Short answer: he has no leash.
I don’t just mean that he can’t control himself on Twitter – which isn’t really true. He controls himself just fine. He just trolls the heck out of his opponents. Let’s face it. Donald Trump is no one’s idea of the Washingtonian presidential ideal.
But it’s also no longer the Eighteenth Century, sad to say. Still, Trump’s public persona is brash and biting. It’s easy to see why he has detractors on that score. But haters?
The so called ‘Deep State’ amounts to a huge number of bureaucrats and political elites who want to stay in power, thankyouverymuch. They harp on Trump’s failings but in truth, it’s doubtful that they care about his Twitter feed. The Deep State seems to be the actual source of the hate and it has nothing to do with Trump’s lack of tact.
It’s Trump’s lack of a leash that they can’t abide.
Trump is a billionaire in his own right. He doesn’t need campaign financing from the Federal government. Because he can fund his own campaign he can also do his own fundraising effectively. No need to go hat in hand to corporations or the Federal government. Trump just goes to the American people and they can fund him directly as they see fit.
Which means he has no one other than the American people to answer to for how he handles his office, the policies he enacts, and the stupid stuff he does. There’s no CEO that can call and ask for favors after reminding Trump of how much his corporation contributed to the campaign – most of Trump’s fundraising has been small donor.
Moreover, Trump is already rich and he did that in business, not politics. He doesn’t need a golden parachute for after he leaves politics. He doesn’t need to do the insider trading so common in the Congress. Trump isn’t beholding to corporate or state interests to cushion his income – and that’s the problem.
Most politicians leave Federal office with a dang site more money than they had coming in or that their salaries can readily explain. Oh, it’s perfectly legal – insider trading laws mostly don’t apply to Congress and the ethics laws are just impediments, not blockades. Campaign financing isn’t the real culprit here – but those big old war chests ain’t cheap and the donors financing them have, shall we say, expectations.
It adds up to Mr. Smith having more than just John Q. Public to answer to when he goes to Washington. Lots of money equals lots of strings. Which is great if you are a major corporation wanting to make sure regulations hurt your competition more than they hurt you or a long time politician wanting to make sure his junior doesn’t upset the gravy train. Those strings form a powerful leash.
A leash that Trump doesn’t have.
Trump is also a consummate businessman. He knows who his customers are and he acts accordingly. Well, Trump’s customers are those pesky populists who think the American people actually run this show. He also does business with the public, having the audacity to actually fulfil his campaign promises or at least give it a heck of a try.
That is NOT the kind of president a good, self serving, political elite wants in the White House, nosirree! Why, it’s as if Trump thinks he only answers to the American people!
Uh-oh.
Well, they couldn’t have that. So began the long slog of unfounded and flat out untrue allegations and a torrent of media hit jobs.
Must have really hurt when Trump won anyway in 2016.
Then it got personal. Trump is no saint. He doesn’t just take hits – he dishes them out. Worse, he had real people, not just bots, following him on Twitter. Accusations just provoked him. He never rolled over and begged for mercy and he never apologized to the PC Police.
Russia, Russia, Russia! Two years of a ‘scandal’ that proved completely false. Two impeachments, each more insane than legal. The incessant media drone of ‘the walls closing in’ and ‘racist’ and every other nasty thing they could think to call the President of the United States.
Meanwhile, the economy improved and Trump kept most of his promises. Still not a saint and won’t go down as the greatest president ever, not even in a more objective time, but certainly better than could reasonably be expected. Maybe even a tad better than most.
The elites lost their collective marbles. Trump didn’t have the capability to effect major changes after 2018. The smart move was to just block his policies and run a strong candidate in the next election. But blind with hate, that’s not what the Left and the Elites did.
Joe Biden hid in Delaware most of the summer of 2020. There’s no rational way he got more votes than Barrack Obama did in 2008 at the height of his popularity. If you believe that I’ve got some ocean front property in Tennessee I’ll sell you really cheap.
Not sure if the election shenanigans or nominating Biden was the stupidest thing the Democrats and their political elites did but the combination was suicidal. Biden is a train wreck who managed to mess up everything Trump did that had worked. It doesn’t even matter if not every disaster thereafter was his fault because the public is already convinced.
So, instead of taking the hit and being the anything but humble bigger man like an intelligent party, the Democrats yell, ‘hold my beer’ and start the January 6 Kangaroo Court. This somehow surprised them when it backfired.
Hate does that. It blinds you to reality. At this point, they are both desperate and so blinded by hate that a normally politically competent party has gone completely out of its collective mind.
The Mar-a-largo raid was just more icing on a cake that needs no more.
November 8 is coming. The conservative estimates are for a Republican ‘Red Wave’. I personally expect more of a bloodbath. The Democrats will lose the House and almost certainly the Senate unless something dramatically changes in the next 88 days. With that, the Deep State sees a very real risk that it, too, will be losing power sooner rather than later.
Hate and desperation don’t make for good decisions. Mar-a-largo was a great idea if you were trying to help Trump. At the moment Garland is too busy trying to save the FBI.
Debacle, thy name is Democrat.
Maybe, just maybe, you’d be better off without the hate. Trump isn’t Sauron to your Aragorn, Democrats. He’s more Frodo to your Gollum.
Only Trump uses meaner tweets.
