The splintering of American politics has been a terrible thing to behold. Any normal politician understands the pendulum aspect of politics. It swings back and forth. Sometimes you’re the party in power, sometimes you’re the party out of power. This has been understood in all the years that this democratic republic, this constitutional democracy, has been in existence. Every time the pendulum swings and the transfer of power happens, men and women of good faith assist in that process, knowing full well that in four years or maybe eight, (on rare occasion even twelve or sixteen years) that the pendulum will favor them and they’ll be back in power.
So people do the transfer of power with dignity and grace. Class, even. George H.W. Bush gained considerable points for what was labeled his “patrician” concession speech to Bill Clinton. And it didn’t stop there. Bush Sr. started the tradition of the outgoing president leaving a letter in the Resolute Desk for the incoming president. And if you look at photos of that transition, you see Barbara Bush, her arm around Hillary, showing her the White House.
This is how adults with class do things in the United States after an election. But not Donald Trump. And not Melania, either. Melania could have had Jill Biden over for the customary cup of tea, but she did not. And actually, that shows street smarts, if not good grace on her part, paradoxically. Melania was never a First Lady, she merely held the title. And for her to pretend any good will towards Jill or pretend to have any experience or knowledge to impart would have been sheer hypocrisy. Melania used to stay upstairs in her bathrobe, a la Hugh Hefner, and listen to gossip about the chaos in both the East and West Wings and laugh, at least according to the latest biography about that time. And Melania only deigned to contribute that much after she renegotiated her pre-nup.
That brings us to the rest of the *transition* which then *president* Trump handled by not handling it. He will meet Kamala Harris for the first time at the debate simply because he lacked the maturity and class to do what Jimmy Carter, H.W. or other presidents whose time was simply up after two terms, did as a matter of course, because it was their duty. He would have met Kamala during the transition but noooo, he had to be the big baby and run away mad.
.@Timodc reminds Dana Bash why Vice President Harris never met Donald Trump:
“Donald Trump didn’t show up to the peaceful transition of power because he was pouting like a child and flying home to Mar-a-Lago and his emotional support cougars. And that was after he tried a… pic.twitter.com/rhRMDPmoke
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) September 2, 2024
The tweet ends “violent coup at the Capitol.” What makes this entire topic of the transition distasteful in particular, is because Barack and Michelle Obama went out of their way to do the same kind of classy H.W. Bush transition. They welcomed both Trumps graciously. President Obama did his level best to explain the job to doofus and Trump’s reaction was, “I didn’t know it was so much work.” No, he did not. He thought the job entailed an occasional ribbon cutting and having the White House chef whip up a cheeseburger.
The Obamas did such a fine job that even Trump, who never compliments anybody, admitted that he and Melania were treated well. And Trump even liked Tim Walz. Back in the days of George Floyd riots, “Trump, in the 58-minute call with the governors, said of Walz, “He’s an excellent guy. You’ve got a big National Guard out there that’s ready to come in and fight like hell. I tell you, the best — what they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in and dominated, and it happened immediately.”
That contrasts with, “Tim Walz is a radical who let rioters burn Minneapolis to the ground in 2020,” which Steve Scalise posted on Twitter on August 8. The usual revisionist history. The truth gets memory holed in the service of elevating Trump and restoring him to power.Â
A certain amount of that posturing is endemic to politics. In the study of law you learn immediately the concept of minimizing and maximizing facts. You always want to minimize your flaws and maximize the opponent’s flaws. But Trump has taken it to a level which is beyond that basic rubric. He wants to destroy his opponents in school yard bully fashion. That is not the American way. Democracy is the American way.
Tiny-minded Donald needs to stay at his properties and play golf. To quote his chief of staff (one of them) John Kelly, “He’s the most flawed person I’ve ever met. “The depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship, though it’s more pathetic than anything else. He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life.”
All his relationships are transactional. Think of that. That is a kind of poverty that is unimaginable. Many of us have known physical poverty, lack of adequate basics. I think that’s pretty common. But that kind of emotional impoverishment, to never have loved another human being and felt the kind of warmth, connection rapport, the essence of what it is to be human, to be alive, that is true poverty.
It’s not a new insight that Trump measures crowd sizes and polls because he needs the validation of the roaring crowd. He needs it to fill the void within, where his soul should be. The greatest paradox of this 2024 election is that he has the titular support of the GOP. He is their standard bearer. But Trump’s only there because they’re in a transactional relationship with him, hoping against all odds he can bring home the bacon again, because they have no *sane* or *normal* Republican that can get the votes. If they did, s/he would have won the primary.
Trump initially used the Republicans, not because he felt himself to be one of them, but because they could give him legitimacy and a shot at the title he sought. And they used him because of name recognition. Now they’re in the kind of Faustian bargain as a kitten with its claws sunk into the guts of a flying eagle. The eagle can’t let the kitten go because it will take its guts with it, and the kitten can’t let go because it will fall to its death. So they soar through the sky until Fate decides which one, if either, will survive.
Trump is hated by a lot of Republicans. And if this election goes the way they dread, the way they thought it could not go sixty days ago, with the Democrats keeping the White House and the Senate and most probably regaining the House, they are going to hate him even more.
A lot of GOPers have already given up on the White House and are looking to flip the Senate as their one cudgel. The way things are going, they may not be successful. And even if they are, a president with a veto pen and at least one chamber of Congress in tow, can defeat a lot of shenanigans from the other chamber.
Trump got them to this place. It’s their own damn fault. They knew who and what he was but they went along with his theatricality and his stupidity out of desperation. And another defeat may well be the fruits of their complicity.
He has so many flaws and so little substance as an actual human it’s hard not to feel sorry for him.
But then you remember what he’s done, what he does, and what he’s said he’ll do, and that fades quickly, to be replaced by loathing and disgust.
I can’t wait for him to lose and face the courts again, and then lose again.
Feel sorry??? NFW!!! Never in a million eons!!!
Ursula, I can’t think of a better description of whatever devolution the GOP is now than a soulless void/voided soul. There’s a magnet on my fridge that has a “father knows best”couple on it that states, “Republicans are people too…Mean,Selfish Greedy people.” And it’s 15 years old.