Despite The Repugnant Horror, T-Rump Will Not ‘Simply Go Away’

January 16, 2024

In just a couple of weeks of a new year, we’ve gotten a tally on how shitty this election coming to ground already is going to be — here this Tuesday afternoon, last night’s Iowa frozen votes reveals the T-Rump is running the show. Despite all the actual horror of the Orange Turd, he’s not going away.
And from the same source: Such an ugly mug to have shoved in your face for the next forever

Reality check by Charles P. Pierce at Esquire this morning:

Let us be completely honest. There is no silver lining to the results of Monday’s Iowa caucuses. What coverage I watched on TV—truth be told, I watched far more of Baker Mayfield than of Steve Kornacki on Monday night—seemed focused on desperate crawling toward a mirage of hope through a democratic republic turned into some godawful hybrid half-Arctic and half-desert. Look at all the Republicans who didn’t vote for El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago, they told us, failing to mention that 99.99 percent of those renegade hayshakers will vote for him enthusiastically come November. Trying to draw any conclusions from the collective decision of 100,000 Iowans willing to scuttle through frozen wastelands to high school gymnasiums in a state run exclusively through god-bothering white people is a fool’s game.

[…]

In addition, look at the results with, and you will pardon the expression, a cold eye. This is the first time that a candidate ever broke 50 percent of the caucus vote, and the former president* won by the largest margin in Iowa caucus history. In 2016, his campaign at this stage was the mere semblance of a campaign. (On the day of the 2016 New Hampshire primary, his headquarters in downtown Manchester was an empty storefront.) Somebody in that operation this time knows their onions about field organizing this time around. This, I find unsettling.

Unsettling? Shit face with a note T-Rump can look like ‘“a Tupperware container after you microwave spaghetti and meat sauce in it,”‘ yet so terrible he’s a national nightmare:

Unfortunately, that although the tanning cream can easily be wiped clean the tedious political functions make T-Rump long-lasting: ‘“It is boring,” New Hampshire GOP strategist Dave Carney said. “It’s technically open, but it’s really running against a two-time presidential nominee.”‘

And after Iowa, there’s New Hampshire and the horror of the T-Rump continues. Whatever has been reported/said about the end of the T-Rump — despite all the legal shit — he’s just not going away:

Molly Jong-Fast at Vanity Fair this afternoon with a depressing look at the nasty, cruel staying power of the Orange Turd — it’s a possible scenario for America that sucks:

If there is one fantasy we in American political life are the most guilty of, it’s the delusion that Donald Trump will simply go away. I remember the first time someone suggested to me that Trump would magically disappear. It was shortly after the election that he was surely going to lose. (You remember the 2016 election, right? Just one day out, Hillary Clinton was leading Trump by nearly six points in the RealClearPolitics polling average—and then, poof, a shocking upset.) Well, a New York friend who knew Trump told me he would hate being president—after all, the White House was small and old. Trump was used to golfing whenever he wanted and flying off to Palm Beach, Florida. He would hate DC, with its lack of glamour, and yes, golf. I remember feeling slightly better after this conversation. Of course Trump would hate being president! Of course Trump would quit! And I wasn’t the only person lulled into such a dream, as before Trump won the race, people were betting he’d drop out of it.

Four years later, after Trump decisively lost the presidential election to Joe Biden, an anonymous senior Republican official was still in fantasyland, infamously telling The Washington Post, “What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change. He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.”

[…]

Despite two impeachments, 91 criminal counts, and numerous civil cases, Republicans are once again falling in line behind Trump. “Little Marco” Rubio, who once called Trump a “con man,” endorsed the former president on the eve of the caucuses, where it was clear Trump would win handily. In another display of cowardice and craven political calculus on Sunday, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum—who once said he wouldn’t do business with Trump, because “you’re judged by the company you keep”—backed the former president. “I’ve seen President Trump and what he’s been able to do,” he told a crowd in Indianola, Iowa. “I’ve seen it as a business leader, and I’ve seen it as a governor. I’ve seen the difference that President Trump can make.” Even New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu, who has backed Haley and spoke for months of the need for a GOP alternative to Trump, said he’d support him even if convicted of a felony. “I think most of us are all going to support the Republican nominee—there’s no question,” Sununu said. And those are the people who weren’t already full-on MAGA.

[..]

Donald Trump, in other words, is not going away. Some Republicans can continue to entertain the fantasy that he will get bored or fall victim to “actuarial arbitrage” due to, say, his age or health. And big-money donors like the Koch network can continue to try for a Hail Mary with Haley. But here’s the problem: Even if Haley magically won Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, Trump could run as a third-party candidate; he and his MAGA base would still be looming over her.

After all, the former president is running to stay out of jail, and few things are more motivating than the fear of imprisonment. So there is no wishing Trump away. Joe Biden must beat him again, like he did in 2020. And even then, we have to pray that Trump will finally abstain from political life and slink quietly off to golf in Palm Beach for the rest of his days.

And the short days are quick — he’s not going away even if the voters die:

Go away, or not, yet once again here we are…

Image out front is my favorite of the T-Rump mugs, though, ‘favorite‘ does not mean in any form or fashion, as in, ‘my favorite movie,’ or ‘my favorite song.’ It’s more of an anti-appreciation/like.

And aptly titled, ‘Basic Shapes,‘ by caricaturist/illustrator Chong Jit Leong (and found here), it’s an image that displays the elemental form of a purloined sociopath — a bloated profile of flatulent bile and arrogant ignorance.

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