Donald Trump and his goons are on the run
Donald Trump has forced one of his favorite cabinet members, openly corrupt EPA boss Scott Pruitt, to resign today. This comes after Trump had spent many months trying to prop Pruitt up, publicly praising him while pretending that his numerous scandals didn’t exist. We still don’t know precisely why today was the breaking point, but the bottom line is that this move means Trump is playing defense – and his most notorious goons are falling by the wayside. Pruitt isn’t the only one.
Last week Alan Dershowitz, a formerly prominent attorney who recently found his way back to relevance by becoming a dishonest Trump apologist, complained that his friends were shunning him for it. Today actor James Woods, a notoriously crass Trump defender, announced that his agent had fired him for obvious reasons. Trump’s most vile allies are being shunned and shamed by those in their own inner circles, not due to a difference of political views, but because they support a racist criminal traitor.
If you’re forced to sacrifice one of your own top lieutenants just to make it through the day, as Trump has done with Pruitt, it means you’re losing. If you’re whining about your predictable predicament, as Woods and Dershowitz are doing, it means you’re losing. When you’re sustaining multiple kinds of losses in rapid succession, it means you’re on the run.
When you’re stuck playing defense for this long, at some point it simply becomes unsustainable. Donald Trump and his goons still have some tricks up their sleeves. But they’re getting diminishing returns from their antics, and the longer this drags on, the more costly it becomes for their side. This was always going to be a war of attrition. Trump’s top lieutenants are crashing and burning left and right.
