Indeed, in the wake of his conviction, the party of law and
order is queuing up to kiss his arse in perpetuity. And Trump himself is
trying to divert attention from his own crimes by claiming that New
York—and the nation as a whole—is hopelessly steeped in lawlessness
because Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is only paying attention
to this one case.
(Actually, the crime wave that started under Trump has now ebbed, and crime as a whole is close to a 50-year low—except among former U.S. presidents, of course. Among that admittedly narrow cohort, it’s up approximately 100%.)
Ah, but now is not the time to be complacent. Trump’s goose might look
cooked, but one thing we’ve all learned over the years is that no
matter how grotesque and silly he might appear at any given moment, he
keeps coming back. He’s sort of like Jason Voorhees that way. Or Infrastructure Week.
Indeed, we’ve seen this movie many times, and it’s always set
us up for sequels. Which means we’re not done fighting this cancer—not
by a long shot.
Here are 11 times it looked like the Trump train had—or should
have—officially derailed, only for some weak-kneed enabler (I’m looking
at you, Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell) to lift it back onto the
tracks and send it on its merry way. (Note: This list is not
chronological, and it’s by no means exhaustive.)
1. The “Access Hollywood” tape
For many, this was the first time it looked as though Trump was
cooked for sure. You can’t gleefully admit to serial sexual assault and
still be elected president, right? Right?! It’s over! Let’s spike the
ball right here—on the 10-yard line. What could possibly go wrong now?
Ah, memories. As we now recall, this seismic October surprise was ultimately papered over with the infamous Jim Comey letter, and Trump was elected our 45th—and first future felon—president.
2. His campaign launch
Many forget that Trump’s campaign stumbled right out of the
gate when he infamously declared that Mexican immigrants were criminals
and rapists. The remarks were offensive (and false) enough to prompt NBC to sever ties with their star reality show host. Sadly, they weren’t quite
offensive enough for Republican primary voters. Indeed, his
remarks probably gave him an edge over his opponents, who were still
relying on dog whistles as Trump was blithely blowing an airhorn.
3. Mocking a disabled reporter
There have been numerous instances involving Trump saying or
doing something so beyond the pale, it felt like no one outside the
fringiest of fringes could possibly still support him. And yet they did.
In November 2015, he cruelly mocked reporter Serge Kovaleski,
who has arthrogryposis, a condition that “can impact the function and
range of motion of joints and can cause muscles to atrophy.”
It was the ugliest thing most longtime political observers had
ever seen, and yet it somehow failed to dissuade millions of Republican
primary voters, who proudly nominated him as the Republican presidential
candidate in July of the following year.
4. Disrespecting Gold Star families and John McCain
In July 2015, Trump downplayed GOP Sen. John McCain’s military service, saying, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Roughly a year later, he was disrespecting military families again (well, their lost loved ones were suckers and losers,
right?). After Gold Star father Khizr Khan, whose son died in the line
of duty in Iraq, spoke on Hillary Clinton’s behalf during the 2016
Democratic National Convention, Trump showed once again that he has the
impulse control of an Arby’s grease fire.
In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, Trump first
claimed that, contrary to what Khan had said in his address, Trump
actually had made sacrifices for his country by employing “thousands and thousands of people.”
Then he attacked Khan’s wife, Ghazala, saying, “If you look at
his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She
probably—maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me."
Oh, boy! He won’t survive this one! He’s like a shark with three barrels stuck in him! It’s over! Right?
5. The Mueller probe
We all thought this investigation would enfeeble Trump beyond hope of recovery, didn’t we? And then Bill Barr happened.
After months of waiting for Special Counsel Robert Mueller to
drop his report on Russian election interference, we did get some real
answers about the Trump campaign’s extensive contacts with the Russians involved in ratfucking the 2016 presidential election—and we also discovered that Trump had gone out of his way to obstruct the investigation. But Barr furiously spun the report’s findings, and nothing much came of them.
Trump continued to claim his innocence, even after a later Senate investigation definitively proved collusion
between Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Russian
intelligence officer. But by that time the public had largely moved on.
6. Charlottesville
We all recall when Trump both-sidesed Nazis. Nazis! How the fuck can you both-sides Nazis?!
Well, Trump can—and he did.
“You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had
people that were very fine people, on both sides,” Trump said in the
wake of the violent white-ring Charlottesville protests.
Seriously, dude, these are NAZIS! World War II—and pretty much
every war movie filmed in its wake—made very clear that these are the
bad guys.
Ah, but Trump loves to move the Overton window, and sadly, Nazi apologia was not a bridge too far for the GOP.
7. Extorting Ukraine/first impeachment
You’d think withholding congressionally approved military funds
meant to aid a democratic ally caught in a life-or-death struggle with a
hostile authoritarian regime would be enough to get you impeached and
convicted. Especially if you were doing it to compel that ally into
digging up dirt on your likely future opponent.
You’d think.
Well, you’d be wrong, because … Republicans.
The Government Accountability Office determined that Trump had broken the law in withholding the funds,
but that wasn’t nearly enough for the law-and-order party, which
continued to pretend Trump was the most brutally persecuted—and
unluckiest—human in history.
8. The Helsinki Surrender Summit
If you had any doubts about Trump’s lickspittle obeisance to
Russian war criminal Vladimir Putin, they were put to rest after this
sorry incident.
At a joint press conference with Putin in July 2018, Trump took
the dictator’s word over the findings of our own intelligence agencies
(who had determined Russia interfered in our elections).
“[Putin] just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be,” he said.
For once, Trump’s remarks actually seemed to scandalize stalwart Republicans. As The Associated Press wrote at the time,
“The reaction back home was immediate and visceral, among fellow
Republicans as well as usual Trump critics. ‘Shameful,’ ‘disgraceful,’
‘weak,’ were a few of the comments. Makes the U.S. ‘look like a
pushover,’ said GOP Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee.”
But, in the end, nothing really changed, as Republican spines dissolved faster than Lindsey Graham’s dignity at the Mar-a-Lago omelet bar.
9. Jan. 6 and the Second Impeachment
Okay, he’s really done now, right? Right?
Violently attempting to overthrow the government is so
egregious, even Graham dropped the ocher abomination. (Sadly, a little
more than a month later, he came groveling back.)
Unfortunately, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,
while clearly upset by Trump’s outrageous attack on democracy, refused
to back his conviction, preserving his eligibility for future office.
And before the month was over, Rep. Kevin McCarthy—apparently assuming
Trump was the ticket to a long and rewarding speakership—helped rehabilitate his image
among the “fuck your feelings and our 245-year-old democracy crowd” by
hurrying to Mar-a-Lago to sample every square inch of Trump boots.
Thanks, guys!
10. The E. Jean Carroll judgment
Yeah, Trump was found civilly liable for lying about sexually assaulting writer E. Jean Carroll in a department store. And, sure, he’s being forced to cough up $83 million. What of it?
Trump assured us Carroll wasn’t his type, and as we all know, Trump never lies. The fact that he later thought an old picture of her was a photo of his ex-wife Marla Maples is irrelevant, and definitely not something you should spend any time thinking about. Especially if you’re a Republican.
MAGA ‘24, baby!
11. Four—four!—felony cases ... and 4 million Republican yawns
It might seem like a cop-out to shove all of these into one
catchall category, but when you really think about it, one felony charge
should have been enough. And yet Republicans were able to ignore 91 with unprecedented aplomb.
Besides, two of those four felony cases were related to Trump’s
attempts to overturn the 2020 election and install himself as a
dictator, and Republicans had already established that they don’t care
about such picayune matters.
Also, who doesn’t steal box loads of highly sensitive government secrets and randomly stack them in a heavily trafficked ballroom
at a country club? That’s what the U.S. is all about. If they can go
after Trump for that, they can go after you for doing the same thing.
Think about it. It’s just common sense.
And if it’s this easy to ignore 91 felony charges, ignoring 34 convictions should be a doddle, now shouldn’t it?
Of course, both President Joe Biden and Trump have stressed that the real verdict will come on Nov. 5. And they’re not wrong.
As we’ve clearly seen, we voters are the only ones who can put
an end to this feral fuckery. No doubt y’all are happy about this
verdict—I know I am—but there’s “happy” and then there’s “cosmically
orgasmic.” We haven’t attained the latter yet—and we won’t until Trump
is permanently consigned to the Walmart parking lot dumpster of history.
In other words, now is no time to get cocky. We need to run
through the tape all the way through November—which means our work has
just started.
We can all do something to help push Biden over the goal line, whether that involves donating or getting out the vote (phone-banking, door-knocking, postcard-writing,
talking to friends, etc.). But the last thing we can be is complacent.
We all remember how we felt when Clinton lost in 2016—it’s far too early
to let our guard down. Too much is at stake.
So by all means, celebrate over the next couple of days, but
then get back in the trenches and fight like your life depends on it. Because, you know, it very well might.
Putin's dummy. 
