Roxanne Tellier – And Then I Wrote

From time to time, people have accused me of ‘hating’ Donald Trump irrationally. But really, there’s nothing irrational about me hating the guy. I admit it, I despise him, and everything he is, has been, and currently represents. So should any free-thinking lover of progress, freedom, individual and civil rights, and most of all – democracy.

I might even argue that it’s irrational to LIKE the guy, since, no matter how hard you search, you are unlikely to find even one moment of his life, or one action that he has done, that has been in service of anything other than himself and his ego.

What’s to like? Go ahead, throw a dozen things you like about him at me, and I’ll knock them back to you with a rebuttal quicker than the most expensive ball player could do in his entire career.  You may not agree, you may not believe me, you may call it ‘fake news, ’ but at some point, and in the fullness of time, even his most devoted and loving acolyte will be soundly and permanently disabused of the idea that trump’s got anything but contempt and disdain for anyone but himself.

You don’t even have to take my word for it. At last count, pretty much all of the current best sellers listed in the nonfiction section were written by people who were, at one time, not only colleagues of the man, but counted themselves as faithful and loyal friends, even family. Right up until the day they were booted out the door, and trump told the press that he never met them, might have seen them in passing in the hall, but that he’d always considered them weak, stupid losers that he – as a form of noblesse oblige – had deigned to allow to sit in his regal presence for a short time.

The walrus-moustachioed John Bolton, formerly the late, unlamented National Security Advisor of the United States,  is the latest ex to literately spill the tea on his OrangeNess, ripping off the title “The Room Where It Happened” from the hit musical Hamilton, perhaps hoping that a little bit of the musical’s hipness would rub off on his tome.

The funny thing about Bolton is not that extravagant and clearly well-loved moustache, it’s that he’s disliked equally on both sides of the political scene. And while we’re all happy to snicker over the revelations the books has produced, despite it’s not even being available (supposedly – I’ve already got a pdf of it) until Tuesday, most people are planning to avoid actually BUYING a copy. The libraries will serve as the greatest resource for his wordy work, I have heard.

People resent that Bolton dragged his feet when asked to contribute to the pre-impeachment discovery sessions, waiting until offered a cool $2 million to tell the world what he really should have said then – that the president had not only committed the crimes with which he’d been charged, but several other impeachable offenses that the Democrats had not added to their suit. In fact, he was pretty snippy about the Dems not having done so, despite the fact that he had not actually given them any of the requested information.

Some would say that Bolton screwed Americans over twice – once as a trump appointee who failed to ‘tell all’ when his country needed him … and now as a very well-paid author of a ‘tell all.’

He’s joined the rogues gallery of cowards who laboured under trump, took his money, and then spilled their guts when their hearts were broken. Eventually pretty much every one of his handpicked, adoring cadre will have their own moment in the author spotlight. And these aren’t the ‘never trumpers’ .. they’re the die hard fans who grovelled under his feet.

History offers a plethora of examples of presidents who’ve clashed with their staff, but this deluge of those who once grovelled at his feet and kissed the ground upon which he walked, are now expecting us to believe that they’ve had an epiphany since being bounced from the White House. NOW they realize that he’s incompetent, incapable, and, yes, as bad as his critics said he was. NOW they want us to believe that they thought he was just fooling when he told them straight out that he was a snake.

Having bought back the souls they sold to trump to secure employment, they are now happy to sell their souls for a chance at political redemption, with the fat advances they’re receiving from publishers. And the public eats it up.

In 2020 alone, we’ve had Bolton’s book, along with a tome from Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig titled A Very Stable Genius, and a book written by trump’s niece, Mary L. Trump, whose axe to grind is titled Too Much and Never Enough; How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.

Last year saw six books, from everyone from Jim Acosta to Anonymous, Victor Davis Hanson, James Poniewozik, Rick Reilly, and Michael Wolff, which joined the thirteen books published in 2018, and the eighteen penned in 2017.

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who stood by while trump cut taxes on the rich, demanded an expensive and nonsensical border wall, and who turned a blind eye to cruel practices designed to hurt Muslims, immigrants and Dreamers nevertheless managed to release his “The Way Forward: Renewing the American Idea, “ in which he revealed that trump knew nothing about governing and operated on ‘knee-jerk reactions.”

Omarosa Maningault Newman, Trump’s former communications director for the Office of Public Liaison, and his token African American female, left us with “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House,” in which she revealed trump as a racist with no aversion to repeatedly using the “N-word” as he slimed people of colour behind their backs.

The list goes on and on …. Anthony Scaramucci, Sean Spicer, James Comey, Hope Hicks, H.R. McMaster, even convicted presidential campaign adviser Roger Stone – all have profited from their association with trump.

Tell all’s about trump are nothing new. In 1993, Harry Hurt III published “Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump,” an unauthorized biography that used parts of trump’s first wife, Ivana’s, divorce deposition to describe his cruelty.

“The part of the book that caused the most controversy concerns Trump’s divorce from his first wife, Ivana. Hurt obtained a copy of her sworn divorce deposition, from 1990, in which she stated that, the previous year, her husband had raped her in a fit of rage. In Hurt’s account, Trump was furious that a “scalp reduction” operation he’d undergone to eliminate a bald spot had been unexpectedly painful. Ivana had recommended the plastic surgeon. In retaliation, Hurt wrote, Trump yanked out a handful of his wife’s hair, and then forced himself on her sexually. Afterward, according to the book, she spent the night locked in a bedroom, crying; in the morning, Trump asked her, “with menacing casualness, ‘Does it hurt?’ ” Trump has denied both the rape allegation and the suggestion that he had a scalp-reduction procedure. Hurt said that the incident, which is detailed in Ivana’s deposition, was confirmed by two of her friends.”

At some point, even the most fervent supporter has got to see that there is indeed something about trump, and it’s disgusting. Just ask anyone who has been in his presence for more than – how long did Scaramucci last, eleven days?

So it’s not just me, is what I’m saying. And I’m gonna keep on hating trump – rationally or irrationally – for as long as he is resident on this planet, whether that be as president or, hopefully, in good time, as a long-term political prisoner.

……………………………………………….

I caught this 2019 ideaCity talk on YouTube last week, and was just blown away. I hope those who cherish democracy, and who have been wondering if there’s any hope for the planet, will take some comfort from Marie Henein’s calm, yet passionate, defence of democracy, and the free speech that enables democratic nations. This one’s a keeper.

“Here’s the three things that I noticed happen. The democratic dialogue has been replaced with a digital screaming match. Our ideas of democracy began to unmoor from liberalism, and the concept of democracy was suddenly equated with populism. Or as some authors have called it, we see the rise of Illiberal democracy.   And thirdly, caught in the eye of the storm were many of the values and freedoms so essential to reconcile the success of the democracy with the protection of minorities, of the marginalized, of those who did not have the majority vote. “

Democracy and Freedom of Speech – Marie Henein

=RT=

Roxanne’s column appears here every Sunday 

Roxanne Tellier has been singing since she was 10 months old … no, really. Not like she’s telling anyone else how to live their lives, because she’s not judgmental, and most 10 month olds need a little more time to figure out how to hold a microphone. She has also been a vocalist with many acts, including Tangents, Lady, Performer, Mambo Jimi, and Delta Tango. In 2013 she co-hosted Bob Segarini’s podcast, The Bobcast, and, along with Bobert, will continue to seek out and destroy the people who cancelled ‘Bunheads’.