I'd recommend a few sources of information to get you up to speed if you aren't already there.
This New Yorker article by Adam Davidson steps back then steps forward to explain why even Trump supporters will start having doubts when all the facts about his business dealings come out. He talks about how, as a reporter in Iraq, he saw the inevitable, but it took the American public much longer to realize we weren't winning there. Then he talks about studying the Collateralized Debt Obligations and realizing that the banking world was going to come crashing down. Again before the public did.
"I thought of those earlier experiences this week as I began to feel a familiar clarity about what will unfold next in the Trump Presidency. There are lots of details and surprises to come, but the endgame of this Presidency seems as clear now as those of Iraq and the financial crisis did months before they unfolded. Last week, federal investigators raided the offices of Michael Cohen, the man who has been closer than anybody to Trump’s most problematic business and personal relationships. This week, we learned that Cohen has been under criminal investigation for months—his e-mails have been read, presumably his phones have been tapped, and his meetings have been monitored. Trump has long declared a red line: Robert Mueller must not investigate his businesses, and must only look at any possible collusion with Russia. That red line is now crossed and, for Trump, in the most troubling of ways. Even if he were to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and then had Mueller and his investigation put on ice, and even if—as is disturbingly possible—Congress did nothing, the Cohen prosecution would continue. Even if Trump pardons Cohen, the information the Feds have on him can become the basis for charges against others in the Trump Organization.
This is the week we know, with increasing certainty, that we are entering the last phase of the Trump Presidency. This doesn’t feel like a prophecy; it feels like a simple statement of the apparent truth."
Essentially, when the remaining Trump faithful see behind the curtain, they too will realize they've been swindled. Eventually it happens to all frauds. Watch as Toto pulls down the wizard's curtain.
Next, for those of you who have Netflix, the documentary series Dirty Money ends with an episode on Donald Trump. For those who have been paying attention there isn't that much new, but as names like Michael Cohen start getting more airtime, this gives some background on them and their relationship with Trump . Just search for Dirty Money on Netflix, then go to the last episode of that series. [I don't think I can link you straight to the movie within Netflix since you have to put in your passwords, so the link just goes to Netflix and you have to find Dirty Money episode six yourself.]
If you have more time, Netflix also has a four episode series called Trump: The American Dream. This one gets much deeper into the Trump story. (The use of superlatives to describe everything he does goes back a long time.)
Watching these videos will be like reading the program at the opera. Soon the names and stories of Trump's henchmen and cronies will flash by in the news. If you read the program now you'll know the backstories of these folks.
Just like with Nixon, there was a majority of Americans who stood by the President, simply because he was the President. But slowly the circle around him got smaller and smaller as people in his administration were indicted.
At that time the Vietnam War also had the country polarized and those who held onto their belief in the President's innocence the longest were those who didn't want to believe these things about the president who was waging the war they so strongly believed in.
The details will be different this time round, but I suspect the end will be similar. Nixon was much more traditional, much better informed about how Washington worked (he'd been a member of Congress and Eisenhower's vice president for eight years.) Trump, I guess, believed that saying "if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere." He's in way over his head. And he has no self-control. So his decline will probably much more volatile.
And here are some posts I did to understand who Trump was back in 2016 that give background into his father and his mentor:
March 13, 2016: To Know The Son, Know the Dad - So What Can We Learn From Trump's Dad?
June 24, 2016 - "Roy Cohn was one of the most loathsome characters in American history, so why did he have so many influential friends?"] Roy Cohn was important in Trump's rise to power and appears in the videos.
November 6, 2016: What A Trump Presidency Would Look Like - If you do your homework, some predictions aren't that hard. I suspect many of you would have made similar predictions. I'm comfortable pointing out what I said before we knew who won the election.
I wait to see if we in the UK will see a similar collapse of Brexit this year, becoming clearer the vote wasn't quite cricket.
ReplyDeleteOur shame is we took the American foolishness one step further, to changing the very constitutional settlement of our country based on a corrupted plebiscite.
2016 was quite a year.
Drumpf should be the last wingnut potus ever.Hard to imagine a worse potus than what Putin gave us.
ReplyDeleteKnock on wood.
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