Friday, December 18, 2020

Trump's Long Goodbye

Donald Trump is living through a long humiliation -- mostly by his own doing. Doug Saunders writes:

The past six weeks have provided many of us the enjoyable experience of watching Donald Trump losing – badly – in a drawn-out series of public humiliations and serial self-abasements.

This spectacle has grown tiresome to some, especially to Americans who face the constant horror of more than 3,000 daily deaths resulting from their President’s incompetent pandemic response. They’d like someone to shut him up, or cancel his social-media feeds, or at least teleport us to Jan. 21, when he will once again become part of the U.S. background noise.

It's natural to feel that the sooner Trump goes the better.  But Saunders believes that prolonging Tump's humiliation is absolutely necessary:

It is vitally important that the entire world witnesses his loss and humiliation, his embarrassing tantrums, and his flailing displays of impotence and weakness.

To see Donald Trump as a pathetic loser is the most effective imaginable challenge to the phenomenon that’s become known as “global Trumpism.” It has nothing to do with political beliefs or actual leadership styles; strongman leaders drawing on distrust and intolerance have been a 21st-century phenomenon for a decade, most of them inspired and supported by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But electoral support for such leaders, in those countries that still have functioning democratic systems, has been given a serious boost by Mr. Trump’s ascent. A vote for whatever party in your country that believes in a byzantine global conspiracy of immigrants, media, elites and religious minorities was previously a fringe protest move, a withdrawal from the mainstream. After 2016, it felt as though you were joining the winners.

The best way to send Trumpism to an ignoble end is to let Trump have his long ignoble goodbye.

Image: The New Republic


14 comments:

Anonymous said...

A reasonable thesis, but I think a quick trip to obscurity is a better approach which will humiliate him further than a long drawn out goodbye which hurts others more than him. Crush his brand and bankrupt him. Quickly turn off the attention taps and see what happens, especially as January 20th draws nearer. His niece frames it best that what he's facing is the prospect of being held accountable for his hideous actions, also, Bandy X Lee (an underrated Psychiatrist) who has tirelessly advocated for a mental health assessment and immediate use of the 25th amendment. BC Waterboy

Anonymous said...

Ordinarily, ignoring the whining toddler is a decent strategy. But when half the Republican caucus signs up in support of Texas' seditious Supreme Court lawsuit, disgraced national security advisor Mike Flynn is calling for the military to make Trump a two-term president, and three quarters of Republicans think the election was rigged, then the problem isn't just Diaper Don. Prolonging this farce is making things worse and I won't be surprised when the shooting starts.

Cap

Owen Gray said...

An equally interesting thesis, waterboy. I suspect that Saunders believes the length of Trump's humiliation should be commensurate to the pain -- and death -- he's caused hundreds of thousands of people.

Owen Gray said...

That's an interesting point, Cap. For Trump's supporters, shooting isn't a fantasy.

The Disaffected Lib said...

It's a recurring theme in westerns to have the condemned prisoner in his cell looking out at the gallows being constructed on the main street. When Trump looks out onto the front lawn of the White House he gets to look on the snow white stands being constructed for Biden's inauguration. Like the errant cowboy awaiting the hangman, Trump awaits his own terminal fate. I wonder if he'll show for the event and, if he does, whether he'll summon up a measure of integrity and dignity we haven't seen so far.

Owen Gray said...

I would truly be surprised if he did that, Mound. I expect him -- like most movie outlaws -- to head for the hills.

Anonymous said...

Or in Trump's case Owen, heading for Mara Lardo although it appears the neighbours are none too pleased with him taking up permanent residence. BC Waterboy

Owen Gray said...

It appears, BC, that Trump's neighbours know him only too well.

Trailblazer said...

Reminds me of the never ending Lord of the Rings farewell scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YWIC9UZ5N4

The right wing US media is full of keeping Trump going.
Would it not suffice for Biden to just say; fuck off it's my turn?

FWIW, I have a gut feeling Biden's moment of glory will be short lived.

TB

Owen Gray said...

For Trump's supporters, he's a mythological figure, TB. Myth has power. But it can also be the shortest way to hell.

Trailblazer said...

I feel many of today's conservative 'leaders' are doomed to the same fate.
Conservatism , like capitalism is finding it difficult to remain relevant.
Who can imagine the handling of Covid with Conservative values?


TB

Anonymous said...

I have a friend with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of all the dirty players that either attached themselves to Trump, or that he pulled out of the right wing mud to make them Secretary of this or that. He goes on and on about it. But it's all surface stuff really, the day to day uselessness of the man, because Trump himself has no idea of history, geography or any damn thing. The whole US state apparatus that chuntered on fed by the super rich didn't change. The Democrats went apesh!t anti-Russian because of the fairy tale they invented about interference in the 2016 election after Hillary lost. The progressives latched onto that they hated Trump so much, and lost most of their critical faculties in so doing. They claim intellectual high ground but are just as blinkered but in a different way to the deplorables. Trump went anti-China to avoid blaming capitalists for reviving China by using cheap labour. Considering the absolute crap way the US uses the world for its own end, Uncle Joe isn't going to change any of that. He's installing a war crew of appointees, another shed load of despicables to invent slights the US is suffering from, bray about this and that, the countries that need a good slapping down. Where's there any sign of accomodation or peace? Nowhere to be found. There's more worldwide looting and over-consumption to do before the ecosystem comes crashing down on our heads. More dictators to prop up in the effort.

This article is farcical in blaming Russia for everything, but about what I expected after the NYT ramped up the anti-Russia rhetoric the past month and a half. This Saunders guy says Russia is behind strongman dictators worldwide. Can you think of any? No, it's BS which people nod their heads at knowingly. I can't beyond Assad, and the US completely illegally invaded that country and funded ISIS through the Saudis, so the point is moot. Now it openly steals Syria's oil and flogs it to the Turks. Is piracy ethical? The US has all sorts of propped-up regimes all over the place. It's always a safe bet to accuse the "other side" of doing exactly what you're doing yourselves. like hacking, the flavour of this week. Trump handed hate of China on the plate to the US elite, so baiting them will continue apace. The US is oh so free and not a surveilled society unlike those damn commies -- as if. It's falling apart itself after polarising its people over nothing much of substance at all for years, beyond racism and bigotry, starting well before Trump. Obama was stymied by a Repug Congress.

I haven't thought much about Trump these past six weeks, the news cycle of his idiocy has in fact slowed down compared to the pace of the last four years, and I welcomed it as a breather. It was obvious the big boys had spoken and Trump was out from the start. He was, as usual, just too dumb to get the message, as were many if not most of his acolytes. The system shall not be disturbed. and look, by chance the virus has spent the force of many of his followers, now searching for mere food in the world's wealthiest nation, courtesy of the right and Trump's parsimony. We have a lot of the same complete duffers as premiers of the biggest provinces, and if not for federal logic, we'd be in the same boat economically as them.

Vaccinate the US population, have a bit of a break, and then it'll be back to bombing new lots of nonentity brown/black people for their resources. All sorts of not very good propaganda will be invented for that tack change to placate numbnuts who live day by day and couldn't care less about history or foreigners and their rights. In other words, things will return to normal. I do not think either China or Russia will put up with much more sh!t brinkmanship, so we'll have a nice "little" war. Kiss your toes goodbye. It'll get around having to worry about the environment.

BM





Owen Gray said...

That's a good question, TB. COVID has thrown conventional wisdom into complete disarray.

Owen Gray said...

I agree that the United States will not qualify for sainthood under Biden, BM. On the other hand, the fact that Trump is no longer in the driver's seat should allow you -- and the rest of us -- to sleep a little better.