Six Days<\/b><\/p>\n
Countdown to the end of the Trump era<\/b><\/p>\n
January 14th<\/sup> 2021<\/i><\/p>\n Even without the attempted coup at the Capitol last week, everyone would be on tenterhooks right now. While the threat of any significant violence strikes me as overblown\u2014Gravy Seals and Meal Team Sucks against 20,000 police, National Guard and the Army\u2014there\u2019s little doubt in anyone\u2019s mind that Donald Trump is engaged in what psychiatrists refer to as decompensation. That\u2019s the utter breakdown of a world created by a neurotic and\/or psychotic person in the face of implacable reality. Trump is learning, at the end, that he is not widely loved and admired, and his efforts to dominate and bully people is at an end. Not only that, but next week the last of his power vanishes, and he must account for his crimes. He has suffered humiliation after humiliation, from losing the election by a huge margin (and finally having to admit it, if only to himself) to his second impeachment, and the horror of most of the nation at his effort to violently overthrow the election.<\/p>\n Decompensation is a psychological crisis. It results in severe depression, psychotic rage, and a blind lashing out at enemies, real and imagined. It often results in suicide, violence, and\/or unbridled acting out, often on the same level as the tantrum of a two-year old.<\/p>\n Case in point: Mike Pence was the most servile lickspittle of all of Trump\u2019s administration. When Pence had to admit that he couldn\u2019t carry out an impossible demand of somehow overturning the Electoral College vote, Trump sent the baying mob to hang Mike Pence. His own vice-president.<\/p>\n The danger signs are so clear and immediate that Congress and the armed forces have (hopefully) taken steps to neutralize some of the destruction a US President is normally capable of. At this hour, it\u2019s not clear that the military will accept orders from their commander-in-chief. In an extraordinary communiqu\u00e9<\/span>, the Joint Chiefs of Staff announced they would not participate in any efforts by Trump to reverse the results of the election or prevent President-Elect Joe Biden from taking office.<\/p>\n Hopefully, that addresses another very real fear\u2014that Trump might ignite a major war with Iran or perhaps China as an excuse to declare Martial Law and use that to try to maintain his role as President. Or provoke a domestic crisis (such as the attack on the Capitol) to the same end.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve said for many years that Trump\u2019s best features are his cowardice and his incompetence. He\u2019s great at bullying people, but hopeless at managing them. He demands loyalty but offers none in return.<\/p>\n An amazing example of that trait is happening with the hapless Rudy Giuliani. After offering the barely-qualified Giuliani $20,000 an hour to represent him in court cases, he left it out that being dissatisfied with Rudy\u2019s ability to win any court cases where there was no supporting evidence or even rationale, he wasn\u2019t going to pay Rudy. This the same day he asked Giuliani to lead his legal team in his second impeachment trial in the Senate. (Honestly, I can\u2019t believe I\u2019m writing this stuff. My keyboard wants to crawl under my desk in shame. But it\u2019s all real.)<\/p>\n Trump seems incapable of formulating a business plan, let alone a coherent policy for running a huge nation, and it\u2019s no surprise to anyone familiar with his actual record as a businessman that he would be an utter and inept failure as a president. He doesn\u2019t have the mental wherewithal or the emotional flexibility to deal with crises, even those that are self-generated. His utter inability to address the marches during the spring and summer, or the pandemic, are absolutely true to type. He never had to deal with the huge messes he created throughout his tawdry life from lack of discipline or intelligence, leaving those to an army of Michael Cohens, but as president he created messes too big and too immediate for anyone to brush away.<\/p>\n Having finally realized that he went too far in sending that mob to the Capitol, he gave a scathing denunciation of the violence and damage the mob caused. Trump has made a living out of pissing on people and telling them it\u2019s holy water, but I doubt this particular mob is going to be too pleased, especially since hundreds of them are going to go to jail, branded as traitors, and the thousands more who did nothing worse than protest will be tarred with the same brush. I semi-joked the other day that Q was going to have to explain to his circus of freaks and psychotics that Donald Trump had sold out and joined the deep state conspiracy to destroy Donald Trump.<\/p>\n I\u2019m cautiously optimistic that when President Joe Biden enters the Oval Office (possibly to find a large mound of Donald\u2019s shit on the Resolute desk), it will be without major incident, and only a few inchoate demonstrations on the fringes of the military perimeter and around a few state Capitols.<\/p>\n As for Trump, he may be arrested the same day or at least detained on what we in California call a 5150; restrained because he presents a danger to himself and others. The Southern District of New York supposedly has a fire hose of criminal charges awaiting Trump. And that\u2019s just the beginning.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why Trump has been so desperate and so frightened that he\u2019s willing to destroy the country to remain in office: he faces ruin and prison the minute he stops being President. I have no sympathy: it\u2019s all self-inflicted, and he did immense damage to many people on the way.<\/p>\n If it weren\u2019t for the knee-jerk servility Americans have toward any self-proclaimed successful capitalist, Trump would have never been anything other than a bad joke, in and out of prison on various scams and petty thefts. I doubt people in general will learn from his example, although the lesson is immediate: wealth does not equate to wisdom, honesty, or decency. It never has, and it never will.<\/p>\n In the end, Trump, by becoming President, showed the world what he really was.<\/p>\n And we\u2019ll be paying for that for many years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Six Days Countdown to the end of the Trump era January 14th 2021 Even without the attempted coup at the Capitol last week, everyone would be on tenterhooks right now. While the threat of any significant violence strikes me as overblown\u2014Gravy Seals and Meal Team Sucks against 20,000 police, National Guard and the Army\u2014there\u2019s little … <\/p>\n