Trump Will Not Go Quietly

“With so much wealth sloshing around, it should not come as a surprise that Blackstone is the largest landlord in the world. Run by Stephen Schwarzman, who spent close to $20 million on his 70th birthday party and is a good pal of fellow real estate magnate Donald Trump, it is the driving force behind gentrification everywhere.” Louis Proyect, Counterpunch

There are no fires burning in Santa Barbara County, yet, but the sky is hazy from fires burning in Ventura, and the air has a familiar burnt smell. Last I heard there were eleven major blazes in our state, and it feels like an apocalypse is drawing nigh. Has a breaking point been reached? Will climate deniers finally acknowledge that climate change is real, global, and happening right now? Not likely. Odds are much better that politicians and their capitalist bagmen will cling to business as usual as long as possible. 

Remember Baghdad Bob or Chemical Ali as he was also known? His real name was Muhammad Saeed al-Sahaf and in 2003 he was Saddam Hussein’s spokesman as the United States unleashed shock and awe on Iraq. Even as American ordnance was raining down, Baghdad Bob insisted that the Iraqi forces were repelling the invaders, blowing fighter jets and bombers out of the sky, and killing Americans by the score. “The Tigris is running with the blood of American soldiers!” Bob would insist, even though it was abundantly clear that Iraq was being bombed into submission. Climate deniers, including King Donald I, remind me of Baghdad Bob. They will keep repeating, “Climate change is a hoax,” until sea water laps up to the doorstep of their estates and the only birds left in existence are seagulls and crows. 

I read on Democracy Now that about 20% of the men and women fighting California’s rash of wildfires are prison inmates. They do the same work, with the same risks to their health and safety, but for pennies per hour, and their service protecting homes and property earns them little in regard to reducing their sentences. No thank you for your service salutes for these inmates, even though the dangerous work they do is far more useful than that of soldiers chasing shadows in Afghanistan or guarding oil fields in northern Syria. 

Some people understand that it’s the oligarchs against the rest of us, and that the only way to beat them is to flood the streets. Ecuador. Venezuela. Hong Kong. Iraq. Puerto Rico. Haiti. Lebanon. People are tired of austerity policies, lack of democracy, perverse wealth inequality, high prices for fuel and food, and inaction on climate change. People are fed up with being deemed disposable. They are tired of being trod upon by the rich. I can’t help but believe a reckoning is coming. 

Trump will not go quietly -- unless he loses the support of enough Republicans, and at the moment his cult followers are holding firm. To move most Republicans to ditch Trump, the impeachment inquiry must produce irrefutable evidence and enough public outcry to make Republicans worry about being on the losing side. If Trump survives impeachment -- and he very well might -- it will be down to November 2020. The Democratic Party machinery is working overtime to secure the nomination for Joe Biden (or someone of similar ilk, corporate-friendly, supporter of tax cuts and free market solutions to all problems, etc.) which likely portends a repeat of 2016. Mainstream Democrats would rather have a second Trump term than lose control of their party to Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. This is familiar territory, 1968 and 1972 redux. Joe Biden is out of ideas, out of step, and out of touch. If he wins the nomination and Sanders or Warren do what the party will expect them to do -- hold their noses and climb onboard -- how many young voters and women will stay home on election day? 

If Trump isn’t soundly defeated at the polls and in the Electoral College he will not accept the election result. If he loses by a slender margin, a questionable margin, Trump will contest the results, and unlike Al Gore in 2000, Trump will never, ever, concede defeat for the good of the country. Trump is for Trump and only for Trump. He will give the middle finger to every norm established for the smooth transition of power. Every autocratic impulse in Trump’s bloated body will twitch at the prospect of being the first American president to refuse to hand over the reins.