Unprecedented In All The Wrong Ways

We are on the precipe of history.

For the first time in our nation's history, a former President of the United States will have his mugshot taken later this week.

Donald John Trump is expected to turn himself in prior to this Friday's noon deadline at a Fulton County jail. There is early reporting that Trump may do this on Wednesday as a way to suck the air out of the first clown show Republican debate, set to occur that very evening. Regardless of when Trump does it, we cannot lose sight of the fact that this is unprecedented, but not for the reason that Republicans will have you believe. 

While Republicans are bemoaning the injustice of indicting a former president and current GOP frontrunner for president, what they fail to see is not that he is currently being indicted but the fact that someone with so checkered a past emerged to become the face of their party in the first place. For the first 230 years of our country, we saw campaigns derail from anything from an awkward photo op to an overly enthusiastic screech. In a different time and place, Trump's own background would have immediately disqualified him from even being a viable nominee. Trump's backstory was no mystery: he was a three-time adulterer, he was credibly accused of sexual assault by over two dozen women, he exploited undocumented immigrants to build his properties, he routinely stiffed contractors, and he created a fraudulent university. These facts were all well-established prior to him descending that Trump Tower escalator in 2015. 

But while any one of these improprieties would have derailed a Democratic candidate, the GOP establishment did not see any of these as being disqualifying. It didn't even matter that Trump had previously been pro-choice, he was seen as a viable alternative to undo all the "damage" that Barack Obama had done to our country. While prominent Republicans like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz initially spoke harshly against Donald Trump, they would come around as it became more and more apparent that he would end up becoming the GOP nominee. By the time the Access Hollywood tape dropped a month before the election, the GOP was so pot-committed that they saw no choice but to dig in their heels and ignore the fact that their party's nominee was a sexual predator. The Party of Family Values saw winning an election as being more important than adhering to its core values. Trump said out loud everything they believed. He gave them permission to be their true selves. He was the anti-Obama and they loved him for that.

This was the man they rode with up to and throughout his presidency. And as Michelle Obama and others have noted, the presidency doesn't change you who are, it reveals who you are. For four years, Donald Trump continued his half-century-plus of exploiting others and did so in a way in which he felt he was shielded by the office of the presidency. He used the office to enrich himself and his cronies. His foreign policy decisions were based upon peace and global stability but instead how he could get himself and his family members the best deals. His trips to Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster included profiting off of the Secret Service being housed at the very properties he owned. He became so comfortable with his new way of life that he didn't want to leave it. So comfortable, in fact, that he was willing to stage a coup in order to remain in power. 

Never before have we seen an American political party so attached to such a terrible human being. But the modern-day GOP has become a cult and Donald Trump is undeniably its leader. He is leading in all the polls and it isn't even close. He is refusing to attend next week's debate and there is zero pushback from the party. What he says goes. Knowing the makeup of the current GOP voting base, it's not hard to imagine a situation where Trump becomes the nominee and runs for the presidency while in jail. Having this type of blind devotion to one man is unnatural, especially one whose support is slowly dwindling away. The GOP is all-in on Donald Trump and nothing he does or says will dissuade them.

It doesn't get more unprecedented than that. 

***

Like what you're reading? Never miss another post! Get notified via email here.

Donate at the link below to keep us going.