Ever since they made the self-destructive error of nominating Trump we have heard Republicans dismiss his ignorance, his megalomania, his lies, the amazing irregularities of his life, his rudeness, and his 5th-grade speech. They tell us that Trump doesn’t want to do things in the old stuffy Washington way, that Trump is the kind of great leader that can ignore the norms, while he and his gang unleash predatory business interests, destroy legal protections for citizens, wage war on the environment, and wholly undermine national security. Oh, the reactionaries say, that’s just his way. Pay attention to what he does, not what he says. Or is it pay attention to what he says, not to what he does? In any case, they will tell you that as he struggles to turn our Country around Trump has been criticized, unrelentingly ridiculed, persecuted, hounded as has no president in American history.
OK Are Trump’s critics unfair, even cruel? Trump and the people around him are people who believe that following traditional norms and obeying the law is for losers, for chumps. They the kind who never pay full price for anything and maybe do not pay at all. They do what they want or feel they need to do, and if they are ever caught doing something illegal, they will know someone who can fix it for them, or they will hire a mouthpiece as contemptuous of the law as they to make the charge go away or delay the proceedings indefinitely.
These people live on the border of the law and very often cross over it. As a rule they never risk their own money, but grow wealthy using money they borrow or are given by investors whose capital they may waste or spend down or re-allocate to some other of their own concerns. The more energetic of them always have some ongoing problem with Internal Revenue or with a gaming commission or with the SEC or with U.S. Customs or with fair housing authorities, or with paying off their stupendous loans, or all of these at once.
They blame their being in some kind of trouble all the time on their enemies, on their enemies’ minions in government, on those who envy their wealth, sophistication, and genius. Thus they always present themselves as victims, treated unfairly, indeed, illegally, and their lawyers provide a chorus to echo this complaint.
Our President is from this class of people who live outside-the-law, and that is why once he entered public life and his thoughts and deeds became widely known he is always being criticized and attacked. There is so much in what he does and the way he thinks that richly deserves criticism, and the President, like many in his class, continues and enlarges his anti-social actions and attitudes compulsively. When he feels trapped he lies, and when accused of lying he tells more lies, and as he tells more lies he suborns others to repeat his lies.
Put simply, he, as others like him, have always done what is wrong, continue to do what is wrong, and will go on doing what is wrong until they are deprived of the ability to do something wrong.