” I said. “Well,” he replied with a chuckle, “I personally don’t have a problem with the title.” The silliness of Trump threatening people like me was eclipsed by the seriousness of Trump’s violent rhetoric and policies as president. His crackdown on asylum-seekers put federal agencies in the position of physically separating children and their parents. Trump didn’t have to join in, nor did he have to discover that six of these children had died in federal custody. This cowardly dynamic reached a new level last summer when Trump, who tweeted “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” had peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters tear-gassed and driven away by police and National Guard soldiers so he could walk to a church for a photo op. By the time Trump was inciting insurrection at the Capitol by telling people to save their democracy from an imaginary “steal,” his followers didn’t need much instruction. They had been planning for weeks, and it’s not possible that Trump didn’t know it. They showed-up with protective gear and believed, as one expert put it, they had a Robert E. Lee-type leader in Trump. But unlike Lee, Trump would never put himself at risk. Perhaps it is this cowardice we have to thank for the fact that things weren’t even worse at the Capitol.