Donald’s final days are not that much different from what we have learned to expect during the last four years. As a graduate of the “Roy Cohn Advanced School of Sleaze”, Donald is proud of his most sacred self-image; that he is the world’s consummate Con man, able to play any role convincingly, and successfully to attain whatever he desires and by any means. He may very well be correct, especially since he has succeeded in subduing any countervailing authority, (like the U.S. Republican controlled Senate.) No small feat!
Unfortunately for Donald, however, his successful role playing may be coming to an end because his choice for a final act is wearing thin. He has chosen as the act for his finale’, that of being the “Last Martyr Standing”, showing strength against a vast conspiracy of rigged elections against him, stolen fraudulently from him and a nation of his dutiful worshipers. It is NOT a role that fits him well. Nor does it sell well. He has unwittingly rendered himself irrelevant.
Donald has forgotten the major lesson of Roy Cohn’s life, which is Rule #1, “Quit while you are ahead”. It appears that Donald does not know when to fold and take his winnings, which were considerable even after having lost the 2020 election. He is too addicted to winning.
“There exists a certain American type of romance, sometimes an obsession, apparently shared to one degree or another by 70 million Americans, who relish people who“get away with THINGS.” There lurks within us a secret admiration for the guy, like the “Road Runner” coyote cartoon character, who is thrillingly, always just averting disaster. Donald (and Roy before him) have been likened to the Road Runner. Both had a habit of getting away with many “things” for what seemed like forever. But unlike the innocent cartoon, Donald’s “showing off” incuded bullying, lying, cheating and of course …basking in the limelight with full throated gloating …until it became intolerable…and then it ceased to exist any longer. And that is because rule #2 came into play. This rule stands for the following proposition.
Americans are even more enamored of the phenomenon of tearing down the smart aleck who they had built up to celebrity status; and who then had gone too far.
Rule #2 is called comeuppance, or plain old American justice. Avoid it all costs.
The braggart, smart-aleck who had said “rules do not apply to me,” soon discovered that when you have gone too far, Americans enjoy nothing better than to bring you back down. Welcome to rule #2.
In truth, Donald no longer resembles the wylie coyote. He is more and more just the little boy who called wolf once too often. Instead of looking like the noble martyr he envisions, he looks more like the small, petty, sore loser that he really is, and every time he cries wolf with another false claim of election rigging, the more it appears that he is taking a shovel and dumping more and more dung on his head with each cry. And he does not realize how much of a stench he carries with him at every shovelful he dumps.
It is a sad sight indeed that he cannot smell the stench that he emits every time he opens his mouth. Yes, he received 70 million votes just 2 short weeks ago, but with this disgusting farewell performance and his continual embrace of all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories, he has finally gone too far. He has eroded the support of all but a small portion of the hardest of his hardcore, butt-head, true believers who are willing to go down with the stinking ship.
If this is the mark that he wants to leave for posterity; well good luck to him. He really will be consigned to the dustbins of History. It is OK to throw a tantrum and hold your breath until you are blue in the face when you are a private citizen endangering only yourself. But you do not have the right to mess up an entire country while you are in the midst of selfish, little hissy fits during which times you are simultaneously causing the deaths of thousands of innocent lives, creating incalculable suffering for 90% of our citizenry, and deliberately trying to demolish our most sacred institutions and jeopardize our national security.
One day soon, he will wake up some bright morning in a minimum security prison and he will have an epiphany. He will open his eyes, scan his surroundings and recognize that he is, indeed, incarcerated, And it will come to him like a bolt out of the blue, not an unpleasant bolt, but a startle that will whisper in his ear.
“It wasn’t all about me, after all!”
Every petty, vengeful, retaliatory firing of capable, loyal, career professionals, every incitement to violence against anyone or any entity that expressed an opinion different than his narrow understanding, every deliberate intent to not perform his duties; every sleazy, full throttle, anti-American statement or activity launched with the seal of the American Presidency will be studied by history students for generations to come as the soundtrack to the most evil Administration in the history of America.
We have all had our “cringe worthy” blurts or outbursts, which upon second thought give rise to the “Oh my God, I cannot believe I said that” moment.
What would you call being forced to listen to four years’ worth of Donald’s “cringeables” on a continuous feedback loop?
I would say, an appropriate sentence!
