Peak Trump

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A man works tirelessly for months, acquiring parts, assembling them, making a machine that grows larger every day and eventually takes the intended form. Eventually it is ready. He rolls the machine to the edge of a cliff, climes into a makeshift chair near the center of it, and with help from his neighbor (who we may assume does not like him too much), pushes off.

And it flies!

For the first time ever, a human being has created a machine that flies! As the machine soars through the air, the man’s hat flies off and his scarf stiffens out behind him, and he can feel the sting of the wind on his face!

But wait, hold on a second. The “flying” machine is not really flying. It only seems like it is flying. What it is actually doing is plummeting. It is, verily, a “falling” machine. And even as the machine dives rapidly towards the ground — perhaps less rapidly than, say, a rock, because it does have some aerodynamic properties, sort of — parts start to fall off and fly in random directions. The sense of flight was real, and astounding, but it only lasted several seconds, then after that, nothing but horror and fear, then the crash.

There are other analogies that work as well. Anything you throw up in the air (while standing on a planet’s surface) appears to act in defiance of gravity. For a while. Then it reaches a certain point, the apogee, and stays there for a moment, hovering as though gravity does not matter. The ultimate defiance of gravity. Then gravity. Gravity will not be defied or denied, and the thing comes back down to earth. You can flail and windmill your arms all you want, the thing you threw up, as it must by every ounce of Newtonian physics and every adage ever uttered, come down.

Peak flying machine. Peak rubber ball. Peak Trump.

There is a time when the edifice of lies can persist. Those who never believed the lies are forced to be careful about what they say. Those responsible for reporting on the lies seek alternative views. Those unsure of the lies remain unsure. Gravity is defied, the machine holds, the thing keeps going.

Then there is a time, later, when the lies have almost all been exposed, and a sufficiently detailed narrative describing the underlying motivations is revealed. There is no going back once that happens. A would-be aircraft on its way to the ground is as good as crashed before it has actually crashed. It is like in those old movies where they guy says “You’ve killed me” right after being shot, then dies. His statement is not really premature. “We’re going down” might as well be “We’ve crashed.” Gravity is not going to take a vacation and let your red rubber ball hover for any more time than the allotted moment.

I am not sure if today is Peak Trump, but I know we are near Peak Trump.

The fiction that the Republican Congress is a check or balance died today, though many knew it was as good as dead for months.

The best shot they’ve got to exonerate trump turns out to be screaming loudly about how the FBI and the Justice Department did their jobs, and did it legally! That, the Nunes Memo, is a self inflicted blow that knocked off an entire win.

The anchoring document for the Russia investigation, only part of the story but a key touchstone to all of it, the Steele Dossier, is now generally accepted as the valid tip of a totally legit ice berg.

Mueller’s team probably just flipped a key witness, and most of the bad guys are either interviewed or scheduled for interview.

The publication of a tell-all book, which has retained credibility has provided an excellent story framework for myriad and confusing reporting over the last year and a half.

There is a lot we don’t know, but it does not matter if Donald Trump sat down with Manefort and Putin and plotted this all out, or if it is more like Trump and the Oligarchs have been doing dirty deals for decades, and then Trump accidentally becomes President so some of the good ol’ boys make a move to placate Russian creditors. Either way, or somewhere in between, it is all illegal, and badly illegal.

By mid December it was true that most Americans knew Trump has done illegal things. Trump’s approval/disapproval numbers flat-lined six months ago in a very bad place. There wasn’t even a SOTU bump that stands out above the background noise. The whole scandal has been in “hanging motionless in the air” mode for several months now, ready to go down.

The Nunes Memo will enrage the law enforcement community and strengthen the resolve of the investigators, and display to the entire country that Trump has no real case to make. The Hicks revelations put the final nail in the collusion coffin. “The emails showing you obstructed justice are not a problem, because no one will see them,” to paraphrase that. Gates may have flipped and could turn his not guilty plea to a guilty plea at any time. The old saw, “You can’t indict a president” has been tossed aside (it was never true) and now we have talk of actually indicting Trump. The majority of Americans are demanding that Trump be interviewed by Mueller under oath. Could the metaphorical train wreck that is the Republican party be any more of a train wreck? (Well, ok, maybe it can be.)

And the people are ready to flood the streets if anyone touches Mueller.

At this point, Trump’s case can not be repaired or reversed. The falling machine can not be made to go up. It is all down from now on. We are so close to Peak Trump that we might as well declare it as February 2nd, 2018.

Looking forward, I suspect that in the very near future, there will be a major manifestation of Mueller’s move against Trump. Perhaps we’ll call that the Valentine’s Day Massacre. You’ve gotta figure an old FBI man like Mueller is going to have a certain sense of timing.

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16 thoughts on “Peak Trump

  1. I really hope you are right. It is important that Trump go but it will not be a real victory for — dare I say — the forces of good until and unless the whole slimy bunch of Republicans are shown for ethically-bankrupt opportunists that they are.

  2. The very act of Trump releasing that memo, containing demonstrably false information, can only be viewed as an attempt to subvert justice. By doing so he has given Mueller pretty much all he needs (in conjunction with what he already has) to indict on charges of Obstruction of Justice.

    1. Doug: I downloaded and read both the Senate memo and the Steele dossier. I do not understand your comment about the memo containing “demonstrably false information”. Please specify and elucidate.

      The Steele dossier may (or may not) contain reliable information. But it is made up of hearsay and double hearsay, with sources unidentified (except as A, B etc) and unvetted. I am anxious to see how all this plays out. Americans like me want to see the truth as best we can get it.

      I did not vote for Trump in the primaries, but did vote for him (actually, voted against Hillary) in the fall. The left was so sure that Hillary was going to win that when she lost it went berserk. And still is a bit loony. Chances of impeaching and convicting Trump (remember that Bill Clinton was impeached by the House but not convicted by the Senate) are next to nil. Realistically.

      And, having worked in DC for an agency, it does not surprise me that political bias could and probably does influence decisions made by the workers. But, as President Obama said, elections have consequences. All of us have inherent biases that will affect our decision making, and appointees/hirees of a particular administration will always lean in that direction. It is another thing altogether for an agency blatently to attack the newly elected leader.

  3. could happen- Lucien Truscott- an old reporter from the Watergate era [he helped expose Bebe Rebozo’s “bank” – AKA money laundering front] wrote: “See a pattern here? Resignations. Firings. Indictments. Hearings. Special prosecutor. Leaks. Media hordes. And all over Washington, D.C., offices filled with eager beaver investigators burrowing into every corner of the Trump campaign, the Trump transition, the Trump White House and Trump’s business empire.”

    A parallel story Arc insists that Mueller will keep handing the NY AG tons of evidence with which to prosecute via the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act – which by triggering an immediate asset forfeiture could well drain Trump, Kushner and possibly Pence and Sessions -as their positions would be too exposed for banks to bet on…. this Arc suggests its the same strategy used to bring down other gangsters: Gambino and Gotti…. no impeachment- just a bleeding into bankruptcy and or prison time. Now wouldn’t THAT be special?

    1. With Gates flipping [for EXACTLY the reasons those old gangsters copped a plea- gonna get very very expensive] and Manafort now faced with A] decades of hard time or B] hoping Oleg Deripaska, a Russian aluminum magnate close to Putin to whom he owes millions will not , ahem. “collect”…. the RICO story arc [above post] I saw a few weeks back has decidedly more credibility….

      BTW- Love how all these asswipes who keep telling poor folk that “you just don’t work hard enough” are ALL grifter and swindlers! [guess they meant “you didn’t work your con hard enough] ….Manafort : $300K in unpaid credit card debt so he can have his 4 Range Rovers. Just one more pig at the trough.

  4. And so now this shitbag “running” the country states that the members of the Democratic party who didn’t stand and clap for him were “Un-American” and that it was treason.

    “Somebody said treasonous,” he said. “I mean, yeah, I guess, why not. Can we call that treason? Why not?” I mean they certainly din’t (sic) seem to love our country very much

    You have to wonder what the low-lifes who support him make of the “if you don’t support the president you’re committing treason” crap.

    1. It doesn’t seem strange to me. I think that in Trump’s mind, he believes that he IS now the country so therefore not cheering him is disrespecting the country.

      If he was surprised that he is not an adored figured as POTUS, he must never have read or been told anything about how George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and many others were talked about – even vilified during their tenures as president.

  5. If the Dow Jones ever falls more than 1000 “points” in a Single Day the sitting president should be “loaded” into a very big cannon and Shot into the sun at TREMENDOUS SPEED! No excuses!

    (random punctuation and capitalization in the original)

    Donald. J. Trump
    @realDonaldTrump

    12:27 AM, 25 Feb 2015

    1. Author of this joke:
      “Naively thought it too ridiculous to be believable. Says a lot, really. Was going to delete it but it was everywhere within minutes: feels like I need to leave it up in its place of birth.”

  6. He might not have said that about the Dow-Jones but he did apparently said something recently like a government shutdown would be fine if he didn’t get want he wanted from Congress. I guess he doesn’t know (care?) about the consequences to people, of that — even people who may have voted for him.

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