Trump Is F*cking Crazy (This Is Not a Joke)

by Keith Olbermann

  Trump will give nothing to you but shame and regret and shackles. He will take, and he will keep, whatever he can get his hands on. It is the story of his life—he boasts about it. He says that giving employees a paycheck is the equivalent of your neighbors sacrificing their son in war. You really think he will give you anything? You really think he will give you a better job? More money?

  From women to business, he is “grab first and ask questions later,” and you know that.

  And in the rubble—the rubble of your life in a political-science-fiction nightmare version of a fascist America made real—this will be on your conscience. It will be your fault, not his.

  He is merely the con man who is fattening you up for the kill.

  He comes onstage to the Rolling Stones song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

  He is telling you in advance.

  How much more warning does he have to give you?

  *

  You know this man.

  You have always known this man.

  *

  There has been a lot of time wasted on trying to understand the nature of the strategy Donald Trump has used since his profile as a serial sexual criminal began to emerge two Fridays ago.

  Well, there is no strategy.

  This is the point. This is not strategy—this is him.

  He has been acting in this campaign—especially in the past two weeks—as if he has already been elected, already is president, and the rest of us are just annoying him by asking him about these harrowing tapes and accusations. He behaves as if we are being rude to him by not simply agreeing with him and praising his countless amazing skills and wonderful accomplishments and vast piles of money—as if on your deathbed or after it, the question you will ask, or that you will be asked, is “How much money did you make?”

  Donald Trump is defending himself by claiming that his victims were too unattractive to attack—not as some kind of political strategy; not as some kind of clever answer. He is doing this because that is who he is, and that is what he expects to be able to do as president.

  The presidency would be the same as his current life—seventy years of hedonism and selfishness and abuse—except backed up by the power of the presidency and the military. He has been the dictator in his life—and now he intends to become the dictator in your life.

  *

  You know this man.

  You have always known this man.

  You have seen him, and you have seen him recently.

  He is Bill Cosby. He is O. J. Simpson. He is Bernie Madoff.

  In nearly every individual thing Trump says to you, he is lying, distorting, rationalizing, contorting, blaming, and self-martyring. But in one sense, he is the most truthful candidate we have ever had. The awful, dishonest, egomaniacal, dangerous, hateful candidate he shows the world—that is really him.

  He is not putting on an act. He is not hiding anything more than details. He is—every day—showing you his soul. The monster you see is the monster you will get—only this monster will now have the power to issue executive orders and pull that funny guy José you know, who works at the restaurant or on that farm, out of his house and throw him into a detention camp, and if you protest, he’ll have the power to throw you in the detention camp alongside José.

  Elect him and you will spend the rest of your life trying to undo your vote. You already know that this man promised to honor the outcome of this election if he loses—and then said he was backing out of that promise. You have already heard him spend hours explaining that if he loses, it will not be because he and you have been rejected—it will be because he and you have been defrauded.

  What makes you think he believes in the things about this country that you love? That you have believed in and depended on and taken for granted since you were a kid? What makes you think he would not say, in his inaugural address, “The people have spoken—so there is no need for any more elections”?

  Why on earth would you think that—having gotten you to give him your vote, your money, and your freedom—he would ever again bother to ask you what you want? Why would he listen to you? Why would he do anything for you? Who would make him?

  If you want to vote for him because nobody pushes him around—what are you going to do when he does something you don’t like? What makes you think that if you dare to raise a complaint, he would not treat you as he has treated those who during the campaign have opposed him or criticized him or merely pointed out what he has said?

  You cheer now when the reporters at his rallies are booed and threatened; you high-five when somebody sucker-punches a protester. How do you think President Trump will treat you if you feel like he’s broken his promise to you? How do you think President Trump will treat you if you do not jump when he says jump? How do you think President Trump will treat you if you do not applaud when he says applaud?

  He has already shown you how.

  *

  You know this man.

  You have always known this man.

  You know that this is the kind of man whom oppressed people around the world have spent their lives trying to escape from, and have lost their lives staging revolutions against. Elect him and you are signing the death warrant to your own freedoms.

  *

  But even if you think he’s going to lose but you must vote for him anyway—in protest—you still will have opened Pandora’s box. Because this might be the most skilled and dangerous con man ever to rise up to try to cheat us out of the democracy you and I cherish.

  But he might not be. The next one may be far worse, and far more skilled. And whichever is the case, he certainly will not be the last of the con men.

  And when the first one finally soft-sells enough of your friends to gain that sacred office of the presidency, you—as much as I—will be at his mercy. If Trump merely “does well” while losing this election, it will be open season for demagogues and fascists and white supremacists to try to take over this country. Your country.

  You have already seen it diagrammed for you. Donald Trump has shown his math. He has gotten this far—gotten to within three weeks of the presidency—based on summoning hate and fear and directing it toward a given group—Mexicans, Muslims, Jews, liberals, reporters. It doesn’t matter which group, and nothing guarantees that the next time, it won’t be your group.

  *

  You know this man.

  You have always known this man.

  *

  And among all the things you know about this man—out of all that has gone on since Trump started it in June of last year—one statement he made should jump out and grab you by the throat. And it should ask you, very softly but very firmly: Why would you ever, ever consider turning over this country to this man? Why would you ever, ever consider encouraging his type just by giving him your vote?

  When the woman on the plane thirty-five years ago, Jessica Leeds, accused him of groping her, he tried to defend himself not by getting a believable witness, not by proving he wasn’t on the flight, not by the way you would defend yourself against such a charge if it were not true and your whole life were at risk because somebody had slandered you.

  No.

  Trump said you should know he didn’t do it because “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you.”

  *

  “She would not be my first choice.”

  So ask yourself one question before you vote for this man.

  Who would be his first choice?

  Your daughter?

  GIVE US YOUR ANSWER!

  Post date • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20

  The debates are over.

  That is to say, Donald Trump’s debates against Hillary Clinton are over.

  But Donald Trump’s debates against America and democracy . . . may only be beginning.

  *
>
  Last night he made a statement—in front of tens of millions of Americans—that should, by itself, end not just his candidacy for, but his eligibility to be, president.

  Throughout the media last night and this morning, it was treated as something new and shocking. It is neither. It is just that this time, it was not hidden by the breathing barrage of stupidity and arrogance and delusion this man is.

  In short . . . Trump did not get away with it this time.

  Moderator: “Your running mate, Governor Pence, pledged on Sunday that he and you—his words—‘will absolutely accept the result of this election.’ Today your daughter Ivanka said the same thing. I want to ask you here on the stage tonight: Do you make the same commitment that you will absolutely accept the result of this election?”

  Trump: “I will look at it at the time. I’m not looking at anything now. I’ll look at it at the time.”

  *

  At that exact moment, he lost the election.

  If Trump still had a chance, it vanished, right then.

  And then, if he had a chance to perhaps regain some dignity, to not pull down his supporters and his party with him, he blew that as well.

  Moderator: “There is a tradition in this country—in fact, one of the prides of this country—is the peaceful transition of power, and that no matter how hard-fought a campaign is, that at the end of the campaign, that the loser concedes to the winner—not saying that you’re necessarily going to be the loser or the winner, but that the loser concedes to the winner and that the country comes together, in part for the good of the country. Are you saying you’re not prepared now to commit to that principle?”

  Trump: “What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense. Okay?”

  *

  Burn in hell.

  Some days ago in this space, I quoted Donald Trump’s whiny interview with The New York Times on September 30. Having had it drawn out of him only with rhetorical pliers, in the first debate, that he would support Hillary Clinton if she were elected, he reneged on that promise twenty days ago, saying, “We’re going to have to see. We’re going to see what happens. We’re going to have to see.”

  It was, as I observed then, the first time in American history—through dozens of venomous, painful campaigns and a series of impossibly close elections—the first and only time the candidate of a major party had violated the fundamental precept of our democracy.

  It shakes every one of our freedoms.

  It mocks every dead soldier.

  It spits at every sacrifice made under our flag.

  It has no comparison—not to Al Gore. Not to Samuel Tilden. Not to Andrew Jackson.

  It foments revolution.

  It was and is the moral equivalent of treason.

  *

  And this time it slipped past no one. Not the moderator. Not Fox News.

  No one.

  It was not a flash of anger from a man who gets angry once an hour.

  It was not another slab of red meat thrown to his crazed supporters.

  It was not another outrageous statement to throw up against the wall in this cheap reality-game-show version of a presidential campaign.

  He meant it.

  He means it.

  He meant it on September 30 to The New York Times, and he meant it last night when Chris Wallace asked him about it, and he meant it last night when Chris Wallace gave him a chance to back away from it.

  Donald Trump is not invested in democracy.

  Donald Trump is not invested in the Constitution.

  Donald Trump is not invested in America.

  Donald Trump is not invested in preventing people from being killed on the streets after an election as if this were a third-world police state.

  “I will look at it at the time. I’m not looking at anything now. I’ll look at it at the time . . . What I’m saying is that I will tell you at the time. I’ll keep you in suspense. Okay?”

  Burn.

  In.

  Hell.

  *

  Last night, this moved beyond Trump and his ego and his mental illness and his inability to understand that the other people in this country, the other people on this planet, are not just props in some sort of television series starring Donald Trump.

  This is now about the Republican Party, and its responsibility to the democracy . . . and its responsibility to the Constitution . . . and its responsibility to America.

  Reince Priebus, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, John Cornyn, John Thune, Kevin McCarthy, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush—this man will not promise he will honor the sanctity, the inviolability, of our election—your election—your candidate—your party.

  Right now, this moment, uncorrected by you, this man is advocating violent or passive resistance to a presidential election, and if you do not act against him, you will be blamed for him, and you will fall with him.

  This is bigger than who is the next president, or who is the next RNC chair, or who is the next Speaker of the House. This is our democracy imperiled from within, by a man you have permitted to speak for you and for millions of loyal Americans who suddenly realize that the nominee of their party is willing to subvert the election and to subvert democracy itself.

  Compel him to withdraw.

  Now.

  Litigate against him.

  Find enough doctors and have him declared psychiatrically incompetent.

  At minimum, cut off his funding, and denounce him in the strongest possible terms.

  Because this nightmare, this fascist, this Trump—is now your responsibility.

  And after what he said on September 30, and after what he said last night, and after what he repeated last night, it is no longer enough for him to simply lose this election.

  He must now . . . not be given the opportunity to “keep us in suspense.”

  He must now . . . not be given the option to “look at it at the time.”

  The defense and viability and future of this democracy now depends on this man being removed—by any legal means—from being able to further act against this democracy.

  Whether the Republican ticket or the Democratic ticket gets the most votes on Election Night and in the Electoral College is, in this context, incidental.

  The issue now is a man who has, on three occasions, assailed the most precious component of our 240 years of freedom—and, by so doing, encouraged others to also subvert and ignore it—and whether you, the Republican Party, will permit him—in the next nineteen days—to do it a fourth time, or a fifth, or a hundredth, or a thousandth time.

  Will you?

  Or—will you act on behalf of the United States of America?

  Give us your answer!

  IMAGINE

  Post date • SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23

  Imagine if we were not two weeks and one day away from a presidential election, but rather two weeks and one day away from a threatened invasion by a foreign cult figure of some kind.

  Imagine if that foreign invader intended to take over control of our government, and had already declared that when he did, he intended to remove eleven million people who lived here and put them first in camps and then presumably in other countries.

  Imagine if that foreign invader had already declared that he would, upon taking control, put up a wall along one of our national borders.

  Imagine if that foreign invader had already declared that he intended to institute a religious test for anybody entering into our country, and intended to bar any members of a certain religion from coming here, and said that others coming here would have to be granted “ideological certifications.”

  Imagine if that foreign invader had already declared that he would have his troops kill the families of terrorism suspects, and would institute racial profiling to fin
d terrorism suspects, and would institute national stop-and-frisk racial profiling to find criminal suspects.

  Imagine if that foreign invader had already made dog-whistle threats about “international bankers” against members of the Jewish faith in this country, and if that foreign invader had once kept, in a cabinet near his bed, a book of the speeches of Adolf Hitler.

  Imagine if that foreign invader had repeatedly praised the leadership of such dictatorships as Russia and North Korea, then went on national television here, in front of tens of millions of Americans, and explained that the dictator of Syria was “much tougher and smarter” than American leaders.

  Imagine if that foreign invader were connected personally and by members of his gang, past and present, to the Russian dictator, and imagine that he then said that, even before he solidified his control over our country, he might personally meet with the Russian dictator.

  Imagine if that foreign invader had asked, publicly, on live television, why the country he intended to take over had nuclear weapons if it did not intend to use those nuclear weapons.

  Imagine if that foreign invader had declared that all of our treaties—economic and military—would be abrogated or canceled or subject to renegotiation, and that our primary military treaty—NATO—would apply only to countries that paid us protection money.

  Imagine if that foreign invader had declared our elections rigged, our debates crooked, and the leaders of both of our main parties dishonest, and three times had refused to say that the loser of the most important of these elections was obligated to honor the outcome.

  Imagine if that foreign invader had implied that groups of Americans should try to intimidate other groups of Americans from voting, and that those Americans with guns should act in some manner against leaders of whom they did not approve.

  Imagine if that foreign invader had spent four years constantly insisting that our foremost elected leader was ineligible for the office and was actually the cofounder of the most heinous terrorist group in the world.