It was a busy week for the provocateur-in-chief even by his grotesque standards. Pick your offended targets:
Blacks and supporters of Black Lives Matter protesting police brutality and systemic discrimination;
An elderly, injured-by-Buffalo-police protester accused of being a member of Antifa;
Military leaders who criticized his use of troops to clear constitutionally permitted protest across from the White House so he could have his picture taken in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church;
Episcopalians and Catholics vexed by his photo op performance holding a Bible;
Anyone who believed military bases named for traitorous Confederate generals should be renamed;
Professional football and soccer leagues for permitting athletes to express political dissent;
Nascar for banning Confederate flags;
LGBTQ community for being denied Obama-era health patient protections;
The media for questioning his many actions;
Abraham Lincoln for not doing enough;
And of course Joe Biden and Democrats for everything they do.
Donald Trump did, however, try to put to rest the fear among his detractors that he would barricade himself in the White House should he lose the election November 3.
“Certainly, if I don’t win, I don’t win,” Trump declared on Fox News in an interview with Harris Faulkner. “You go on, do other things” (https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/12/trump-says-will-leave-office-peacefully-if-he-loses-315736?cid=apn).
Of course, given his footloose and fancy free track record with the truth the liar-in-chief cannot be trusted on his word. Skepticism is called for.
Removed from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by force or tradition January 20, the provocateur-in-chief will not go gently into the night.
He will turn into an agent-provocateur unrestrained by any protocols of office (as if he ever was) to dispense bilious dissent and conspiracy theories as the featured anchor of a cable television network.
Probably not Fox. Either one of his own creation or OAN, One America News Network, a far-right pro-Trump cable channel founded by Robert Herring, Sr., owned by Herring Networks, Inc. of San Diego. OAN is well-liked and often cited by Trump for its conspiracy theory stories. OAN is not considered to be reliably truthful.
A deposed Trump will seek to keep the divisions in our country red hot, thwarting any chance Biden might have to forge harmony among the citizenry and our traditional international allies. Trump will act not as a dedicated, doctrinaire Conservative Republican but rather as a vindictive egotist seeking revenge for his ultimate humiliation.
A chair in front of a cable TV camera would stoke his goal of recapturing the seat behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. As a one term president the 74-year-old would be eligible to run again in 2024. Biden has shown a candidate who would be 78 years old when taking the presidential oath is not disqualified by voters.
Neither would a conviction for tax fraud or any other felony bar Trump from holding federal office again. Even if in prison he could run. Aside from his cable gig Trump could also try for the U.S. Senate from his new state of residence, Florida.
Sadly, the cult of Trump will linger as long as The Donald and his three henchmen eldest children stay in the public eye. Trump has sucked the soul out of the GOP.
Short of a cataclysmic election debacle the Republican Party has cast its foreseeable future with a modern day Dracula and his offspring, both biological and ideological.
