For four
years I have watched Donald Trump and predicted that the end of his term in
office would be the worst in history. I also recognize the problems of
prediction of human behavior, but I am writing this so that I can think through
what I expect to happen.
Donald’s personality
is built around narcissism and is defended by total denial of reality. He
continues, 30 days after the election, his massive denial of the results in
November. My explanation of that behavior rests on my belief that everything he
does is meant to further his own personal well-being. He is using the myth of a
fraudulent election as a way of continuing to keep his fundraising operation
running at full tilt. He has no serious belief that he can overturn the
election but what he can do is raise enough money to isolate himself from
feeling the impact of his defeat. The PACS to which he is sending the money is
simply a ruse to pile up cash to protect himself from the ultimate reality that
he knows will come. A careful reading of the paper every day reveals that the wolves
in the judicial system are circling him and his family. His children are being
questioned and he knows what is coming. In the past he's always been able to
protect himself by bringing lawsuits and attacking his accusers. This time he
recognizes his vulnerabilities.
Don’t be
surprised if he resigns from office on January 15th and President
Pence then pardons him after he pardons all his family of Federal Criminal crimes.
He will have raised all the money he can and now he can leave.
He is now
going to become hunted man by all of those who have been outraged in the past. I
fully expect him to run the fundraising machine right up to and including inauguration.
Despite his best efforts to create trouble in the United States House of
Representatives when the Electoral College meets, he will be faced with the
fact that Joe Biden has won this election. One can only guess what his enablers
in the House and Senate will do at that point. This would be a sideshow as the
legislative branch of the Republican Party tries to extract itself from the
hole that they have been digging during the last four years. More about that
later.
If is he free
from Federal criminal convictions Donald is still exposed to civil suits, both
at the federal and local level. He is
also exposed to local criminal charges. If you simply Google “countries without
a extradition treaty to the US” you find there are many places that he could go
to get away from the US court system. Top on the list of course is Russia. He
could take up residency with Edward Snowden in avoiding American law. Other
options might be Saudi Arabia or Mongolia or the Democratic Republic of Congo. Any
one of a dozen African countries would be a possibility except perhaps they
will remember what he called them when referring to their status in the world.
From this
position outside the United States he could continue to run all his businesses
unless of course United States government froze his assets. We know from his
son's mouth, the fact that most of his financing has come from Russia in the past.
We know that he is 400 million dollars in debt, and we have no idea who his
debtors are. Leaving the United States may free him from the rule of law in the
US, but it is unclear to me what his plan is for evading the tsunami of debt
that is coming toward him.
Consider his
options: he could start a TV program on
Russian television and make a lot of money, undermining our Democratic system
from abroad with his endless lies and insinuations. Usually a president can
count on those he helped when he was in office to help him when he is outside
office but once he leaves the United States he makes it much more difficult for
his old friends to send him money.
One source
you must not forget is the value of intelligence about our security apparatus. Saudi
Arabia is a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the US. Giving away or selling intelligence is treason
punishable by death. Joe Biden should
remove Donald and Jareds’ security clearance by executive order by 1PM on
inauguration day.
Never forget
that money is the main and only source of Trump's feeling of self-worth. His
use of the presidency as a cash making machine has been the most egregious in
the history of our country. Many of the people who have left the office, have
enriched themselves immensely once out of the office, but very few of them have
tried to continue to raise money during the entire time they were in public
service and on the public payroll.
He reminds
me of George Washington Plunkitt who was in the state Legislature of New York
around the turn of the 19th century. New York was beginning many infrastructure
projects in the 1890’s and Mr Plunkett was in real estate had a sand and gravel
yard which fit nicely into the paving contracts for the city. He made himself a
fair piece of change which someone challenged. His reply was, “I seen my
opportunities and I took him”. Donald Trump raise this philosophy to the zenith
in the politics of this country.
Donald’s
legacy to this country will be profound. He has used the corporate
communication systems as a bullhorn for the destruction of democracy. The
leadership in the Corporations of industry dedicated to communication has been
feckless almost to a person in standing up to the endless lies and
misrepresentations and destruction that he has made in the public's belief in
democracy. The Washington Post counted his lies, but they continue to give him
publicity. What is freedom of the press all about? That issue will have to be
discussed. An even larger question is the part played by the so called “Tech
platforms”. They, on a daily, basis amplified the lies and misrepresentation by
the president.
The second
legacy the president will have is the COVID-19 epidemic and its disastrous
aftermaths. Much of this is as a direct result of the president's desire
related to money to perpetuate the myth that we can go on having a raging
economy in the midst of a raging epidemic. He was told by reputable people who
knew this was not possible, but he went ahead and did it anyway because he had
to keep the image of someone who had made America great again. To admit that
nature had defeated him was not within his psychological capabilities. His
father told him you must never be a loser and by God he was not going to be a
loser to a virus. The losers in this battle for a vaccination will be the less
able in the developed and undeveloped world.
At this moment nearly 300,000 people have died
in this country, in part, because he refused to follow any advice of a positive
nature. Even at the end when a vaccine is within grasp he denied the request to
buy a significant number of vaccination doses from one company because he had
invested in another company and he wanted them to get the first shot with the
American people. As the vaccine rolls
out, he will try to take credit for being the savior of the world because he
shut off immigration from China and financed the Pharmaceutical industry in
producing vaccines. This story isn't over because there is no plan in the
United States for successfully distributing the vaccination doses nationwide that
has any rational basis to it. The ugliness of crony capitalism will certainly
rear its head in the month of January as the vaccinations are spread across the
country.
There is a
more powerful impact to his legacy then either of the other things which are
self-evident. The most powerful impact of Donald trump's four years in the
White House is on the moral upbringing of our children. Our children have been
witness to a president who has proven that if you have enough power or will or obstinacy
you can get away with anything. It doesn't take a child psychiatrist like me to
make clear that if you're a parent and trying to teacher a child to tell the
truth that you will have no response when the child says,” but the president
lies and he gets away with it. why can't I?”
California
city mayors and the governor have recently gotten their comeuppance. They put
out orders for people to wear masks, wash their hands, socially distance and
stay at home. They then walked down to the airport and got on planes and flew
halfway across the continent in direct contradiction of their own orders. Raising
children by the standard of “do what I say! Not what I do!” leads to very
disastrous results. If you don't lead by example you create in a child a
cognitive dissonance in relationship to how they should behave. “My parent gets
away with it so why can't I.” None of us are so perfect or so pure as not to
have fallen victim to our own weaknesses but to have the president of the
United States for four years blow off all the rules and norms and standards of
our society while paying no price whatsoever will have a long term effect on
the morality and sense of the common good in this society.
You already
have the United States Senate led by Mitch McConnell refusing to negotiate a
piece of legislation that would protect families from hunger and eviction from
their houses. It's particularly ironic that it is occurring at Christmas time.
McConnell's comment was, “Where did you get the idea that I cared?” That's the
temperature of the United States Congress for the next four years. Remember he
was the one that said, “My number one objective is to prevent Barack Obama from
getting a second term.”
Although he
hasn't said it yet I have no doubt that Mitch has set his objective for the
next four years:“ I intend to prevent Kamala Harris from having any chance
whatsoever to be the next president of the United States .” Just as he spent
eight years undermining Barack Obama's attempts at climate change prevention
and health care expansion, I expect him to in a myriad of ways undermine any
attempt by Joe Biden and especially his vice president to accomplish anything.
Each night
when I go to bed, I pray the God will elect two senators in Georgia who will
change the balance in the US Senate. In any case this is going to be a very
tough two years. Most people have forgotten that this is the time in 2011 that
the Republicans won control of statehouses and therefore the redistricting
process of 2010. This led to the most awesome abuse is that we've seen in
gerrymandering on a large scale. I expect the same to be put in motion in 2021 to
be brought out in public in the election of 2022. The Democratic house as a
slim majority and I expect you will see a very tumultuous fight in 2012.
Meanwhile
Donald Trump will be sitting in Moscow undermining democracy which might inevitably
lead to an autocracy. The destruction of the Weimar Republic in Germany preceded
Hitler. The French Revolution ended with a dysfunctional democracy, followed by Napoleon.
All this
brings to mind the story about Benjamin Franklin coming out of the
constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1789. He met a woman who said, “Mr
Franklin, what kind of a government do we have? A monarchy or a republic.” He
responded, “We have a Republic if we can keep it.” The emphasis was on “IF”.
