“Merry Christmas, America!”
Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving, formerly known as a real piece of work. You almost have to admire his pigheaded insolence. His bullheaded chutzpah. Unyielding gall. His obstinate impudence. The obdurate effrontery.
His willingness to humiliate himself, and America, is only surpassed by his inflexible, never-ending shamelessness.
He’s Goldfinger and the Energizer Bunny rolled into one.
This is reality entertainment at its best. The man knows his audience. He knows Americans. He has us in the palm of his hands. He’s got the whole world in his hands! But we’re not in good hands, are we.
And we made him our president.
He’s not making America great again, like the post war 1950’s. That’s a nice thought but it’s a pipe dream. Trump is making America weak with his foolish rhetoric and biased policies. His non-policies. He’s getting nothing done. He’s not draining the swamp, he’s draining our national resolve and worldwide credibility.
Just how stupid does he think the American public is? Well, we’ve both had a good head start and the answer is, pretty damn stupid. We’ll buy anything.
We’ve all heard the now infamous ‘Access Hollywood’ tape. Trump speaks about, brags really, graphically, how he likes to grab women by their private parts. Their “pu**y.” He sees himself as a ladies man, a “star” to whom the ladies gravitate. A real babe magnet. Chicks “dig him”. He said this thing about grabbing women, and we’ve all heard it. Now, in true Trump form, way after the fact, he is denying it as “fake news.” He has already explained this off as merely “locker room talk”, which means he admitted he said it, and even concedes that it may have been the wrong thing to say. But never one to be wrong or even admit that he ever could be wrong he is now, seventeen years after saying it, and after over a year of publicly confronting it, he is denying it. It’s been the hallmark of his presidency.
What a guy. Our president. Leader of the free world. He thinks he can get away with anything. All he has to do is say it never happened or he never said it, and poof! ...it’s gone!
And we made him our president.
He’s been accused of being a liar, a bully, a womanizer. We’ve watched him be these things on our television screens for many years. Yet, we made him our president. Go figure.
His apparent election collusion with the Russians, something else he denies and calls fake news, is probably the most treasonable criminal feature of Trump’s excessive personality, and most likely the thing that will ultimately bring him down. But of course, he denies having anything to do with the Russians. Doesn’t know anything about that now defunct but widely publicized Trump Tower hotel deal in Moscow. Never happened. Poof, gone!
Trump will throw his flunkies like Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner under the bus before he admits any wrongdoing, but his time will come. He can run but he can’t hide. I just hope Robert Mueller doesn’t run out of time, or credibility, before he nails this guy.
Forget impeachment. When did we stop hanging people for treason in this country? It’s a serious thing.
Benedict Arnold, the Rosenbergs, Mary Surratt (a conspirator in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination) all probably did less to deserve execution for treason against the United States than Donald Trump and his team may have done.
The times have changed, media has changed, social attitudes have changed, but the definition of treason as a punishable crime has not changed.
(Treason: The crime of betraying one’s country ...punishable by life imprisonment or hanging.)
Sometimes we let things get away from us, we go too far, push the envelope beyond reason and sensibility. America is a perfect example of this. The first and second amendments for example, our “right” to bear arms and freedom of speech respectively. On inception, both good, nobel ideas on which our democracy was founded ...in 1776. Almost 250 years later we have abused these rights to the point of us killing one another on the streets every day en masse with automatic firearms far beyond the technology our founders could have imagined, protected by laws and rights now bought and paid for by lobbyists and organizations like the NRA.
And our 24/7 news media has the “right” to tell us en masse anything it wants, even lie to us, to alter our thoughts and shape our opinions. A psychiatrist or a brain surgeon couldn’t do a better job.
You can’t blame Donald Trump for being who he is. He’s not the cause of any of America’s over excessiveness, its greed, or its political gridlock, he’s the result.
He’s the mirror we look into every day.
So, Merry Christmas, America. Donald “Santa” Trump was our political exercise in self-gifting. Let’s not let him, the Russians, or anyone, take our true gifts, our freedoms, away from us, and let’s not abuse and lose them by taking them away from ourselves.
They can have Donald Trump, America’s freedom is the true gift from the men of long ago.
John Kushma is a communication consultant and lives in Logan, Utah.
