This was published 4 months ago
Opinion
Are we watching the dying days of Trump’s shambolic dynasty?
Bill Wyman
ColumnistOne of the most prosaic but nonetheless accurate explanations for the utter and seemingly inexplicable insanity that has surrounded Donald Trump, and in turn America, for some seven years now is this: That he is a man forever focused on tactics and virtually never on strategy.
This is his pattern: Moved by the urges of a small child, he finds himself backed into a corner, and then embarks upon ever-more-outrageous plays to get himself out of it.
This explains why we are at the mind-blowing pass we are at today: Donald Trump – to be clear, a former president of the United States, the world’s greatest democracy and most powerful nation – has been indicted for hush money payments to a porn star. And the betting involves how many more times he may be indicted in coming months. Pick your number, one to three. (My betting is on two, with three a distinct possibility.)
If you recall, Trump, his bumbling fixer Michael Cohen, and the owner of an American supermarket tabloid, the National Enquirer, got together to pay Stormy Daniels, a porn star, $130,000 to keep quiet about her alleged affair with Trump in the run-up to the 2016 election.
This allegedly violated campaign finance laws in various ways. Cohen has already pleaded guilty and been imprisoned for this, and of course, he did whatever he did at Trump’s direction. Beyond this, Trump allegedly falsified business records to cover up the payments, a crime in itself.
Donald Trump is now the patron saint of a particular strain of American, despite his political failures and indescretions.Credit: AP
It seems odd that it took New York’s prosecutorial system this long, more than two years after Trump left office, to arrive at the decision to indict, just as the US justice system seems to have been taking its time on any prosecution of Trump related to the January 6 insurrection. It’s a cliche in the US: The wheels of justice grind slow. But they do indeed grind.
Trump has lied variously about all of this, amid many denials of wrongdoing. In the last few weeks he has been delivering increasingly hysterical pronouncements as the indictment loomed. He called Manhattan District attorney Alvin Bragg, who is black, a racist. He posted a picture of Bragg, too – next to a photo of Trump himself holding a baseball bat. Then Trump promised – in a message posted in the early hours of a Saturday morning, suggesting a sleepless night – “death and destruction” if he were to be arrested.
He probably should be a bit unhinged. Right now, in the state of Georgia, which Trump lost in 2020, prosecutors have said indictments are imminent for the buffoonish attempts by Trump and his handlers to upend the state’s vote. At the same time, in Washington, a special prosecutor, Jack Smith, is looking into Trump’s well-documented theft and mishandling of national security documents – and, of course, the role the then-president played in the disgraceful and violent attacks on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The potential indictment of a former president raises many questions. Will Trump actually be arrested? (Of course he will be, with Secret Service agents standing by.) Put in handcuffs? (Doubtful, though it would be nice to see.) Will there be a “perp walk”? (This term refers to a time-honoured NYPD practice of parading celebrity arrestees through a phalanx of tabloid photographers. Doubtful, though Trump has reportedly been a bit intrigued at the prospect.)
New York City police officers on scooters line up outside Manhattan criminal courts.Credit: AP
Could he be denied bail and left to sit in a cell before trial? (That, too, would be interesting to watch, but it’s not going to happen. New York state law makes it difficult to deny the accused bail.)
Of late, after a slow start, Trump has been out on the 2024 campaign trail, though that is a very high-toned phrase to use for his travelling sideshow of degenerates, who have, amazingly, been able to take the levels of vulgarity in his orbit to a new low.
In Waco, Texas, the other day, wackadoodle ’70s rocker Ted Nugent opened the show, saying that he didn’t want his taxes to go to support the war in Ukraine: “I want my money back! I didn’t authorise any money to Ukraine to some homosexual weirdo,” he said. (In case you aren’t following Nugent’s train of thought, he was referring to Ukraine’s brave and defiant president, Volodymyr Zelensky.)
Adult-film star Stormy Daniels in 2018. Trump’s campaign allegedly paid hush money to her in 2016.Credit: AP
All of these are problems Trump created for himself, partly, of course, out of his own degenerate tendencies, but also from his inability to plan or think clearly about the future. A few years ago, the comedian John Mulaney had a funny riff likening the Trump presidency to a horse being let loose in a hospital. (“It’s never happened before, and no one knows what the horse is going to do next, least of all the horse”.)
Trump these days looks more like a man inside a pinball machine, bouncing around with differing velocities and in unexpectedly different directions by flippers and bumpers programmed by architects out of his control.
His support inside the Republican Party remains solid; Donald Trump is now the patron saint of a particular strain of American who thinks that a man with a dismal string of recent electoral losses to his credit – and now with multiple and credible criminal indictments looming – should be their standard-bearer.
To them, Trump’s tactical outrages are just part of the game in the reality TV show he is starring in inside his head, and theirs. I have a feeling the next season of it, starting soon, is going to be worth watching.
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