THE ELEPHANT SNEEZED AND FELL TO HIS KNEES

Mooch!  We hardly knew ye! 

It’s hard to know where to start amidst all the chaos, but what the heck – once more unto the breach, dear friends.  Let’s begin by setting the Wayback Machine to July 23, 2017.  That’s when Donald Trump tweeted, “It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President.”

Now that we’re getting used to time travel, we can go back a bit further.  Almost a hundred years ago, on May 7, 1918, a former Republican president offered a prescient rebuttal to Trump’s tweet:  “The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants.  He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.” 

Theodore Roosevelt wrote that.  Donald Trump, who was surprised to learn that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, may never even have heard of the first President Roosevelt.  I doubt that they would have enjoyed each other’s company.  Teddy Roosevelt was a trust-buster.  He’d probably have tried to put Trump in jail.  

Leaving those thrilling days of yesteryear and returning to our present dilemma, I’d like to note that Donald Trump’s tweet contained at least two more errors.  Trump is typically delusional about helping elect Republican congressmen, since almost all of them carried their districts or states by larger margins than he did.  I’ll delve further into the issue of why Trump is whining about “protection” in a future post.  Today I want to say a few more words about Trump’s notion that Republicans should regard him as “their” President. 

It’s becoming pretty obvious that Trump isn’t really a Republican and doesn’t give a damn about the Republican Party.  He, as well as Ivanka and Jared Kushner, were Democratic donors until pretty recently.  So was his potty-mouthed ex-chief of staff, the Mooch.  Trump has fired most of the actual Republicans in the White House, and he’s trying to humiliate his Republican Attorney General into resigning. 

The truth is that Donald Trump has no political ideology.  All he cares about is himself, and he’ll abandon any person or principle if he thinks it will get him a round of applause. I wonder when a critical mass of congressional Republicans will figure that out. 

Of course, it’s fine with me if the Republican Party’s fate is tied to Donald Trump.  It’s time for another chorus of “everything Trump touches turns to shit.”  Republicans held their nose and clasped him to their bosom.  They deserve to suffer the consequences.  All I ask is that they stay downwind of me.