Hundreds of saucy adjectives and other descriptors have been judiciously applied to the wanton, droopy wad of id that is Donald Trump, and since I made hating the ocher abomination my principal hobby around about the summer of 2015, I’ve used just about every one of them. (For the record, my favorite is still probably “off-brand butt plug.”)
But there’s one adjective that needs to become standard usage in any discussion of Trump, and it’s long past time the mainstream media start using it.
That adjective is … disgraced.
It’s a word that does a lot of heavy lifting. By no means does it tie all his awfulness up in a neat little package—but it does go a long way toward summarizing his thankfully brief and yet regrettably long tenure as America’s worst president and most ardent purveyor of discomfiting beef smells.
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Forget about everything that happened while he was cosplaying as president—as unforgettably awful as it was. Disgraced former President Donald Trump crossed the Rubicon so many times as an elected official, the press started holding him to a lower standard of decent human conduct. But his actions since November 2020 are what really set him apart.
He. Tried. To. End. American. Democracy. And. He’s. Still. Doing. It.
And yet somehow—unfathomably—the U.S. media continue to treat him as a viable 2024 presidential candidate, instead of as the sad-sack pariah he rightfully should be. Good God, people. Focus!
At the very least, as they ponder this rampaging beast’s return to polite society, the media could see fit to accurately describe him—and “disgraced” is the ideal descriptor. Full stop.
Too incendiary? Fuck that. To their credit, the media have not shied away from calling Trump’s laughable suite of stolen election claims “The Big Lie.” And yet they seem unwilling to pull out the big guns when it comes to the Big Liar himself.
What else can you possibly call an American president who—openly and deliberately—attempted to end our great American experiment?
Look, we’re all tired of this guy. Any reasonably lucid person would be. Mitch McConnell was reportedly giddy about Jan. 6 because he thought it had abruptly and decisively ended the Trump era. Even House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who singlehandedly launched Trump’s comeback tour when he scurried off to Mar-a-Lago in the wake of the Capitol coup to kiss the screeching yam salad’s slobbery ring, had thought Jan. 6 was a bridge too far. In short, he initially thought Trump had disgraced himself so thoroughly there was simply no way to rationalize his conduct.
In fact, Trump had done exactly that, but apparently the media want to be so “fair” they’ll drive us to the brink of literal fascism. Oh, we can’t say that! All the liars and deludenoids on the right will get mad at us! So we’ll just let the mountebank’s carnival roll through town a few more times without comment. It’s just the fate of Western liberal democracy at stake. No biggie.
Apparently, the media have suddenly decided we all get a vote on the truth or falsity of a claim. So they can’t inflame millions of citizens just because they’ve all lined up to lick the same hallucinogenic toad. Better to send another brigade of New York Times reporters to Bumbfuck, Missouri, to find out why they think the guy who telegraphed his election-theft fantasy for months before the election is actually the only genuine truth-teller out there.
While we’re at it, no political reporter worth his or her salt should ask Trump any question that isn’t about his Big Lie until he explains himself to the reality-based community’s satisfaction. (Spoiler alert: He never will … because he can’t.) Let him jibber-jabber about windmill cancer on his own time. The American people deserve an answer to one question and one question only—where’s the election fraud evidence, you clammy pan of Neapolitan clown smegma? (Note to Maggie Haberman: The “clown smegma” bit is optional, but I really recommend you embrace it, as it could only serve to burnish your “reputation.”)
Look, it’s simple: Trump lies all the fucking time and does so without any apparent discomfort or shame, as evidenced by the fact that he barely aged in office whereas I’m now forced to endure a bout of late-onset Jack Klugman face. But the Big Lie isn’t just another dopey Trumpian fib—it’s a genuine and existential threat to our democracy. And considering the breadth, depth, and import of Trump’s biggest-ever barrel of B.S., “disgraced” is actually a pretty tame descriptor.
The media know Trump is all about the Big Lie—and they know that the Big Lie is a truly disgraceful fabrication—and yet they refuse to say out loud what they all must be thinking: This is a thoroughly disgraced former president.
There’s simply no sugarcoating it. Trump, the former president, must be fully repudiated—and our mainstream media need to find the spine it takes to finally do that. Until that day comes, our country will be dead in the water, and we’ll be left waiting in agony for the hammer blow that will finish us.
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