The fraud

Big Baby Trump, by Steve Baker, CC BY-ND 2.0

Unless you've been under a rock for the past twelve or so hours, you're aware of the New York Times blockbuster scoop concerning Donald Trump's taxes. 

Throughout all of 2015 and 2016, those of us who knew Trump from his Page Six days kept trying to tell everyone that he was a fraud. He was a mook. He was mobbed up to his eyeballs. He was a walking, talking security risk. But too many people saw him on The Apprentice and thought he was a genius businessman. (And, in case you forget, his show morphed from giving people jobs with his companies to being a celebrity reality show.)

Now it can no longer be denied that he is nothing but a fraud. We have a fraud with multiple security exposures holding on to the nuclear codes.

For a narcissist like Trump, the greatest wound he could suffer is to his public image. Far from being a titan of industry, he's been revealed to be nothing but a petty con man, a three card monty street scammer, taking you for whatever money you have, and then spending it himself in profligate ways. The tacky gold fittings, the whisking away on helicopters: all a sham to hide that there's no "there" there.

We have a compromised agent at the apex of our government. He has access to all the secrets we possess, and is in such dire financial straits that it beggars belief that he wouldn't sell out this country to save his hide. In four years he'll have $300 million in loans due, loans for which he is personally liable. Are you going to tell me that, in light of this, he wouldn't, say, ignore bounties put on the heads of our soldiers in Afghanistan by the Russians, who probably underwrite his debt?

Trump treated running for president as a con. He didn't expect to win, but he hoped to parlay a run into increased brand recognition, start raking in the money, and stave off the wolf. Instead, improbably, he vaulted into the Oval Office, which was actually the worst thing which could have happened to him. Winning was the most poisoned of chalices for him. All he knows how to do is bluster and fake. These are not traits which serve one well in the West Wing. All he wanted to do was reboot himself. Instead, he landed in an office which would flay him open, exposing all his dirty secrets. And now they're all there for the viewing.

This isn't a Shakespearian tragedy. His tragic heroes were larger than life. This is a moral fable, a warning of what can happen if you decide you're more than you are. "Come and listen to the tale of Donald Trump / Who thought he could fly but was a chump." "Don't be like Trump" will become a warning that parents tell their lackadaisical children. Trump will achieve fame as a dark chapter in American mythology, a cautionary tale.

We have less than six weeks to resolve to remove this excrement from office. Let's get to work.