Donald Trump is a Bad Person and a Menace to American Democracy

He's really bad (still don't try to assassinate him)

Donald Trump sucks.

Before his candidacy for president, Trump spent *years* in the early 2010s suggesting that Obama was actually born in Kenya and may secretly be a Muslim. He repeatedly claimed to have evidence — always a few weeks away — that Obama’s birth certificate was a fraud, that it listed him as a Muslim. Was this bald-faced lying in service of foul racism? Or is Donald Trump actually an idiot who believed the drivel he was spewing? It’s a choose your own adventure story where all paths lead to the same conclusion.

He’s a serial philanderer who cheats on his wives. Infidelity not offensive enough for you? How about molesting women? A jury found him guilty of sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, and then repeatedly using his massive platform to defame her for good measure. Now you may be saying to yourselves, could our former president really have done this? Could the same guy who bragged on camera about aggressively groping women’s vaginas without consent and getting away with it really have done just that? I leave it to you, wise reader, to render judgement.

Trump is a greedy fraud and a tax cheat. Remember Trump University? The guy really was just scamming people. The organization was shut down amid complaints, investigations, and lawsuits (later settled). He aggressively, and almost certainly illegally, skirted federal tax law to maximally enrich himself through his familial inheritance. This was not, of course, his only scam. More recently, the Trump Organization and its subsidiaries were found to have engaged in criminal tax fraud; the organization’s long-time CFO was sentenced to jail. If I’m not mistaken, the guy is — as of the moment of this writing — in a jail cell on Riker’s Island.

This is a natural segue to the next point: people close to Trump regularly find themselves being convicted of crimes. Is it a coincidence? I’d argue not. But which was does the causality go? Does the man surround himself with criminals to begin with? Or does he employ those in his close orbit do his illegal dirty work? Or perhaps both. Another interesting thing about those in Trump’s orbit is that a quite fair few, after working with him, describe him as an unbelievable moron. A lot of the people around him also just suck, so make of that what you will.

One more thing is that he’s a truly tremendous liar. It almost doesn’t bear saying at this point, and is a fact very obviously present into all the other critiques laid out both before and after this paragraph, but it’s unequivocally true that he’s a massive liar. Head to toe, he’s a mendacious, dishonest, zero-integrity, shameless liar. A few times over the years since Trump’s emergence on the political scene, I’ve wondered to myself “Have I ever personally known someone who lies more casually and regularly than Donald Trump?”. There’s one acquaintance, who I have long considered to be a compulsive liar, that comes to mind as a competitor. But it’s a squeaker.

Ok, so that’s it? That’s the supposedly overwhelming case against Trump? That he’s a racist, idiotic, dishonest, greedy, lying, self-obsessed weasel that abuses women (then brags about it, then defames them when accused of it), cheats on his wives, steals from the vulnerable to enrich himself, is disliked by many of those closest to him, and leaves a trail of chaos and harm in his wake? Nope! There’s more, and it gets worse.

Donald Trump also tried to steal an election, disregarding the will of the American people and subverting American democracy to grant himself a second, unelected term in office. Heading into the elections, there were two options: (i) Biden wins, (ii) Trump wins. Does any sane person of even modest intelligence honestly believe that there’s any scenario in which Trump lost where he would not accuse Biden of cheating? Of *course* he was going to accuse Biden of cheating if Biden prevailed. He accused *Ted Cruz* of cheating in the Iowa caucus. He’s such a fragile-ego’d freak that, like a literal toddler, he can’t lose without dishonestly crying foul play.

Do you doubt what I’m saying? Do you think there’s any chance that what I’m saying about Trump’s allegations of cheating is wrong? Hear it from the man himself. He said verbatim prior to the election: “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.” He unequivocally rejected any chance that he wouldn’t allege election rigging if Biden won.

Ok, but that was just the run up to the election. The proof is in the pudding. How’d he act after? At 2:30am on election night, about two hours after Biden expressed optimism about incoming results but cautioned patience as votes were counted, Trump claimed to have won the election! Incredibly, he was able to make that determination two days before the first major election reporting desk. Wow! Truly a smart — and honest! — guy.

Then he just continued to claim he won, convinced many of supporters he had been cheated via widespread fraud — significantly undermining confidence in American democracy — and tried to pull various levers to steal a second term, including calling a guy on a recorded phone call and asking him to cheat on his behalf, doing alternate elector shenanigans, and also just inciting a violent mob to storm the Capitol while the vote was being counted.

It’s just actually incredible how much this guy sucks. Even this less-than-generous description of Trump somehow fails to capture how much he sucks. Remember when many of his supporters became enchanted into a quasi-cult around Q Anon — a motherfucking 4chan poster??!?!?!?!? — and then Trump would just play into that shit and post shit about how the “Storm is coming!”? It’s so absurd that it would be funny if these were not the same cultists who fueled conspiracies about election fraud and subsequently tried to stop the certification of the results by force. (Actually, it’s still kind of funny. Really? You thought a 4chan poster was…I give up. I don’t even know that the theory is coherent enough to succinctly characterize.)

I’ll end on that relatively light note but don’t let that take away from the blatant truth that Donald Trump is a bad person and a menace to American democracy.