The end of “Teflon Don”
Trump’s occasional nickname, “Teflon Don,” is ill-advised. For one thing, it was a moniker made famous by mob boss John Gotti, who eluded justice for a time. That Gotti is still occasionally referred to as “the Teflon Don” is a testament to the sometime intractability of nicknames. It is wholly inappropriate for Gotti as well, because Gotti was sentenced to life in prison — without possibility of parole — and spent the last ten years of his life mostly in solitary confinement. Those were charges that I would say really stuck.
It may be similarly premature to call Trump “Teflon Don.” After all, Donald Trump is in serious trouble right now. He could be indicted and, if indicted, he could be tried and sent to prison. Any sentence worthy of the name would be a life sentence, given his age and unbelievably bad diet and lack of exercise. We will have to wait and see how things unfold.
Meanwhile, I think a better name for him would be something like “the little whiner” or “crying Donny Trump.” He’s kind of like the song by Elvis. No disrespect to hound dogs, but he ain’t nothin but a hound dog. He cries all the time. And whines. Don’t believe me? Check out his latest posts in, ahem, “Truth” Social. (Talk about inappropriately named, while we’re on the topic!)
His utterances on “Truth” Social are usually whiny and complaining. (A side note about that. Aren’t the Republicans supposed to be the party of gun-toting tough guys? What on earth are they doing following a gold-plated-toilet-seat sitting draft dodging graft-weasel from New York City? I guess they’ll forgive anything if their boy is a racist like them.)
Anyway, here’s a case in point of Trump’s whining in a recent post on his moribund social network:
“The Raid on my home, Mar-a-Lago, is one of the most egregious assaults on democracy in the history of our Country which is, by the way, going to places, in a very bad way, it has never seen before!”
I find myself wondering who taught him the word “egregious.” I’m sure he meant “going to pieces” and not “going to places.” Really, though, that was no assault on democracy. Rather that was a lawfully executed search warrant on the property of a man who refused to relinquish classified documents to the National Archives. The FBI showed amazing forbearance and waited more than a year and a half, after trying numerous other ways to get those documents back.
Truly “the most egregious assaults on democracy in the history of our Country” happened on January 6, 2021, when a group of MAGA thugs broke into the Capitol and tried to murder the Vice President and the Speaker of the House. But that’s another story.
Then Trump whined about how the media is treating “Truth” Social:
“The Fake News Media is devastated by how well TRUTH is doing so, quite on cue, they are working overtime to criticize and demean it. Actually, many of the big guns in Washington, D.C., are fighting to stop the TRUTH but, they won’t be successful. They are going after the outside financial company, and virtually anybody that walks and breaths, but that won’t do it. They said it is doing worse since the Raid, but actually it is doing MUCH better, up more than 550%. We all love TRUTH!!!”
Actually, the mainstream media has been reporting lately that “Truth” Social hasn’t been paying its bills. Which is the simple truth. Trump would rather distract by lying about it than actually pay those bills, apparently.
What’s more, the New York Times reports that “[Truth Social] has seen its stock price plunge nearly 75 percent since its March peak and reported in a filing last week that it had lost $6.5 million in the first half of the year.” So Truth Social is not up “550%” as Trump claims in his whiny protest. It’s actually failing. As reported by what Trump claims is “the failing New York Times.” The New York Times is in fact thriving. Ironic, don’t you think?
All one ever hears from Trump is whining about how unfair everyone is to him and a refusal to take responsibility for anything. That’s some hero the tough guy Republicans found themselves. That’s some hero the so-called Party of Responsibility picked. Like I said, he ain’t nothin but a whiny little … well, you know. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.