Trump can’t stop campaigning
The United States of America is plum tuckered out.
On the days leading up to the presidential election, it was quite common to hear weary political-watchers announce, “I’ll be glad when this thing is over.”
Well, it’s over.
But the weariness isn’t.
The drag on the county’s energy commenced on the day that Donald J. Trump announced his run for the presidency.
“They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people,” Trump said of the people Mexico is, supposedly, sending to the United States.
Since then, there’ve been a steady stream of Trump insults that have ignited furious discourse that has helped to further divide this already divided country.
The insults have piled up.
So many, that in October and in December the New York Times famously compiled a list of the “289 People, Places and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter.”
There had been hopes that the insult-tweets would stop when Trump won the presidency.
They have not, because Trump hasn’t stopped campaigning.
He’s become a sore winner.
His recent attacks on Civil Rights icon John Lewis indicates that he’s no longer fighting Hillary Clinton. He’s campaigning against anybody who questions his legitimacy.
This from the man who for five solid years questioned the legitimacy of the nation’s first black president.
John Lewis only made one statement. While Trump, on the other hand, spent years trying to create doubt about Obama’s birthplace.
Lewis won’t be the last victim of one of Trump’s “campaigns,” since he’s being a perpetual campaigner/complainer.
That’s probably why, on the days leading up to Trump’s move into the White House, his approval ratings slumped to as low as 37 percent.
More than two months after millions of Americans went to the polls, they’re seeing that election day didn’t lead to a feeling of finality.
Instead, Trump has made sure he rubs his victory in our faces – daily.
During the 587 days since Trump rode down that escalator at Trump Towers, there’ve only been a few days when he’s not been at the center of some controversy.
Most have been self-inflicted.
And there are real trouble signs on the horizon.
The Office of Governmental Ethics has announced it will keep a close eye on Trump’s business dealings, and whether they could conflict with his presidency.
There’s also investigations by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, with serious concerns about the possibility that there may have been a link between his campaign and Russia.
There’s the report that the FBI and five other governmental agencies have been trying to determine if there had been any connections between money from the Russian government that may have helped get Trump elected.
Then there’s the Department of Justice’s Inspector General, with its investigation that will look into the role that the FBI, and its director, James Comey, had with its investigations into Clinton’s email habits.
The thin-skinned Trump might only see that as, yet, another assault on his legitimacy.
With all of the brewing controversies swirling around Trump, it’s no wonder that the Irish bookmaker, Paddy Power, is laying odds (4-1) that our new president will get himself impeached. The odds are even higher (7-4), that he’ll leave office before his term ends in four years.
I’m reminded of the final scene of that award winning 1976 Watergate film, “All the President’s Men.”
While Richard Nixon is on the television screen in the foreground, taking his oath of office for his second term, the legendary investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are in the background, diligently typing away.
They’re writing stories that would eventually help bring Nixon down.
He would resign in shame, of his self-inflicted treachery one year, and seven months later.
I’m not making a direct connection between Trump and Nixon.
Although both Trump and Nixon share (shared) the similar tendencies to attack the news media, when its merely doing its job.
And oh, Trump, like Nixon has a dark side that only the people who supported him can’t see.
Thus, the country is plum tuckered out.
Edward A. Owens is a three-time Emmy Award winner and 20-year veteran of television news. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net