Presently Pretty Petty

Watching the Trump unfold with a smile on my face.

I promised myself I wouldn’t pay much attention to the Trump trial. Unfortunately, it was a promise I am unable to keep. I’m paying a lot of attention to the trial. While I haven’t been obsessive, I still check in several times a day when court is in session.

Part of the appeal, I think, is seeing balloons go pop. Trump has forever been an overinflated and gaseous figure. There’s a palpable satisfaction seeing him deflated and degassed. (If you believe the reports of flatulence, which I do, in fact, choose to believe because given the options of Trump repeatedly farting in court and Trump not farting in court, I’m going to choose court-farting Trump every single time.)

There’s also a Sisyphean joy in watching him shamble to the microphone at the end of the day, puff himself up with fistfuls of Xeroxed articles about himself, only to see photos of him in court the following day, again hunched over and glum.

Do I seem petty? Well, I am. I’m presently pretty petty.

The fact is, this sociopath has been running roughshod over the American legal system for decades, lying and bullying his way through a career of bankruptcies and fraud before lying and bullying his way into the White House where he oversaw an abysmal administration of mismanagement, corruption, and the sorts of abuses of office that result in two impeachments.

This guy sucks.

So, yeah, I’m enjoying the show. But I also know the trial is only prelude to a campaign season that’s going to be as bad as anything we’ve seen. The only reason it won’t be worse is because Biden won’t respond in kind to Trump’s oratorical diarrhea fountain.

Hunched over, glum. Insert: smiley face emoji.

A question I have to ask myself: do I have so-called Trump Derangement Syndrome? Almost certainly, yes. Why wouldn’t I? Why wouldn’t everybody? The fact is, our last two Republican presidents have been among the worst presidents in the nation’s history. One of them lied us into a war, the other lied about everything, which ended up costing hundreds of thousands of Americans their lives during a botched pandemic response. I was deranged about Bush and I’m deranged about Trump.

It’s not like I’m so enamored with the Democrats, but at least I believe that most of them take their responsibilities seriously enough to actually perform the duties of governance. When you don’t have somebody who takes the job seriously at the very top, you wind up with psychos like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney calling the shots in the Bush administration, and no discernible voices of governance in the Trump administration. I mean, for god’s sake, Ivanka and her skeevy fucking husband worked there! Why?!? Why the fuck did Omarosa work there???

Because a nation of dingdongs keeps electing fuckwits.

Which is why this stupid criminal trial is bringing me some very small measure of solace. At least for the next few weeks, I can see the china shop bull contained. There he is, rumpled and glowering. He looks like a herpe.

Even better, his lawyers have already annoyed the judge to the point that he told them they are losing “all credibility.” This was before the trial was even fully underway.

Obviously, I don’t know what the result will be. I don’t even know if it’s a good case. One thing I am sure of: even if convicted, that man will never see the inside of a jail cell. They’ll suspend his sentence or allow him house arrest or something like that. They’re not going to let him become a martyr even if those of us suffering from the aforementioned derangement syndrome wouldn’t mind that at all.

For all I know, he’ll get convicted and still win re-election. As I said, nothing surprises me anymore. The nation is officially in crack-up mode. Or is it cracked-out mode? I can’t tell.

It's just a bummer that this is where we are, watching the first criminal trial of a former president. Half the country thinks he’s being unfairly prosecuted for political reasons. The other half doesn’t understand how this is only the first time our conman chief executive has ever failed prison time.

Whatever damage Russia and China have tried to do by undermining faith in our institutions, Trump has done a hundredfold. Nobody has denigrated or degraded the nation this badly since, well, since his Republican predecessor. Unlike W, who campaigned as a uniter, Trump has driven a splitter into the nation’s deepest fissures and pried them as far apart as he can for personal gain. Worse, for almost a decade now, his fans have cheered him on as he’s done it.

So yeah, I guess I’ll keep checking in on the trial. Hopefully, a jury of his peers will convict him, which will rally the people against him, and we’ll no longer have to deal with that cotton-candy-headed goon. But I don’t think so. Not for a second. Even so, it’s fun to pretend.