Dear America,
As Trump gets deeper into trouble, he flails away in the only way he knows how to ever more desperately, and his desperation becomes more and more overt. His playground bully tactics intensify every day with the new revelations coming out of the impeachment investigation because he knows no other tactic and never has. He learned that junk-yard dog routine from Roy Cohn, the vicious lawyer who helped McCarthy and Nixon to do their nefarious worst. I used to tell my son that the person he should be concerned about in a tight situation was the one who would keep on getting up until one of you couldn't anymore. That's what Trump sees himself as: the implacable, indomitable foe. His problem is that in this kind of situation, the ability to get up again and again is a function of intelligence, not strength, and the limitations he is burdened with in that regard are so obvious that his continued popularity with what has been constantly referred to as "his base" is incomprehensible. How can someone as obviously dumb as Donald Trump...someone who wears his stupidity like a crown...appeal to anyone?
I know how pejorative that assessment is, maybe even gratuitously so, but what is happening in broad daylight is that Donald Trump is beginning to realize that his crown is made of thorns, and that's not because he is some kind of martyr. It's because that is what he deserves. As more and more of the dominos begin to shake he becomes increasingly cognizant of the peril he is in and he can't help but expose his fear for public scrutiny. The more he flails, the guiltier he looks and instead of scaring his foes off, he emboldens them with every howl he raises against them, and people are beginning to have to admit that you can always tell when Trump is lying; his thumbs are moving. The more he tweets, the more lies hang around his neck like an albatross necklace. I used to think that impeachment, not to mention conviction, was an impossibility, but I remember thinking the same thing about Nixon's case. And if Trump could learn the lesson of Nixon's resignation in the face of imminent impeachment, he might still beat the daily-more-damning case being built against him, but Trump doesn't think he can learn from anyone. He hasn't realized that if Nixon had just cooperated in the investigation of the superfluous, rogue burglary that his campaign team nonsensically decided to attempt--Nixon's lead over McGovern was huge and insurmountable--he would have finished his second term with the only sin he could be accused of being hiring John Mitchell to be his attorney general and campaign manager. Similarly, if Trump hadn't been obsessed with proving that the Democrats did something wrong in 2016--a fantasy he hatched to vindicate his loss to Hillary Clinton in the popular election by almost three million votes resulting in the narrowest electoral college win since George W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter before that--and that his most likely rival in 2020, Joe Biden, is corrupt...if he were just capable of saying nothing for a change, Trump might beat his rap too. But there's no prospect of that, is there.
No, Trump is hoisting himself by his own petard, as Shakespeare said. I wouldn't say that his impeachment is ineluctable, but it has become more likely than not, I think. Of course, the lack of integrity among Republicans is still the most formidable obstacle to conviction in The Senate, but if Trump keeps adding fuel to his funeral pyre, even they may not be able to stay loyal to him. That's what happened with Nixon. I remember watching the committee hearing in which the House Judiciary Committee voted to send a bill of impeachment to The House floor. Most of the Republicans on the committee voted for the bill but their reluctance was reflected in their facial expressions. They just felt they had no choice. That's where Trump's volubility comes in. If he doesn't shut up, he will leave what has been his only hope--mindless and unprincipled allegiance to their man--no choice but to abandon him. That's the next milestone to be achieved, and with every passing day it seems to be less insuperable.
So what we have to do now is let Trump do his worst, which is his wont. As long as the Democrats keep taking testimony from Trump insiders, new dominos will keep starting to shake, and eventually, if there is enough time, one will fall.
Your friend,
Mike
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