Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!

So. Yesterday we had a bit of news:

A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Donald J. Trump persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets, and stripped the former president of control over some of his signature New York properties.

The decision by Justice Arthur F. Engoron is a major victory for Attorney General Letitia James in her lawsuit against Mr. Trump, effectively deciding that no trial was needed to determine that he had fraudulently secured favorable terms on loans and insurance deals.

Twice-impeached, four-times-indicted, serial rapist Donald Trump, formerly president of the United States, can now add fraudster to his list of accomplishments. One would think that he'd be more concerned with his impending criminal trials which could send him away for the rest of his natural life. But I agree with this comment on Twitter:

This is going to CRUSH him.

The criminal shit is one thing but his image as a savvy businessman and billionaire being demolished like this?

He's going to go batshit. https://t.co/czYC1YAQpc

— Hope Restored In DFW (@Kennymack1971) September 26, 2023

His entire self-worth centers around his business nous. That he's a genius real-estate developer, able to make whatever deal he sets his eyes on. It's what his deluded followers believe, that if he's in office he will make them rich as well. He resurrected himself based on this image with his reality TV show. This image helped propel him to the White House. 

Now, he's facing a corporate death penalty. He can appeal, and he will. But I don't think the appeal will have much chance of success. Both he and AG James called for a summary judgment, and the preponderance of evidence was so in favor of the state that Judge Engoron wasted almost no time in ruling for New York.

The past twelve months have seen the methodical dismantling of the Trump mystique. It began in New York City with DA Alvin Bragg's winning Allen Weisselberg case. Then it proceeded with E. Jean Carrol's victory in her civil trial for his rape of her. Then the indictments of Trump in Manhattan over the Stormy Daniels hush money affair, the Mar-a-Lago documents case, the January 6th case, and the Fulton County RICO case. Despite what the media will tell you, this is a death by a thousand cuts.

But this cut is the cruelest. To have his financial house of cards torn down, to have his air of business savvy revealed to be nothing more than that of a common hoodlum working the local racket, will destroy him in a way that the criminal cases won't. He's been stripped naked, his trappings of acumen shown to be nothing but rags. He got in with the mob via his lawyer Roy Cohn, and never looked back. His entire business life has been nothing but one long criminal enterprise, and now he's reaping the whirlwind.

Again, and again, and again I return to hubris. There is a proper way to comport oneself as a human being. Be kind. Be generous. Be liberal, in the broad sense of the word. Treat others as you would be treated. Hubris negates all that. Hubris says that such things are for the weak. Hubris tells you that you are destined for wealth and power, and anything to do to attain those things is warranted. And that the gods cannot forgive. Hubris doesn't ensure one's downfall, but it makes it more likely. His sense of hubris led Trump down that escalator, and it has been demolishing his privileged life ever since. He was a troll who decided to come out of his cave; he's now being turned to stone.

Open your favorite quaff. Have a decadent desert. It will only get worse for him from here on out. I leave you with a video which encapsulates my feelings at this moment.

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