The appetite for evil

Back in Paris, General Claude François de Malet forged a letter claiming that Napoleon had died while conducting his ill-fated 1812 campaign in Moscow. The attempted coup d’etat that followed was put down in short order and, before de Malet was shot, he was asked to name his accomplices. The General replied disdainfully, “Who were my accomplices? Had I been successful all of you would have been my accomplices.”

While many of us (including myself) were praising Mitt Romney’s disparagement of George Santos before the President’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, we would do well to recall that Romney once dined with Donald Trump rather obsequiously when Trump was in search of a Secretary of State. We would do well to recall who might have remained Trump’s accomplices today.

I occasionally wonder what former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen would be doing today had Trump not betrayed him after years of friendship, or whose side Anthony Scaramucci would be on today had Trump not fired him after just 11 short days as Trump’s communications chief. Things could have turned out very differently for both men.

We all know who Donald Trump’s accomplices are today, but how many more accomplices would Trump have had had he been more successful or even a little less ruthless? After all, Trump lost a fairly easy chance for a second term with a series of bone-headed unforced errors that he has only himself to blame for. What’s more, he could have saved himself all the legal peril he’s in today by simply spending his final fortnight as president playing golf.

We came very, very close to a two term Trump presidency. Closer than many of us think. Imagine how many more friends Trump could have had today had he not been so stupid or so incompetent or heartless. Imagine for a moment what might have undoubtedly been a shockingly long list of Trump allies had Trump not blown it. America came just that close to inevitable demise. It’s a wonder we are not more circumspect — and grateful.

We may laugh at Trump today, but we would do well to keep in mind that our victory was helped along by a series of bizarrely orchestrated own-goals overseen by people so amazingly stupid as to defy belief. Imagine where we’d be today had Trump had a Kissinger instead of a Giuliani, or a Haldeman instead of a Meadows.

And look at the number of accomplices Trump has anyway! Indeed, despite his many failures and shockingly stupid moves and moronic utterances, there are still men and women in Congress who behave as if they are beholden to him. In a self-immolating display of debasement, Kevin McCarthy thanked Trump for his speakership with all the terrified sincerity of a Kim Jong-Un minister or a Saddam Hussein cabinet officer.

It’s amazing how much of Trump’s power still remains. It ought to give us real insight into what power he might have had — had he been clever. It ought to make us very, very worried about future Trumps. The next one won’t be so stupid. The next one will have learned from the mistakes Trump made.

What’s more, it isn’t just the appetite for greed and corruption in the Washington of today that staggers me. It’s also the appetite for evil. In an orgy of insincerity Republicans booed President Biden when he suggested that some of them (not most) wanted to take away our Medicare and Social Security. Well I submit most of them do. And they will if we ever permit them the reigns of power again.

There is, in short, a power vacuum in Washington today ready and waiting for another Trump. It’s up to us to make sure that never happens again. And it’s up to the (hopefully) Democratic Congress, working with President Biden, to pass laws in 2025 that ensure that another Trump never happens again. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.