Trump: The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Peter Schultz
The
political establishment in the United States is, once again as it was in the
60s, under attack, both from the right and from the left. And as illustrated by
Bernie Sanders’ powerfully popular attack on Hillary Clinton during the battle
for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, as well as by Donald Trump’s
successful bid of the presidency, that attack in powerful and the status of the
political establishment tenuous at best. Which is why Trump’s success may be
seen as just what that establishment needed to re-legitimize itself.
Trump is so
bad, so crass, so dishonest, to untethered to reality, so unprincipled, so
unprofessional that he has managed to make the likes of George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney look good. Almost by himself, Trump has re-legitimized the political
establishment that has controlled American politics for decades. For example,
according to John Dean of Watergate fame, Trump makes even Richard Nixon look
redeemable, look legitimate, look like a desirable politician. Thanks to Trump,
all the flaws of that political establishment – an establishment that gave us
two impeachable presidents, Nixon and Clinton, gave us two disastrous wars,
Vietnam and Shrub’s Iraq, and allowed the nation’s economy to tank in 2008 and
then bailed out the perpetrators of that fiasco – have almost been forgotten.
Almost by himself, Trump has redeemed a political establishment that going into
2016 seemed to be on its last legs. Trump is, in this regard, “the gift that
keeps on giving.” A person could almost be excused for thinking that the result
of the 2016 presidential election was seen as a godsend by the ruling political
classes seeking to maintain their power and status. Trump did for them what
they could not do for themselves.
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