This guy doesn't give a shit about you.
Donald Trump is a hot mess of corruption, yet he still manages to skate clear of much political damage from it despite his consistent history of being a horrible human being on every conceivable level. While he is now almost certain to face impeachment for his actions in the Ukraine scandal, it’s still extremely unlikely that he will be removed by the Senate, since it would take the votes of 20 Republican Senators to achieve that. Thus far, there’s no indication that we can hope for more than four or five Republicans to flip on him (and I expect the number to be closer to zero).
Luckily, we have another opportunity to remove him from office coming up in less than a year. Hopefully we can learn from our mistakes the last time.
One of the big problems with the 2016 election was, ironically, that Trump was so covered in scandal, from his multiple sexual assault accusations, to his many business failures and likely tax evasion, to the fact that he is simply a raging asshole, that there was a loss of focus and little of it ultimately harmed him. Our candidate, on the other hand, suffered from exactly one completely made-up scandal that was covered obsessively in the weeks immediately prior to the election.
While Trump is still the most scandal-ridden candidate ever, he’s also the most scandal-ridden president ever. But I think if we try to exploit all of that, we run into the same problem again. My takeaway from all of this? Keep it simple.
The thread that seems to run through everything Trump does is that he is always acting in what he believes to be his own self-interest. He may claim to his ignorant crowds that he’s working for them, but there is actually zero evidence that he cares about anyone but himself. All of his actions as president only confirm that.
Although Trump continuously claims to have done more than any other president, except for more time spent golfing, that claim is preposterously false. Trump’s “accomplishments” amount to, a tax cut for corporations and rich people and the appointment of a bunch of unqualified reactionary judges to the federal bench. The rest of his actions can be lumped into the category of covering up for all of the corrupt and/or criminal actions his campaign and administration have conducted.
The tax cut, as many predicted, has been a major disappointment, except if you’re a rich person, even a pretend one like Trump, who has reportedly saved millions thanks to it.
As far as judges go, we now have a perjurer and the subject of multiple credible allegations of sexual assault sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court. But why did Trump choose Kavanaugh as his nominee when he had a whole list of Federalist Society-approved neo-fascists to choose from? Most likely it’s because he believes he can expect Kavanaugh to vote to protect him from any consequences of whatever illegal actions he committed or will commit as president.
At the end of the day, we’ve got a president whose actions are entirely based on enriching himself, or protecting himself against investigations or prosecutions. Whether it’s his firing of James Comey, admittedly done to shut down the investigation of his campaign's ties to Russia or his obsequiousness before Vladimir Putin (which is a likely prerequisite for getting Russia’s help in the 2020 election), his plan to have his own golf resort host the next G7 conference or the current Ukraine scandal, where Trump used taxpayer dollars appropriated by congress in an attempt to extort an ally into making a public announcement that they were investigating his political adversary, all of Trump’s actions are to benefit himself alone.
Donald Trump cares nothing for anyone but himself. He doesn’t know the meaning of public service or sacrifice. He famously avoided military service in Vietnam by making up a health condition and when asked during the campaign what sacrifices he had ever made in his life, claimed that he worked hard and created thousands of jobs. Of course Trump only hired those people to the extent that they could do work that enriched him personally and then repeatedly failed to pay them what they deserved.
Donald Trump doesn’t care about you. He only cares about himself. That should be the consistent, ongoing message we are sending to voters for the next year.
