Donald Trump is an (alleged) lifelong criminal who, for some bizarre reason, still hasn’t faced justice. Could be that everyone already knows what a crook he is and they just shrug it off—sort of like when they find a stray hair in their Arby’s. Hey, it’s effing Arby’s. What’s the difference, really? Just eat around it.
So Donald Trump, who would likely qualify as the Arby’s of presidents if Arby’s had ever attempted to overthrow the U.S. government and install an autocratic family dynasty, is continually held to a lower standard by the press and the nation as a whole.
Joe Biden could fire up a blunt on the White House lawn while barbecuing a passel of pandas and the nation’s last remaining freeze-dried Roswell aliens, and he’d still have some catching up to do to match the lurching lawlessness of the Trump administration. If Hillary Clinton sneezes, the media instantly starts asking about funeral arrangements.
Meanwhile, Trump could show up to work every day looking like a mesh bag full of beluga earwax and sweating like Nixon’s nuts during debate prep, and those same media folks would scarcely blink.
So when we hear still more about Trump’s scofflaw tendencies and above-the-law posturing, it hardly registers. But it fucking well should, now shouldn’t it?
In a Saturday story about Trump’s wacky adventures in deliberately mishandling top-secret government documents, The Washington Post noted that he’s pretty much always treated the law as an inconvenience—even going so far as to suggest he is the law.
“He would roll his eyes at the rules, so we did, too,” said Stephanie Grisham, the former Trump White House press secretary who has become an outspoken Trump critic since the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol. “We weren’t going to get in trouble because he’s the president of the United States.”
Grisham, the author of “I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw at the Trump White House,” recalled one instance in which she expressed concern about violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in some forms of political activity. Grisham said that Trump told her: “Who’s the boss of the Hatch Act? It’s me. So say whatever you want.”
Donald Trump doesn’t understand America, and he never has. We have these things called checks and balances. Our entire system of government is predicated on the separation of powers. We limit the authority of the president, who is—in theory, anyway—as beholden to our laws as any other citizen.
Trump never bothered to learn this stuff, because he obviously doesn’t care. Which means he doesn’t care about this country or much of anything it stands for—unless flag-humping somehow replaced representative government as the linchpin of our republic when no one was looking.
Oh, and because Trump is all projection, all the time, we get little morsels like this:
And in 2020, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ripped up a copy of Trump’s State of the Union address after he delivered it, Trump seemed to exhibit at least some awareness of the Presidential Records Act, incorrectly claiming Pelosi had committed a crime.
His exact quote? Get ready, because you won’t fucking believe this: “I thought it was a terrible thing when she ripped up the speech,” Trump said. “First of all, it’s an official document. You’re not allowed. It’s illegal what she did. She broke the law.”
Okay, Captain Projecto. Clearly you retain some rudimentary understanding of the law. You just think it doesn’t apply to you. Uh-huh. That’s exactly what we need in our next president.
Someone please lock up this maniac, before it’s too late.
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