Thugs

Vladimir Putin, whom Donald Trump admires, is a bit of a thug — no?

Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn, once thuggish Joe McCarthy’s chief counsel, was himself a bit of a thug, as well.

Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s campaign manager, was called a thug by an editor of right-wing Breitbart.

(Per the National Review: “‘Corey Lewandowski is a thug, and Donald Trump is a thug for backing him,’ Shapiro said Thursday night during an appearance on Fox News’s The Kelly File.”)

Paul Manafort, Lewandowski’s replacement, has been called a “world-class thug” with a long history of supporting war lords, dictators, and oligarchs.

Steve Bannon, Manafort’s replacement, has been called a thug.

And now comes his deputy campaign manager, David Bossie.  Rachel Maddow aired this must-see segment on Bossie Friday night, noting elsewhere in the show that, yes, okay, campaigns may indeed hire gutter-dwellers — it’s not pretty but it happens — but what’s different is that normally they try to keep them hidden.  Trump puts Bossie proudly front and center.  “A friend of mine for many years,” Trump told the Washington Post. “Solid. Smart. Loves politics, knows how to win.”  Yet in the first Clinton campaign President George H. W. Bush condemned Bossie’s “filthy campaign tactics” and George W. wrote 85,000 of his dad’s contributors asking them not to support Bossie.

President George H.W. Bush was a gentleman; prior to winning the Presidency in 1988, he had been, among other things, a war hero, a Congressman, our ambassador to the UN, director of the CIA, and Vice President of the united States.  Donald Trump is a vulgar, bullying egomaniac, spectacularly unqualified to occupy the office.

And speaking of bullies?  He has named Chris Christie to head his transition team (see: “The Thug Politics of Chris Christie”).  The two are close.  Trump’s casinos failed to pay taxes owed to the state of New Jersey.  Once Christie was elected, the $30 million bill was settled for just $5 million — a $25 million gift from Chris to Donald.  It’s quite a story.

(And speaking of taxes — has Trump ever paid any personally?  Or given to charity even a tiny fraction of what he’d like us to imagine he has?)

Yet he’s currently given a 30% chance of winning, which could lead to a trade war which could lead to a global depression which could lead (as the last one did) to a world war, which we would win in 25 minutes — but could lead to the end of most life on the planet (see: nuclear winter).

So we need to spread the word this isn’t a TV show, this is reality, with potentially cataclysmic consequences.  Look at the damage done by the last unqualified man to take office (a nice guy you’d enjoy having a beer with).  And at least he had a sense of decorum; wasn’t mentally unbalanced; and didn’t surround himself with thugs.  (Well, Dick Cheney. But still.)