The old aphorism, “It’s truly an ill wind that blows no good” is true. And dark clouds do have silver linings. And as awful as this conflagration in Ukraine is right now, there are a few benefits coming out of it, namely that Donald Trump is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

Trump has always sounded like a complete dummy, there’s nothing new there. But he came into office at a pacific time in our history. There were no hot wars, the economy was booming, the eight prior years of Obama had been serene ones for the most part. But now, with the seriousness of the war in Ukraine, Trump is showing his true clueless colors and becoming irrelevant by doing so. He goes on Fox News and says he has all the answers for Biden, but then declines to provide even one. As George Will puts it, “He’s increasingly like a stray orange hair to be flicked off the nation’s sleeve.”

Watch the primaries. See if Trump’s endorsement carries the weight it used to. Because what we may be about to witness is the deflation of Donald Trump, before he gets blown off the world stage forever, like an old candy wrapper after the carnival leaves town. Washington Post:

His residual power, which he must use or lose, is to influence his party’s selection of candidates for state and federal offices. This is, however, perilous because he has the power of influence only if he is perceived to have it. That perception will dissipate if his interventions in Republican primaries continue to be unimpressive.

So, Trump must try to emulate the protagonist of “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.” In Mark Twain’s novel, a 19th-century American is transported back in time to Britain in the year 528. He gets in trouble, is condemned to death, but remembers that a solar eclipse occurred on the date of his scheduled execution. He saves himself by vowing to extinguish the sun but promising to let it shine again if his demands are met.

Trump is faltering at the business of commanding outcomes that are, like Twain’s eclipse, independent of his interventions. Consider the dilemma of David Perdue.

He is a former Republican senator because Trump, harping on the cosmic injustice of his November loss in 2020, confused and demoralized Georgia Republicans enough to cause Perdue’s defeat by 1.2 percentage points in the January 2021 runoff. Nevertheless, Trump talked Perdue into running in this year’s gubernatorial primary against Georgia’s Republican incumbent, Brian Kemp, whom Trump loathes because Kemp spurned Trump’s demand that Georgia’s presidential vote be delegitimized. In a February poll, Kemp led Perdue by 10 points.

Perdue is probably the most glaring example of how Trump’s endorsement has turned to dross, but by no means the only one. J.D. Vance is floundering badly in Ohio. He started out groveling for Trump’s approval by saying he really didn’t care about Ukraine and then did a one-eighty, saying that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “tragedy.” And if Trump needs Vance to go out and bark at the full moon to get his endorsement, he’ll do that.

Point being, Trump and Trump’s endorsement stands for one thing and one thing only: a means of elevating the freakish and the unqualified into public office, even as he himself is freakish and unqualified. Putin attacking Ukraine has changed the playing field. The situation in Europe now requires in depth understanding of foreign policy and history, not performative trolling. This is the reason that Trump and his key sycophants, Greene, Boebert, Cawthorn, are looking stupider than ever as they do their usual schickt and it falls flatter, faster than it used to.

Trump never could handle anything of gravity. There is nothing of the statesman in him. That’s why every late night comedy talk show made a meme or a mash-up of Trump’s announcement of the death of Abu Baghdadi. Here’s Jimmy Kimmel’s.

Trump is a novelty act. He never was going to be more than that, although he was a novelty act that revealed 40 years of downslide in the GOP and that’s about how long Trump has been the tabloid king as well.

Trump is an open book who has been reading himself to the nation for 40 years. In that time, he has changed just one important word in his torrent of talk: He has replaced “Japan” with “China” in assigning blame for our nation’s supposed anemia. He is an entertainer whose repertoire is stale.

Trump is about bread and circus. He came to power at a time of relative happiness and prosperity in America and he sang the song of the angry and the lost. He was a major distraction from what was important in politics and for that very reason was a major hit. Trump knew how to mainline anger in his listeners and the 2016 election became about that.

But now the game has changed, thanks to Vladimir Putin. Things have gotten real. It isn’t all performance art and political theater now. The powers of the world are in daily consultation and all eyes are on the awfulness in Ukraine, ignitied by dictator Putin.

At the end of all this, Ukraine will be free, Putin will be disgraced and Trump will be history. At least, that is my devout prayer.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. There is also the reality that if our country’s citizens were really willing to walk the walk, slavery would have ended in the Continential Congress. Nazis & the kkk would either be in jail or some type of cult deprogramming. The 1% wouldn’t be richer than the 90%. Women would have equal rights. Voting would be easy. People would never vote a liar,crook, or traitor into office. And on it goes. Maybe the president of Ukraine not agreeing to be blackmailed by Trump or forced to run by putin has awakened our collective shame over the erosion of CHARACTER our culture has undergone. Certainly watching a million people leave everything & dragging their young children to save them should shame us. The video of a father crying with his little girl cuz she has to go to save herself & he has to stay & fight for the remote possibility they will get to return to each other someday. Meanwhile. Here in America, 93 million sat home & let a pathological criminal racist rapist to steal the presidency, put 3 judges on the Supreme Court, fleece the taxpayers, embolden putin to do what’s he doing, set a pandemic loose upon us to this day, & lead a violent coup attempt. He sits on a golf cart as I type. Everytime we look at Ukraine, we should hang our heads in shame. By being stupid, tv addicted, consumers, we allowed all of this to happen. Do any of u honestly think we’d be here if Gore had won? If Hillary had won? I don’t think so. Not at all. Now it may be too late. We’ll see.

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  2. I think even TFG realizes his influence is waning. How else to explain his complete 180 on Ukraine? At the start, he believed the propaganda that Putin was invincible, and the sanctions would be nothing more than a slap on the hand. He has never been a leader and never could be. Hopefully more of the deluded are seeing this now. The fact that Putin could so badly misjudge this situation does indeed put his biggest fanboy in a corner, as well as other wannabes like Pompeo, Cotton, Cruz et al.

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  3. This article is written by lying hacks who for name sakes are anti Trump. Putting is mad man who was kept at bay by Trump. President iden has destroyed our nation in one year pushing far left desires. Trump was the best President for our country since Reagan.

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    • Must be some seriously bad acid-laced orange Kool-Aid that you drink. Trump spent his time FIGHTING sanctions on Russia, destabilizg NATO and other alliances (to prevent exactly the coordinated response to Putin’s aggression. Biden and his administration worked tirelessly behind the scenes from day one repairing the damage Trump did), betraying foreign troops who trusted us and helped them fight in places like Syria and, well the list is too long to go into here. But keep chugging that nasty-ass orange Kool-Aid rather than admit you got suckered by a guy who if he hadn’t been born rich to a father with a well-insulated family business would be wearing a tacky plaid blazer and hawking used cars on some postage stamp size lot WAY the hell off the main drag.

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  4. I also think the republicans used this time in history to destroy us, as well, and make sure that they stayed in power forever. Trump was the distraction. It what I think

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