Another day, another ‘witch hunt’, with Donald Trump manfully playing the part of the witch.
On the day my friend Barack Hussein delivered his farewell speech, listing ‘marriage equality’ and LGTB rights among his principal achievements, the Donald stole his thunder.
He was alleged to have starred in a KGB home video, co-starring two romping lesbian hookers. The video, if it indeed exists, is supposed to have been produced discreetly in a Moscow hotel suite.
This comes soon after the panting public was treated to the future Mrs Trump photographed naked in bed with another woman. For someone who started following US politics when Mamie Eisenhower was First Lady, that sort of exposure in flagrante delicto is perhaps a romp too far, but hey – tempora indeed mutantur.
In any case, my propensity for judging things from an aesthetic standpoint first is idiosyncratic. Most people don’t mind a US president who has a tendency to marry women of easy virtue, wears his ties too long, erects Manhattan monuments to vulgarity and builds Atlantic City casinos for you know whom.
However, I do wonder at times what kind of experience and character traits would have conditioned Mr Trump to strike those gurning facial expressions. The nearest historical analogue (and I’m talking strictly about the grimaces) is Mussolini, but even he was pokerfaced by comparison.
The Donald immediately tweeted a rousing denial: “FAKE NEWS – A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!” This cri de coeur is more believable than a parallel announcement by the ex-head of the Russian security service: “We don’t do that sort of thing.”
It would be tedious to list the hundreds of known cases where the Russians honey-trapped foreign dignitaries into cooperation. That’s their preferred, though far from only, method of cultivating an asset.
Another time-honoured hook is financial. The same dossier that alleges the existence of the compromising video contains supposed proof of the Russians using that recruitment technique on Trump as well.
Played against Trump’s son’s admission that much of their income comes from Russia, that allegation can’t be dismissed lightly, although it too may well be fake. However, I haven’t seen any details of Trump’s business dealings with the Russians, other than that they’ve been extensive. A full disclosure would go a long way towards allaying some of the more damning suspicions.
The dossier claims that the FSB has been cultivating Trump for five years. Even if true, this doesn’t prove that the cultivation has borne fruit. It is, however, clear that the Russians greeted Trump’s election as their own triumph.
Putin’s trained propagandists openly talk about this, while on hearing the news of the election the Duma deputies went into paroxysms of obscene celebration. Interestingly, a Gallup survey has discovered that 39 per cent of the Russians see the US election as vitally important, as opposed to two per cent who feel the same way about their own polls.
I sincerely hope that all that innuendo against America’s President-Elect is one giant red herring. Until prima facie evidence is provided, Trump must be presumed innocent of all those ugly insinuations.
His election undoubtedly has delivered a mighty kick in the groin to what a reader of mine has called “a neoconservative, neoliberal establishment”. Having caught its breath, said establishment is going out of its way to dig up any dirt that could tarnish Trump’s presidency before it has even started.
Then again, he who dishes out the dirt ought to be prepared to take it. The Trump campaign and Trump personally missed no opportunities to smear Hillary with every hue of grime. I suspect that none of it was trumped up, as it were – and I’m willing to accept that all allegations against Trump are.
Yet I can’t in good conscience argue that they aren’t believable. For example, anyone wishing to besmirch, say, Sen. John McCain might claim he watches private lesbian shows and takes backhanders from Putin. But, barring some incontrovertible and legally certified evidence, any normal person would reject such claims for the vicious nonsense they are.
I have to admit with some chagrin that my reaction to the latest batch of accusations against Trump is less vehement than that. This brings me back to aesthetics as the starting point of inquiry.
No one who has watched Mr Trump develop from the ugly duckling of a property-developing chancer into the beautiful swan of US President-Elect will aver that such transgressions run contrary to his character.
Does anyone who has ever winced at the Donald’s crassness really believe that he’d refuse to drool at the spectacle of two lesbians in his bed? Does anyone doubt that a man involved in six bankruptcies and 75 lawsuits against him is incapable of striking questionable deals with whomever pays the freight?
It’s possible to toss a shovelful of dirt at anyone, but it’ll stick to some better than to others. How many Americans are now talking about smoke and fire? How many are becoming even more cynical about politics?
I do hope all those allegations will be proved false and Trump goes on to become the great president so many of my American friends believe he’ll be. Let’s wait and see – while keeping an eye out for any signs of Trump’s relationship with Putin going beyond foreplay.
Glad to see your are off music. Btw, it is “whoever” in the third to last paragraph. The right has to be right; for the left, of course, there is no right.