Former President Donald Trump is like the Soviet Union, a place so false, bullying, and insecure that it obliged its subjugated people to pretend a glorious future was certain but that also felt a constant need to explain away and falsify the past.
Trump’s past includes two impeachments, first for his clumsy phone call to Ukraine’s leader seeking election dirt on Joe Biden and second for his disgraceful role on Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters rioted on Capitol Hill.
HUNTER BIDEN INVESTIGATION: SIX TAKEAWAYS FROM THE IRS WHISTLEBLOWER HEARING
It is reported that Trump wants his impeachments expunged and claims that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) promised him the House would do so. McCarthy denies it, so we’ll see how that spat plays out this summer as the GOP presidential primary gathers pace and gets uglier.
But aside from humiliating the speaker and tainting the Republican conference, what would be the point? A vote by the current Congress could not change the past, when a different Congress controlled by Democrats put the president on trial. Trump would doubtless claim expungement meant he had a clean record — he says that now — but it wouldn’t be true. His impeachments would not vanish into thin air no matter what votes the House now took. The past cannot be undone, no matter the bluster.
Trump’s desire for the past to be different than it was is also behind his sour relationship with many senior Republicans, for example Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA). He demands to be treated by the GOP top brass as though he were an incumbent rather than a defeated former president who is now just a private citizen. He is outraged that Reynolds will not endorse him for the Republican nomination, which he thinks is his due. “I opened up the governor position for Kim Reynolds,” he wrote on his Truth Social media platform, “Now she wants to remain NEUTRAL.” He regards loyalty as an unreciprocated tribute that others owe him, a one-way street. But his anger is also due to the fact that deference is denied because he lost. He refuses to see the past as it was rather than the way he wishes it had been.
And what about the glorious certainty of Trump’s future? The former president pooh-poohs the idea that he will not win the GOP nomination, treating his triumph as a foregone conclusion. But tellingly, he focuses his mockery of the subject on his strongest rival, the one person he is, in truth, not sure he will defeat.
Like Nikita Khrushchev telling Western diplomats, “We will bury you,” Trump overconfidently proclaims, “We are totally dominating DeSanctus (sic),” and suggests it’s time for his main rival to drop out because “DeSanctimonious (sic) and his establishment handlers are wasting precious time and resources to divide our party, although he’s dropping so quickly he’s probably not going to be in second place much longer.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Methinks the Donald doth protest too much. He knows firsthand that foregone conclusions don’t always work out. Back in 2016, he made a regiment of pols and pundits look foolish for guaranteeing that Hillary Clinton would soon be Madam President.
That’s what makes politics exciting — the results aren’t known in advance.