Bob Shepherd, our blog polymath, reviews the current status and likely future of The Former Guy.

The Next Cuckoo Coup

So, there are two kinds of Trump voters.

First, there are the Trumpanzees, true disciples of the Trump cult, some of whom show up on this blog from time to time to espouse some utterly lunatic notions from the Qanon-o-sphere: Trump won the 2020 election, Joe Biden sits atop a vast criminal empire, Hilary Clinton leads an international pedophile ring, Ukraine is run by Nazis, George Soros funds caravans of rapists and murderers who are overwhelming our borders, and so on. That’s about 60 percent of the Trump base. I say “notions” above, btw, because when a Trumpanzee talks or writes in imitation of the toddler English of the cult’s Glorious Leader, it all comes out in a geyser of crazy conspiracy theories, one after another in rapid succession, sounding very much like some bizarre political catechism from a low-budget Exorcist remake. These Trumpanzee ‘merkins think that Trump stands between them and black and brown people who hate EVERYTHING GOOD–America, Jesus, apple pie, guns. They think that Trump actually is a self-made billionaire and a Christian nationalist and that he gives a damn about them. He doesn’t.

Second, there are the Repugnican doctrinaire pragmatists who have been holding their noses since the escalator ride down to new lows in American politics. These are evangelicals, Libertarians, and other supporters of Reich-wing policies like outlawing abortion, eliminating social services for the poor, regressive taxation, building a wall to keep out immigrants, giving companies the freedom to pollute at will, enabling the assertion of a right to religious bigotry in public fora, banning books from libraries, withdrawal from international treaties and obligations, and so on, who know Trump for what he is–an amoral career criminal and conman, a seditious, dishonest, irreligious, murderous, traitorous, profoundly ignorant and stupid RICO boss who can nonetheless be counted on to sign ANY piece of Reich-wing legislation put in front of him. So, while Trump might not actually be against abortion (he vociferously supported it in the past when he was trying and failing at being a playboy), he will do whatever the Reich-wing wants because he doesn’t care about anything except adulation from his base and, of course, extracting money from Trumpanzees. So, that’s the Hold-Your-Nose-ers, the Trumpeteers, the other 40 percent of the Trumplings.

So, because of the size of the Trumpanzee cult, it appears at present (that is, ever since Ron DeSantis basically threw away his opportunity of a lifetime because he evidently has the political instincts and charm of a rabid coyotes or parasitic wasp larvae) that no one has any chance of winning the 2024 Repugnican Presidential nomination EXCEPT Trump, so most of the Nose-holder Trumplings now have two choices: they can hope against hope that The Loser will pull off another 2016 victory-by-a-hair-on-the-end-of-an-Adderall-covered-orange-schnoz OR that he will be convicted and sent to prison before the election so that someone else can run in his stead.

Meanwhile, the Orange One has been using increasingly martial rhetoric (against judges and prosecutors, no less!). Having lost the defamation case brought against him by E. Jean Carroll and having been determined in that case by a jury and judge to have committed rape, he now has been indicted on 78 felony charges, with many more in the pipeline. His choices are limited. Trump can liquidate his assets and board the Trump plane to Russia to stay under the wing of his dying handler, the kleptocratic state Mafia boss, defenestrater of dissidents, and now indicted international war criminal Tsar Vladimir Putin, or he can whip up his base to carry out an actual Civil War. We know, now, that Trump was furious that he was not allowed by his own Secret Service to go with the mob to the Capitol and fulfill his fantasy of being an actual martial leader. And we’ve known for a long, long time that he is a delusional madman. Perhaps, in extremis, he is actually starting to believe that there can be a coup, an insurrection, that can bring him to power. For even he, crazy as he is, knows that HE CANNOT WIN IN 2024. He has lost and lost and lost in the past, and he has even less support now. He wishes he could win. Then he could pardon himself and crawl back under the protection of presidential immunity. But he can’t.

So, how does this play out?

I suspect that the more moderate right-wingers, KNOWING that he will lose in 2024, are working behind the scenes right now to make sure that he is convicted of high crimes and misdemeanors before the election and thus made ineligible for the presidency. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if some wealthy Repugnican donors are, even as you read this, calling up disaffected members of the former Trump team (which would be almost all of them, lol) and saying, “Let’s get this guy out of the way so we can win; cooperate with the investigations.”

Meanwhile, ex-cadet Bone Spurs is at Mar-a-lago or Bedminster fantasizing about leading a Civil War against Jack and Tanya and Alvin and Fani and the Marxists and about millions of members of the Trumpanzee Citizens’ Militia turning out to make him Glorious Leader for Life–January 6th having been a dress rehearsal, his Beer Hall Putsch, prior to the main event.

Here’s the thing: It ain’t gonna happen. The Trumpanzees have seen what happens when they actually put themselves on the line for him: he doesn’t join them, and he doesn’t save them. They go down. He goes to lunch and golf.

“I’ll call it a day,” the con man did say,
“I’m still president anyway.”
Then he farted and stood
and called it all good,
and went to his golf course to play.

What if he gave a coup and it didn’t happen?

I guess we would then have people debating whether he should be charged and prosected and sent to prison for THAT.