by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how it’s become commonplace for ex-TrumpWorld toadies to write a book then try to get validation in the liberal media as part of a book tour.
The latest person to do this is, crazy enough Stephanie Graham who was notorious for not only never holding a press conference as White House Press Secretary, but being very, very close to First Lady Melania Trump. Those two for years were extremely tight.
But, here we are.
She’s doing a book tour and she’s saying everything people like me believed to be true during the four years of Trumplandia hell we went through, only after it doesn’t matter anymore. The fact that she might get some sweet, sweet cash from selling books probably has something to do with her changing sides. But here’s something interesting that Olivia Nuzzi write about this whole situation.
All I can think of is how, post WWII, the actions of the Nazis were described as, on a practical basis, as pretty banal. In fact, there’s even a phrase, “the banality of evil” to describe the situation.
And, I think, that’s what’s going on with Trumplandia. A lot of people who should have known better acted in their personal best interests instead of the interests of the nation and grew so drunk in their access to power that they didn’t care at all about the damage they were causing. In, fact, I would say that was what was really going on with the extended clusterfuck that was the first Trump impeachment — the administration was so spinning out of control that everyone began to completely ignore not just norms, but the law. It was only when they got caught that they started feeling bad and quitting.
It definitely looks as though barring something unexpected that Trump is going to run again and “win” in 2024 because of Steve Bannon’s 20,000 “shock troops” fucking up the actual administration of elections on the local level. And, really, it could be that all of Trump’s bullshit is nothing more than a prelude to the main attraction of someone like Mike Flynn, or Ron DeSantis, or Josh Hawley, or Mike Pompeo or…the list goes on….being an American Putin once Trump cues them up to be his fascist successor.
At the moment, I think we’re going to slip peacefully into autocracy, but for the unknown of Trump. He’s such a fucking idiot that he, unto himself, could be the very thing that pushes into an otherwise avoidable civil war.
