As Donald Trump leaves office, I like many others I will be deflated. But most of all I will feel cheated, duped. Remember how he posed in the early days, a red-hatted sheriff who was going to ride into town and restore justice and honour to a country that made Hamlet’s ‘rotten’ Danish state seem a model of governance in comparison? Trump was going to save America, possibly its last hope. Saddle up, folks!
Oh yes, the rhetoric was always blistering. Trump talked a good game. He sure knew how to whip his crowds up into a frenzy, a pastor who understood precisely which of his flock’s buttons to press. And boy did he press them. ‘Drain the swamp!’ ‘Lock her up!’ ‘Make America Great Again!’ Slogans-a-plenty. Yes, but what about action?
After the euphoria of the 2016 election victory, it was assumed that Trump would do as he had promised in those barn-storming rallies i.e. restore the US Republic back to its people. And so, we waited. And we waited. Hunting down an oligarchy as powerful and as well-connected as the Clintons and Obamas would require not only resolve and extensive resources, but time. Lots and lots of time. Clearly, whatever his strategy Trump needed to deploy it from day one. Left to their own devices and with the support of a brooding and powerful establishment behind them, America’s political dynasties – which included the Bushes – would regroup, gather strength. Kill or be killed.
And yet despite this threat action was not forthcoming. It wasn’t just America’s oligarchs who went unmolested. The Trump administration seemed entirely indifferent to the machinations of individuals like George Soros, whose billions were said to finance insurgent groups such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa. Surely, Trump would address this individual as a matter of urgency? No such luck. BLM and Antifa operated with impunity throughout the Trump presidency, burning and looting US cities with apparent ease. (In preparation for the Biden inauguration Trump has allowed Washington DC to declare a state of emergency, a privilege never granted when BLM/Antifa were sacking US cities . . .)
Sure, Trump was making inroads as far as economic policy was concerned, but then who wouldn’t? Any business person of even mild competence could do a better job than the career politician to whom other peoples’ money means little if anything. Just reverse most if not all of the Obama era economic policies: win-win. No, people were looking to Trump to do much more than add a few dollars onto their pension pots: they were promised and expected the US to reverse its descent into Globo-socialism. Above all else, however unrealistic, they wanted to live in a country in whose institutions they could trust.
Yet even in the early days something was not quite right about 45. Looking back, the signs were always there. It’s just most people chose to ignore them. Recall how MAGA supporters such as Steve Bannen and Sebastian Gorka soon left the administration to be replaced by a mixture of anonymous Wall St types, Obama hangovers or just archetypal swamp creatures: Sessions, Barr, Kushner, Spicer, Bolton, Scaramucci, Mattis – abominable picks each and every one. ‘He’s keeping his enemies closer,’ explained the fans oblivious seemingly as to how that tactic had worked out for Julius Caesar . . .
Meanwhile MAGA allies like Roger Stone were harassed by the US justice system. Stone was arrested in a dawn raid by the FBI while CNN filmed the drama. Yet harassment of Conservatives and MAGA supporters seemed to interest Trump not a jot, even when they were old friends like Stone. What chance then for Julian Assange? As I write the man whose organisation leaked the Clinton e-mails thus assisting Trump’s 2016 election success in no small way, is still rotting away in prison, sans presidential pardon, a prime target of a vengeful Deep State. Gee thanks, Donald.
Around the same time Twitter and Facebook began censoring conservative opinion. Where would this disturbing behaviour lead? Trump supporters knew. They shouted themselves hoarse pleading with him to curb the excesses of the Silicon Valley barons. However, their pleas fell on deaf ears. Even when Twitter censored him before and during the 2020 election campaign, the president did nothing in response. It should have come as no surprise then when Dorsey completely banned the US president from the platform. And yet all the way through this ignominious episode the sheriff’s guns stayed firmly in their holster. The President of the United States of America was bereft of solutions, impotent.
But the Twitter debacle has been merely the latest in a long line of Trump flops. A question many pundits asked was this: rather than let a Californian tech nerd decide if he could communicate to the world, why not take the initiative himself? Why not Dump Dorsey? Supporters begged Trump to decamp to Parler or Gab, to no avail. Rather than deal Twitter what might have been a death blow by taking himself and his 80 million followers elsewhere, Trump stayed put. Has ever a US president looked so weak? Bizarrely, the president seemed not to care. Humiliated and now disenfranchised by a Californian tech nerd, what would it take for Trump to act?
It wasn’t all inactivity and impotency though. When the mood took Trump did make some things happen. Yes, he mumbled something about HCQ in the early days of COVID-19, but was soon promoting Fauci and Big Pharma vaccine roll-outs to facilitate what many commentators identify as the first step towards One World Government and global Communism. Notice how he ensured the US embassy would move to Jerusalem? Notice too how he bombed Syria? Sometimes, Trump could be extremely decisive . . .
It was back in 2017 that I realised Trump was not the man he claimed to be. A year and a bit into his presidency former supporters such as the political commentator Ann Coulter were starting to wonder why Trump was so reluctant to take action. She wasn’t the only one. ‘Why the hell won’t he go after Soros?’ It was a question I asked myself almost daily. ‘For God’s Sake DO SOMETHING!’ After all, back in the day J Edgar Hoover finally got rid of Al Capone and Chicago breathed again. Putin purged Russia of its oligarchs, standing them inside bullet-proof bubbles in the courtrooms. It can be done. It just takes resolve.
It was around this time that QAnon surfaced. For a president coming under scrutiny from the likes of Coulter and others, ‘Q’s’ emergence was nothing if not timely. So why wasn’t Trump draining the swamp as promised? The answer came back: ‘Trust the plan.’ Another Q refrain was: ‘You are watching a movie.’ And we all know that in the movies it’s always the good guys who win in the end, right? Trump supporters could relax. Everything was in hand. It explained much, not least the president’s continual refusal to act. If nothing seemed to be happening, if Trump was not fulfilling his promises, not to worry, it was all part of grand scheme that would duly reveal itself. Patience, patriots.
Notice that not once did Trump disavow QAnon? Not once did he say, ‘Ignore this QAnon stuff, it’s got nothing to do with me.’ Yet it would only have taken a few words. It seems likely therefore that 45 may have given the psy-op his blessing, appreciating this was the perfect way to stave off disquiet. ‘Trust the plan.’ Even now, days before Biden becomes president, there are some who still wait for a great reveal that was never going to happy.
The truth is a bitter pill to swallow and it is this: Trump never had any intention of draining the swamp or restoring the republic. It was all a gimmick. He simply tapped into the disillusionment felt by millions of Americans whose lives are daily screwed over by a corrupt and incompetent political oligarchy. He used their disenchantment as a springboard to office. Trump had long since coveted the role of POTUS. He wanted to be the US president. It was an ambition – one he had nurtured since as long ago as the 1980s and possibly even longer. Like politicians since and before he cheated the voters. It doesn’t make him any better or worse than politicians before or since. It merely makes him equally as cynical.
Drain the swamp? Nope. The last thing he wanted to do was to upset that particular applecart. Ok, he might be the enfant terrible of the establishment – a wild card – but the billionaire is, at the end of the day pure establishment, from New York’s finest stock. The MSM attacks certainly helped Trump to portray himself as the outsider even if the ferocity clearly rattled the man on occasion. ‘Hey, not so heavy guys! We’re on the same team, remember?’ But as I have learned these past four years, nothing about Donald Trump can be taken for granted. I was mightily shocked to discover CNN’s Jeff Zucker refers to Trump as ‘the boss.’ CNN? What gives?
And so, while 75 million Americans sat back to ‘trust the plan’ and wave their MAGA flags the Great Reset was smuggled in behind their trusting backs. And Trump really doesn’t give a damn. He’s achieved his ambition. He’s crossed ‘President’ off the bucket list. It’s the reason he’s not too fussed about the 2020 election steal. Damnit, the world and his brother knew the Democrats would set up a steal – likely focusing on the swing states – via mail-in fraud. My 75-year-old auntie even said, ‘they won’t let him win.’ Where, when and how: everybody knew, except Trump! He only had unlimited resources four years to prevent that little trick from occurring. It was always about him, not America.
With Biden and his Communist China-friendly Democrats now in situ and the Great Reset about to accelerate, the future has never looked so dark for the American people. In Trump they believed they had found a champion, but what they got instead was a snake oil salesman, a con-man. Donald John Trump promised the American dream, but has bequeathed a nightmare.
David Sedgwick’s book, ‘The Fake News Factory: Tales from BBC-land’ is published on Amazon.
© David Sedgwick 2021
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