BY THE DON'S EARLY LIGHT
Every few years, I get my eyes tested to see if I need new glasses. The doctor shows an image through two slightly different lenses and asks which works best, A or B. After twenty or thirty iterations of that process, he’s figured out my new prescription.
In the same way, Donald Trump is slowly coming into focus for me. In broad outline, Trump’s persona has been clear for a while now, but little details keep refining the picture. This week’s clarifying Trump details come from a famous attorney, a professional sports league, and Alexander Hamilton.
I’ve often said that everything Trump touches turns to shit. #NeverTrump Republican Rick Wilson uses more genteel language. That’s why he’s got a book contract and I don’t. His book is called EVERYTHING TRUMP TOUCHES DIES. It’ll be out in August, and I’ve already pre-ordered it from Amazon. I don’t know which examples Wilson will cite, because the Trump presidency is a target rich environment. But submitted for your approval: Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law professor emeritus.
Dershowitz had a long and (as best I can tell) reasonably distinguished career, during which he often criticized special prosecutors. I, on the other hand, am an amateur who relies on the kindness of strangers to explain complex legal issues. But for crying out loud, on January 20, 2017, Trump took an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Not the flag, not the national anthem, but the constitution. That seems pretty straightforward to me.
Trump’s swearing in ceremony is readily available from multiple sources on YouTube. He did not add “except for the emoluments clause, that bullshit about impeachment, and anything else that might keep me from doing whatever I damn well please.”
Nevertheless, Dershowitz said on MSNBC that “The President wasn't wrong when he said I want loyalty from my Attorney General. It's the constitution that's wrong for allowing that kind of division to occur." I guess it’s good to have Dershowitz on record as conceding that Trump’s position is unconstitutional.
No one, including the Founding Fathers, would argue that the constitution was or is perfect. That’s why the Framers provided a process for amending it. But so far, Dershowitz has failed to suggest a remedy for his newly discovered “problem.” Perhaps the famous constitutional scholar would support an amendment that granted each new president the equivalent of a pre-nuptial agreement, giving them an opportunity to say which parts of the constitution they intended to ignore.
Trump, of course, is totally ignorant of the constitution, and relies on legal advice from the grifters who populate Fox News. He may even believe that respect for the flag and the national anthem are mandated by the constitution. What he knows for sure is that those issues resonate with his base.
That’s why he bullied the National Football League into creating a rule that penalizes players who kneel during the national anthem. But if the NFL hoped that this silly rule would satisfy Donald Trump, they were sadly mistaken.
The two things Trump loves most are dominating people (financially and sexually) and praise. He especially loves praise from those he’s dominating. Now that he knows he can bully the NFL, he’s not about to stop. He rescinded his invitation to the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles at the last minute, when it became clear that most of them weren’t going to show up.
Instead of cancelling the scheduled ceremony, he tried to turn it into a patriotic sing-a-long concert. Alas, he forgot (or more likely, never knew in the first place) the words to “God Bless America.” It’s unlikely that he knows the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner” either. But no matter. In his mind, he dominated the Super Bowl champs and their entire league. And for Trump, what happens in his mind is the only thing that counts.
In 2012, one of Mitt Romney’s advisors compared the malleability of campaign promises to an Etch A Sketch game. Just shake it to get rid of the old image and you can start over with a blank slate. That’s more or less the way Donald Trump lives his life. He’s all about short-term gratification, and he’ll say and do whatever he thinks will “win” in the moment. If he has to say and do the exact opposite the next day to “win” a new moment, he’ll do it without a second thought – and if necessary, deny he said either thing a week later.
It’s obvious by now that Trump’s supporters are indifferent to his inconsistency. Among the low-information voters that make up his base, Trump generates a reality distortion field. His most telling insight during the 2016 presidential campaign was his comment that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose voters. Smart, sane people thought the comment was hyperbole. Nope. Instead, Trump was – for once in his life – telling the simple truth.
The extent to which Trump’s behavior is calculated, versus simply the ingrained habits of a man in cognitive decline, can be debated. But the result is the same.
Alexander Hamilton described the phenomenon in 1792, when he wrote that “When a man unprincipled in private life desperate in his fortune, bold in his temper … despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government & bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the non sense of the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw things into confusion that he may ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”
Hamilton went further, predicting the outcome of the whirlwind: “the only path to a subversion of the republican system of the Country is, by flattering the prejudices of the people, and exciting their jealousies and apprehensions, to throw affairs into confusion, and bring on civil commotion. Tired at length of anarchy, or want of government, they may take shelter in the arms of monarchy for repose and security.”
Or as Donald Trump said at the 2016 Republican convention, “Only I can fix it.”
Meanwhile, in other news, I wish Bill Clinton would just shut the fuck up.
Hat tip to E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post for the pointer to Hamilton’s comment; link below.