That sad group above represents the current Republican Party. You can’t just blame Trump however. The whole party has basically thrown themselves head first into a rabbit hole and is still trying to pull the country behind them.
They should be careful. As this piece by J.V. Last shows, the Trumpian carnage among his own close allies has been epic:
…[T]he sheer number of people who had their lives and/or careers destroyed over four years of swimming in Donald Trump’s slipstream is kind of staggering.
So let’s take a walking tour through the human wreckage of the Trump years.
Because, with just a few important exceptions—most notably the Republican Senate majority—pretty much everyone Trump touched, died.
(1) Paul Manafort was an anonymous conservative consultant who had parlayed his years as a political operative into untold riches. Until he took a call from Donald Trump and agreed to become his campaign manager. That was June 20, 2016. Manafort was fired on August 17, 2016.
Because of the 58 days he spent working for Trump, Manafort wound up losing everything. He lost his license to practice law. He was arrested, tried, and sentenced to 47 months in jail. In separate charges, he pled guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and witness tampering, and for this was fined $22 million and had an additional 30 months tacked on to his sentence. Probably not worth it. (Unless the alternative was getting whacked by some Russian mobsters, I guess).
(2) Michael Cohen was Donald Trump’s personal fixer, a guy who skated on the line of the law. Had Trump not become president, Cohen would have lived his comfortable life indefinitely. Instead, he was arrested, charged, convicted, and disbarred. He’s currently serving a three year stretch in prison.
(3) Jerry Falwell Jr. was the Kim Jong-Un of Liberty University, the maximum leader whose reign of terror allowed him to live an opulent lifestyle under the radar. Then he signed on to Team Trump. His—no judgments here—proclivities found their way out into the world and his behavior became so deranged and debauched that his father’s university pushed him out. He now wanders the countryside looking for pool boys with excellent business ideas and hoping that his $10.5 million hush-money package from Liberty will be enough to last him a few decades.
(4) Sidney Powell was an anonymous career attorney. She checked boxes as an AUSA and then high-powered corporate lawyer. She could have enjoyed her autumn years as a member of the lower-upper class and retired quietly. Instead, she’ll forever be remembered as the Crazy Kraken Lady.
(5) Jeff Sessions was a senator for life. Then he endorsed Trump. As a reward, he was gifted the AG job. And then publicly humiliated. And then fired. And then Trump campaigned against him when he ran for his old Senate seat. Which he wound up losing to a washed up college football coach.
I know that might sound like a bad deal. But at least he got to separate Mexican kids from their families, put them in cages, and then send their parents home without their children. And for a good ole’ boy like Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, some things are priceless.
(6) Steve Bannon was an autodidact, film producer, layer game grandmaster, and chairman of a burgeoning global network of racist blogs. He even got to live gratis in a faux embassy with a replica Lincoln Bedroom. Then he took the cursed job of Trump campaign manager. Next thing you know, he’s getting rousted out of his stateroom on a Chinese billionaire’s yacht by the cops. He’s charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering and looking at possibly 40 years in jail.
His trial date is set for May 24, 2021.
(7) Michael Flynn was a respected retired general until he came into Trump’s orbit. He wound up pleading guilty to making false statements to the FBI. And then things went really sideways for him.
(8) Rudy Giuliani became America’s mayor in the aftermath of 9/11. If he hadn’t started working for Donald Trump, New Yorkers probably would have named an airport or a stadium or a bridge for him. He would have been put up on the high shelf with Fiorello La Guardia.
Instead, he’ll be remembered for waddling around, while . . . impaired. Farting and having his hair dye running down his face while trying to help the president of the United States overturn the results of a free and fair election through a series of lies. He’ll be remembered as a cautionary tale. As an enemy of democracy.
(9) Brad Parscale made bank from Trump in 2016 and then, like an idiot, accepted the Death Job of campaign manager. Next thing you know he’s fired. Then out of his mind. Then getting carted off from his house by the po-po, shirtless, like a Special Guest Star on COPS.
(10) David Pecker was the most powerful tabloid mogul in America. Then he turned his trash empire into an arm of the Trump campaign, because reasons. After a series investigations of his company’s role in working on Trump’s behalf, Pecker sold his tabloids to Hudson Media and was subsequently pushed out of the organization by the new owners. Leaving him limp and powerless.
(11) Steve King had been a racist crank with a House seat for a dozen years with no one outside of Washington being any the wiser. Suddenly Donald Trump descends like the great White Eagle and people start picking on King just because he thinks white supremacism is okay.
And then he draws a primary challenger and gets beat like a drum.
(12) Roger Ailes was like the Jerry Falwell Jr. of Fox News—a guy who got away with everything for forever because people were terrified of him. But Ailes signed onto the Trump train and the Trump train helped spark the #MeToo movement—I posit to you that Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo never achieve the salience they did absent the election of the guy from the Access Hollywood tape as president of the United States.
What a rogues gallery. We can only hope that the likes of Stephen Miller and Kellyanne Conway and Devin Nunes and Peter Navarro and Scott Atlas and all the other minions and collaborators get theirs too. But I have to say that I’d happily let them all get off easy if the Trump family has to answer for what it’s done:
(13) 300,000 Americans are dead today because of COVID-19. That number will continue to grow over the next 10 months. Many of those deaths—at least scores of thousands of them—can fairly be attributed to the actions of President Donald Trump.
Last writes:
By the way, that’s why I’m putting this list together. It’s not just the shameful joy of seeing bad things happen to bad people. It’s because it’s important to document this era in American politics and to remember what happened and who did what. Most of these guys—at least the ones who aren’t dead, or dying, or in jail—plan to just spend a few years golfing and hanging out at Trump Tower Istanbul before returning to a life of Davos panels, podcast stardom, and ambassadorships the next time a Republican becomes president with a minority of the vote.
The Trump cult leaders, which includes almost the entire GOP congress, must never be allowed to forget what they did. Unless they are willing to abruptly change gears and do whatever they can to make up for what they’ve done, their names will forever be sullied by their willingness to accede to this assault on our democracy.
It’s Happy Hollandaise time! If you’d like to help keep this old blog going for another year, you can do so here: