Put a Fork in Donald Trump—the Ex-President Is Done
As bad as his political position looks today, it is only likely to get worse—and his imminent announcement of a presidential campaign is just another sign of his collapse.
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Mark it on your calendars. This was the week the meteoric political career of Donald Trump did what meteors often do and collided with planet Earth, leaving a large, ugly mark on the landscape.
The fact that Trump may soon announce his candidacy for the presidency in the days ahead is itself more of a sign of his political collapse than it is of any strength he may have. The first time he ran for president, he did it because he thought it would boost his brand. This time he is likely to do it because he thinks it may make him more difficult to prosecute. And because he can use it to mount one last big attempt to fleece his supporters.
Everywhere you looked this week there were stories that were the debris thrown into the air when Trump re-entered the atmosphere and, like all other space junk, turned into a bright orange fireball heading for oblivion. There were the revelations of White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to the Jan. 6 committee and the reactions to her shocking, credible stories of a demented president who actively wanted to lead an armed insurrection against the U.S. governments. There were the actions of the Trump Supreme Court, which may itself be seen over the next few decades as the place the cratering president left his ugliest, most lasting mark. There was also the sight of Trump’s successor in Europe undoing the damage the 45th president sought to inflict on NATO and redoubling the Western alliance’s commitment to containing the threat posed by Trump’s benefactor, Vladimir Putin. There was even a reminder left hanging in the air of the sleazoid past of America’s worst president with the sentencing of Ghislaine Maxwell for her participation in sex trafficking on behalf of the late Trump pal and party buddy Jeffrey Epstein.
You could not turn on a cable news show without seeing footage of the swirling remnants of Trump’s disastrous presidency, twisted character, and warped values.
The testimony of Hutchinson, poised and courageous as she was, was damning for both Trump and for his former White House colleagues. It revealed with new clarity and shattering details their involvement in a seditious conspiracy against a government they had been entrusted to lead. It also showed their cowardice in not publicly standing up to Trump or revealing what they knew to the Congress, as the former aide to Mark Meadows was doing.
Her testimony hit Washington and the U.S. political scene, also as large meteors can do, with the force of several atomic bombs. Even dyed-in-the-wool members of Team Trump began to abandon ship. They called it “damning,” “difficult to dismiss,” and “insane shit.” The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed saying Trump should not run in 2024. The right-leaning Washington Examiner ran an editorial headlined “Trump proven unfit for power again.” Trump’s former attorney Ty Cobb said, “If this isn’t an insurrection I don’t know what is.” Former Trump Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney wrote, “Things could get very dark for the former president” after Hutchinson’s testimony.
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