BLINDSIDED
This morning, before Gordon Sondland sat down in front of the cameras, before his written opening statement was released to the media, Palmer Report wrote about the strong possibility that Sondland would flip on Donald Trump in the hope of avoiding perjury charges. We were far from the only political analysts who pointed out the possibility. Everyone saw it potentially coming, it seems, except Trump and his allies.
Gordon Sondland’s testimony “blindsided” everyone in Donald Trump’s White House, everyone working for his 2020 campaign, and even his Republican allies, according to a surreal report from CNN. How is that even possible? Everyone else outside the Trump bubble saw it coming. It’s not that any of us knew for sure that Sondland was going to flip. It’s just that Sondland only had a very limited number of options, and flipping was the one that was most likely to keep him out of prison – so of course it was going to be on the table for him.
But the thing about Donald Trump is that his thinking doesn’t align with anything that would be considered rational or mentally competent. This is a guy who has to bathe himself in fake news from Fox News each day, and fake poll numbers, so he can delusionally convince himself that he’s popular and successful and beloved. His narcissism won’t allow for the possibility that he really does suck at this and that most Americans hate him.
At this point Donald Trump’s entire political infrastructure appears to be constructed around keeping his narcissistic delusions intact. In fact he’s holding a rally tonight, which serves no practical point, just so he can be reminded of what it’s like for a braindead audience of lowlifes to mindlessly cheer him on.
Donald Trump has his underlings and allies pushing nonsensical narratives about Ukraine and impeachment that won’t help his odds of survival one bit, but do serve to help him convince himself that everything is going to magically be okay for him. This has ostensibly become enough of a way of life for Trump’s puppets that they’ve given in to his delusion that it’s all going to be fine if they scream incoherent nonsense loudly enough. Trump has his own people so spun around, none of them even saw Gordon Sondland coming today, even though everyone outside Trump’s bubble knew there was a strong chance today would go the way it did.
