I saw Donald Trump announce his candidacy in the waiting room of a urology office during a consult for a scheduled vasectomy. The volume was a little too loud on the television, and the sound of his voice was grating. He was hectoring the crowd, making fun of his sound-man, and looked like an idiot. Everything looked hastily thrown together. His stated ideas were incoherent, but the main message was pretty obvious: “look at me”
Every election is a referendum on power, but this one is unique in how the Republican candidate has made it crystal clear about how he will use it. Trump’s character and actions before becoming the nominee of a major political party have been a train-wreck of sexual assault, boorishness, and diagnosable personality disorders. His business practices are garden-variety hucksterism combined with the kind of rich-kid power grabs that most people know only from cartoons and outright white-collar fraud.
Donald Trump, like every politician, loves power. The difference between him and Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or even a nitwit like Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan is that his desire for power isn’t tempered with anything. It’s monstrous, and the people that believe that this makes him more pure are largely the ones who believe the power he would wield as president would not be wielded against them.
They are wrong, nodoy, because he’s already shown in every interaction he’s ever had that the people who give him power still suffer, because they are not him. Each and every Trump supporter is Chris Christie in waiting: he thought it was a quid-pro-quo to the vice-president’s slot for his support, but instead he’s been routinely humiliated, ignored, and sent for coffee. Or Mike Pence in waiting: the guy who gave up most of his (odious) political ideals to get into the executive branch, and has been routinely humiliated, ignored, and left with a shredded reputation, forever attached to a man who doesn’t give a shit. Or any of the thousands of people he did business with who he stiffed out of paying, or fulfilling his contractual obligations, or let go bankrupt while he walked away.
None of this is new. I saw it when the silly reality TV guy announced his candidate while waiting to talk with the guy who would be cutting into my scrotum. “That guy is fucking insane.” He’s been telling everyone exactly who he is his entire career. It’s literally the only subject he knows anything about, his own selfishness.
On the other hand, and there are some policy points, particularly on foreign intervention, where I disagree with Hilary Clinton.
Hmm, tough fucking call, but I’m going to go with my gut here and echo the wisdom of George Bluth.
Never promise crazy the presidency.
Sharks @ Capitals
4:00 PM Pacific
Prediction: the outcome of this game is the 118866th most important thing occurring in D.C. tonight.
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