It’s been about a month since I wrote “Predictions About Trump: Cheating the Election,” so what the hell, it’s time for another Trump corruption update!
<Loud groans>
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m not happy, either. I predicted that Trump would attack our democracy viciously, hoping to split us into factions small enough for him to crush, one by one. It’s the only way Trump can hold onto power since we know he’ll lose any vaguely fair election.
So, this is my update, checking in on the Trumpian criminality.
The Story So Far
As my recap, consider these elements:
- President Donald Trump only cares about himself narcissistically.
- The center of Trump’s universe is himself. He has very few ethical restraints.
- The American President disdains the American democracy, ridiculing the rule of law.
- The President already betrays our allies and cozies up to our enemies.
- Trump admires authoritarians and mimics their actions.
- He ridicules our military and any sacrifice for a greater cause.
- Trump has been purging anyone not loyal to him personally, and the purges are accelerating.
- The Republican Party will back any Trump action no matter how heinous.
- Unless there’s a miracle, Donald Trump will lose any legitimate election.
- If Trump loses his office, many things happen:
- Trump loses his protection from prosecution.
- A newly minted Citizen Trump has no value to Russian President Putin, who will stop protecting him. The train of sweetheart loans and business deals will dry up.
- Trump is a fraud, and the entire “Trump Empire” is underwater. Donald’s looking at financial ruin.
While Trump isn’t as cornered as he fears, he’s not smart enough to himself get out of this. If he gets desperate…. No, Trump won’t wait that long. If Trump gets antsy, he’ll start breaking everything we cherish. He’ll do anything to delay the people chasing him.
Past Predictions
I’m a lousy psychic, but a month ago, I suggested a few options:
Trump Will Invent an October Surprise.
I said Trump would rush out a ‘vaccine’ just before the election.
Update: Trump told the states to prepare for a Coronavirus vaccine by November 1st. Cool. And transparent, since it’s physically impossible for any of the vaccine candidates to be ready by then.
You try it first and let me know, OK?
Hatch Act Violations: Trump will use federal resources on his political campaign.
Update: Trump’s fake Republican Nationalist Convention was just the introduction. He’s using his cabinet officials as shills. Every official Presidential action references his re-election. And he’s still charging his Secret Service detail extra-high rates at his hotels.
Trump Will Continue Soliciting Foreign Interference.
Update: Still on track. I expected the White House to suppress the counterintelligence reporting on the foreign attacks on the election. I didn’t predict he’d stiff Congress on and refuse to brief House members at all. And everyone knows he’ll deny it all even as he solicits more.
Federal Paramilitary Troops: The Secret Policeman’s Ball.
I worried about Trump’s DHS-sponsored jump-out squads. White nationalists have deeply infiltrated the CPB and INS, but putting on secret uniforms and attacking American citizens was pretty Authoritarian. I expected more of this.
Update: I should have given the neo-Nazi goons more priority. Trump is holding the feds back and spinning up his pocket White-Nationalist gangs instead. Dehumanization was his signature election platform. Our President is encouraging his brown-shirts to ‘defend America,’ so the death threats have escalated into ‘protection’ killings. Those will get much worse when Trump pushes these KKK-wannabes to shoot all those brown and black people that scare them so much. Imagine the violence when Trump tells his mob they need to monitor all the polling places, ballot drop-boxes, and mail offices.
Attack the Election.
Republicans began attacking free and fair elections decades ago. Trump has been attacking Presidential elections since 2015. It’s no surprise he’s already undercutting the legitimacy of the 2020 election. He’s softening his ‘base’ for the next step.
Update: Completely depressing. Trump’s continuous attacks are working well. Recent polls show that a majority of self-identified Republicans already believe the election will be ‘rigged.’
Deny the Election Results
Trump already denies polls he doesn’t like. It’s part of Donald’s long-running feud with reality. There’s no question whether Trump will deny he’s lost an election. He’ll deny the methodology, shriek about how unfair it was to him, and ignore any result where he loses the race.
Update: Nothing new, but the punditry has been jumping onto this possibility as if Trump’s wide butt was the worst thing we’ll face.
OK, yes, that is a disturbing image. But no, Trump dispatching federal troops to gather and ‘protect’ ballots will be the worst case. His not acknowledging the election is still severe, though. And, in case you wondered, when Trump refuses to accept the results, there is no police force to frog-march Trump out the door.
New Illegality
Voter Fraud
All Trump’s caterwauling about voter fraud didn’t stop him from instructed his followers to vote twice. That was a surprise. I mean, I expected him to cheat, but this is Trump, so he has to tell his cult to commit felonies in front of the TV cameras. (Trump TV, of course, slobbered over his shoes, loyally insisting their god was only kidding because he’s such a political genius.) Intentionally voting twice is serious voting fraud. Even Trump’s suggestion his people cheat is itself a felony. All while the Trump Party campaigns on LAW and ORDER!!!
Destroy the Official Government Record
I should have seen this one coming. From the beginning, Trump habitually destroyed paper records when he didn’t need them. His staff told him it was a felony under the Presidential Records Act. You can’t destroy important documents. Trump kept tearing them up anyway, of course. There are stories that his staff assigned someone to fish the torn paper from his trash can and tape them back together. Ah, the good old days when America was still great.
We recently began getting reports that ICE was shredding their documented history wholesale, presumably to escape prosecution later. And it’ll probably work. It’s much harder to piece together what this administration did without documents. And I assume Trump is working super-hard to destroy any records of his actions and his guilt.
Cripple the Rule of Law
Overcoming the legal system is a critical stage for any Authoritarian-in-training. The Republicans have been stacking the courts for decades with this in mind.
Remember when a big pundit game was to draw imaginary lines that Trump couldn’t cross? “If the President breaks <that rule>, well, by gum, that’ll be a Constitutional Crisis!” And each time he crossed that line of criminality, we just sat there, numbly. The pundits called for outrage, and we were already there, but nothing changed. Trump and his Republicans have been immune to shame since I was a kid. What were we supposed to do about it? They didn’t say. Instead, the pundits regrouped behind the next line they were sure he wouldn’t cross.
Will Trump call for political prosecutions? He did that before the 2016 election with “Lock her up!” Prosecute his political opponents? He has Attorney General William Barr hard on that one. Use the Presidency for personal gain? Old hat. Strong-arm our allies for favors? He’s done it, gotten the Impeachment pin, and was barely ruffled
The pundit’s last critical ethical line was that Trump wouldn’t violate a final court order. “That’ll be a real Constitutional Crisis!” they all said, nodding at each other. Except no, not so much. In June, Trump lost his appeal in the Supreme Court. The highest court ordered Trump to re-start DACA applications. All the papers said that decision was a critical victory for immigrant communities. So why doesn’t anybody mention that the administration didn’t follow that court order? All they had to do was open DACA applications again, but instead, they’re still ‘thinking about it.’ For what, three months and counting. Yes, Virginia, the Trump Administration is disobeying a Supreme Court order. DHS is still rejecting all new applications.
And, of course, Trump uses his pardon power in openly corrupt ways.
That seems like he’s pushed the bulk of our Rule of Law tradition down the tubes. The only thing left is arresting judges who issue anti-Trumpian verdicts. Maybe I shouldn’t give him ideas.
Crush the Independent Press
I think I missed the continuing attacks on the press because the whole thing is so essentially Trumpian, it’s faded into the intellectual background. Trump hates independent reporting. Donnie is a guy who rails at Fox News/Trump TV for being insufficiently loyal. Trump put his loyalist in charge of the Voice of America (VOA), and now that guy is firing and expelling every foreign reporter who worked for the service. No wasting money on critical, on-the-ground reporting here! Why bother!
Having a news service you don’t control is an open risk if you have too many secrets to hide. Trump never cared for anyone outside of Trump, much less foreign opinion. Besides, keeping the world informed won’t help Trump get re-elected.
And now our President is closing the Stars and Stripes military newspaper. Yes, it’s personal for Trump. Kill a newspaper that’s beloved by our service members? He doesn’t care. He’s already called everyone in military service losers and suckers; it’s not as if he ever respected the idea of service.
On the one hand, “Stars and Stripes” holds strong bipartisan support. The paper covers military issues better than anyone else. And it’s cheap to run; the news budget is a small blip on our gargantuan military budget.
On the other hand, it reports truthfully and independently. Trump can’t allow that, so he specifically singled out that one program for termination.
What’s next? DOJ-run libel lawsuits again individual news outlets? Antitrust prosecutions against holding corporations?
Think Ahead; There’s Much More Coming
So that’s my Trump corruption update so far. The key is to anticipate Trump ahead of time, so we’re not caught flat-footed when Trump does something terrible. And who knows? Maybe we’ll be lucky, and he won’t do more than fuss and fume. He hates the job, so you’d think he’d lose graciously. The problem is that, now that he has that tiger by the tail, he doesn’t see how he can let it go.
