EERILY PRESCIENT: THE TRUMP POST-PRESIDENCY—YES, IT CAN GET WORSE
In June 2020 I published the following. While I’m shocked by how much I got right, I’m ashamed by my failure of imagination. It never occurred to me that the Fat Franco de Mar-a-Lago and his trailerpark traitors would have the audacity to actually attempt a violent overthrow of the constitutional order. My bad!
If history and the polls are any gauge, 2021 will begin with Donald Trump pulled from the Oval Office like a blood-gorged tick from a cat’s ear—gently, so his head doesn’t break off and cause infection. That assumes, of course, that he hasn’t mobilized the Boogaloo Bois to disrupt the election. Or that his accelerating dementia hasn’t prompted other members of the Oberkommand to invoke the 25th Amendment to allow Pence to run as an incumbent and bring America back to Jesus.
I know. A lot going on there.
Let’s just assume that Trump will leave office voluntarily, if not quietly or with dignity—neither is possible, even his most ardent brownshirts would agree—in January. Let’s further assume that the self-pardon he will surely grant is legally effective federally, and that it will take eighteen months or so for ongoing state investigations to crank up to the indictment stage. What will his post-presidency look like?
Past presidents, after leaving office, have devoted themselves to good works, like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and GHW Bush. Others have retired to modest lives in heartland America, like Truman. And all have observed the tradition that the former occupant stay out of the limelight and refrain from comment on the current incumbent.
Not gonna happen.
TRUMP TV: MY STOLEN PRESIDENCY
In the few months in which he retains the ability to make word-like sounds, Trump will never admit defeat. He will, rather, protest that he was deprived of victory by “very unfair” means, like votes being counted. In doing so, he will further incite trailerpark magahats, never students of civics, into believing that their man got done in by a coup and that the new administration is illegitimate. Proving that Putin got the deal of a lifetime when he invested in Donnie Ratpaws.
There is little doubt that during the transition, rather than cooperate with the incoming administration in the peaceful transfer of power, Trump will challenge the outcome with the frivolous lawsuits that have long been his weapon of choice. But worse, he with nothing to lose, there is no batshittery he will not tweet—Biden’s Pizzagate pedophilia, QAnon gibberish about Clinton’s cannibalism.
And worst of all, he will unquestionably use the time before he leaves to fire up his own media empire—the ultimate goal behind the stunt candidacy that to his own shock succeeded.
Briefly, he’ll just be a regular guest host on Tucker’s White Power Hour or Frau Ingraham’s Sturm und Drang. But by the time the vans have pulled away from 1600 Pennsylvania with everything that hasn’t been nailed down, Trump will have his own network. Expect his primetime shitshow to feature to feature a crawl showing the day and hour of his stolen second term as he parades a procession of alt.right conspiracists and Aryan wingnuts to discredit and defame the new administration and Congress.
But that won’t be enough. Networks survive on advertising. And no normal corporate PR flacks will want their brand associated with Trump. Oh sure, My Pillow will be there for him. And Depends. But he needs real money, and a lot of it.
TRUMP CONSULTING: GOP POLITICAL BLACKMAIL
It’s widely known that the reason for Trump’s reticence about his taxes is that he is broke. And the reason didn’t divest his holdings is that they’re basically worthless—overleveraged and overvalued. In order to live the elegant understated life of a West Virginia lottery winner, with gilded faucets and silk asswipe, he needs about a million dollars a month, cash money. Where to get it?
He certainly can’t get it from his adoring hardscrabble horde. Or can he?
Trump’s always demonstrated a feral understanding of the power of his base. He’s used it to club the few remaining principled Republicans into terrified submission. So why not monetize it?
It’s pretty simple. All he has to do is sign onto a campaign as a consultant for all the money the candidate can get. In return the candidate gets “advice” and an endorsement. If the incumbent won’t pay, then the primary challenger will. End of story.
Of course the “consulting” won’t stop at the water’s edge. There’s nothing to prevent Trump from selling state secrets in the guise of “advising” foreign governments. As in, “I wouldn’t put your missiles there.” Or, “You know I really wouldn’t make Kirilenko Foreign Secretary—loose lips.” And even though our allies as well as our enemies know Trump’s an Adderall-addled idiot with the attention span of an autistic terrier, there’s always the chance that he may have inadvertently learned something of value in four years in the White House.
That’s worth a lot of money.
But there’s something even worse. This would be the time for a drink.
TRUMP: THE CANDIDATE
He can run again.
The Constitution prohibits and President from serving more than two full terms. But there’s nothing requiring those two terms to be consecutive. It’s only happened once, in the case of Grover Cleveland. But it can happen. Trump can run again.
Not can—will. He has to. His malignant narcissism has been validated for four years in which he actually has been the most important man in the world. He can no more do without that than he can bronzer and whores. Witness his Tulsa escapade, in which he gladly will sacrifice dozens if not hundreds of toothless goobers to Covid for for a couple of hours of the adrenaline rush he lives for.
Oh, there’s no chance he’ll get to that second term. None. The only question is whether dementia or New York tax fraud charges get him first. But he can do a lot of damage before then.
And rest assured, he will.
