“The Venomous Vulgarian”: the Lasting Toxic Legacy of Donald Trump

Remembering my words from 2016 and 2020

Trump rally, Virginia Beach, October 2016, Nuremberg in the Tidewater

On 21 October, 2016, a bit over two weeks before the election, I wrote this words on what is now my legacy blog site at Wordpress. At that point, I felt that Trump would be defeated. I attended a Trump rally in Virginia Beach shortly before writing this, however that was before James Comey torpedoed Hillary Clinton by reopening and almost immediately re-closing his nothingburger investigation into Hillary’s email server. But, the simple fact that he reopening the investigation he gave Trump the opportunity to remind people of his “Crooked Hillary” attack, for which Clinton has no time to respond. It was enough to throw the election to Trump, and it took place a little over a week after I wrote these words in an article entitled “The Venomous Vulgarian: the Lasting Toxic Legacy of Donald Trump.”

In it I compared Trump to the hate-filled Nazi Gauleiter and publisher of Der Stürmer, an antisemitic and practically pornographic tabloid. This is the unedited text of that article:

As I watched and listened to Donald Trump before and after the third and thankfully final debate of the 2016 Presidential election, I was struck with just how viscous, vulgar, and venomous this man is. I cannot remember anyone in American politics at the national level, Republican or Democrat, or for that matter even Whig, who ever managed to immerse himself so deeply into the amoral, unethical, and undemocratic sewer that Trump has bathed himself, the Republican Party and this nation.

Trump’s toxicity is unparalleled in American politics. Everything and everyone who has ever had anything to do with him is poisoned by his touch. Wives, business partners, contractors, employees, political advisors, and supporters have all been stained by the Mustard Gas that Trump emits on a minute to minute basis. Maybe the most stained are the Evangelical Christian church leaders who have not only endorsed and defended Trump, but  who positively described his character as Christian and said nothing about Trump’s words and actions, which if an opponent had uttered, or had been accused, they would have excoriated with a particularly “Christian” self-righteousness.  Their actions have stained the witness of the church for at least the next generation and it is no wonder that young people are fleeing the church. I specifically use the imagery of Mustard Gas, not just because of its toxicity, but because of its persistence. The battlefields of World War One France and Belgium are still contaminated by it, and the toxic residue still injures people today.

That my friends is the poisonous and corrosive effect of Donald Trump on this country.  He is a toxic and persistent threat to everyone, even his most devout followers. Race baiting, misogynistic, narcissistic, vulgar, and ignorant, Trump spews his vile venom of conspiracy theories wrapped in fiction, and coated in lies, and buttressed with near pornograpic misogyny in every direction. He has given his supporters in the heavily armed Alt-Right, the neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and White Supremacists the boldness to come out of hiding because he has normalized their hate, something that no Western statesman or politician has done since before the verdicts at Nuremberg.

I have long felt that Trump reminded me of Nazi leaders, but frankly most of them, while every bit as toxic as Trump were both more intelligent and were better able to cover the darkness of their amoral souls with a modicum of respectability, with the exception of one; the publisher of the infamous newspaper Der Sturmer, and Gauleiter of Nuremberg, Julius Streicher.

Robert Jackson, the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court who served as the Chief American Prosecutor at Nuremberg referred to Streicher in his summation:

“Streicher, the venomous vulgarian, manufactured and distributed obscene racial libels which incited the populace to accept and assist the progressively savage operations of “race purification.” 

Is that not exactly what Trump has done during his seventeen month campaign to stir up race hatred against Mexicans and Arabs, not to mention Asians and Blacks? Of course it is, which is exactly why the leaders of the Alt-Right claim him as their candidate, the man who in their perverted minds has made them respectable again and ready to assume their place in Trump’s new order. Anti-Semitism and racism runs rampant in the words of his closest collaborators such as the Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon, as well as Alt-Right Neo-Nazi and KKK leaders like David Duke, Richard Spencer, Jared Taylor, and Peter Brimalow.

My friends, what you see in Trump is what you get. Unlike Hitler and Goering, but much like Streicher, Trump has no capability of maintaining any sort of respectability. He has been stoking the fires of violence by claiming that the election is rigged and pumping up his followers for violence if he loses.

Donald Trump is dangerous and will remain an enemy of the American experiment long after he is defeated on November 8th.

That was in October 2016.

On 1 November, 2020 I wrote this words about Trump:

Trump may be ignorant of many things, but that does not mean that he is stupid. I think that most of us assume that he is. He does what he does for specific reasons. His bankruptcies, divorces, fraudulent business dealings, and everything else he has done in life have been to enrich himself at the expense of others or feed his megalomania, and desire for absolute power. What he has done throughout his Presidency is proof of that: his cooperation with Russia to win election in 2016, his attempts to destroy our alliances and to undermine allies on the border of Putin’s Russia, his wanton destruction of the guardrails of our republic, his trampling of the Constitution, and his willingness to sacrifice the lives of Americans during the Coronavirus 19 Pandemic are all proof of his lack of character and the evil in his heart, are not proof of his stupidity; but proof of his ruthlessness and cold blooded cunning to make people underestimate him. Yes, when it comes to basic knowledge of our Constitution, history, science, philosophy, religion, economics, foreign policy, literature or anything else that has enriched Western Civilization, the President is an ignoramus of astounding proportions.

However, when it comes to the art of manipulating people and getting them to do things and support polices that harm them he is probably in the league of Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao. His image is based on a fictionalization of his “successful businessman” persona that he played on “The Apprentice.” It is all fiction, but he plays to the basest beliefs of his base. He knows them better than they know themselves. 

If he finds a way to remain in power, he will exploit it even at the cost of the lives of his opponents, but also his supporters; especially the latter, because they believe his lies as much as they believe the Gospel. They will willing sacrifice themselves to keep him in power. The fact is that his only loyalty is to himself.

So, now we are here, and Trump is returning to power with a vengeance. Thanks to the Supreme Court, the constitutional restraints that bound Trump in his first term are gone. He can effectively ignore the law and the Constitution as he dismantles our democracy, destroys our institutions, including the Republican Party that enabled him for eight years without believing that he would turn on them.

I have no sympathy for the GOP or the millions of people who voted for him completely ignoring how he promised to harm them and their families. As for Trump’s opponents a people who voted against him, I understand, I am one of you. In light of the impending disaster that awaits our country, I cannot feel bad for the political party and people who helped him back into power. That might sound harsh, but I am sure that I speak for tens of millions of people.

As far as me, I must speak out. I must work with others and promote their work to tell the truth. There are only 65 days remaining until Trump and his cabal take power. He has tipped his hand in the choice of his cabinet nominees. I will not rehash what I have already written about them, other than to say that they are among the least qualified, least competent, and most immoral and nefarious group of people ever to be nominee to the cabinet of any president. They make Andrew Jackson’s final cabinet and Warren G. Harding’s group of Ohio lackeys look positively stellar by comparison. Those were the men who brought us the Trail of Tears and Teapot Dome, some of the worst moments in American history.