If truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, then this meme about a human resources executive interviewing a job applicant says it all.
But it’s not just Donald Trump proving the point about truth sometimes being stranger than fiction. It’s the tens of millions of Americans who actually want the guy to get hired. It’s the Americans who still fall for this con man. Exhibit A: Trump’s best day of fundraising since he announced his third presidential run in November came last week after his indictment was announced. His campaign sent out more than a half-dozen emails asking for money, with headers like "BREAKING: PRESIDENT TRUMP INDICTED," "RUMORED DETAILS OF MY ARREST" and, "Yes, I've been indicted, BUT."
Meantime, this indicted billionaire, who by his own swaggering accounts could pay every penny of the campaign himself, wrote on his website, "If you are doing well, which was made possible through the great policies of the Trump Administration, send your contribution to donaldjtrump.com.” And proving again than truth can be stranger than fiction, deluded dupes responded to the tune of more than four million dollars.
To be fair, he did give everyone an out: “If you are doing poorly, as so many of you are, do not send anything.” But they will because, since truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, they still like this guy. This guy who inspires people to racism. To homophobia. To misogyny. To insurrection. To violence.
In fact they love him. Consider the evangelicals of the Christian right. I read of one man telling a reporter while standing outside Trump Tower showing his support, “He’s the next best thing to God.” Evidently the actual behavior of the next-best-thing-to-God doesn’t phase this fervent fan. Remember when Trump infamously said in a conversation he didn’t know was being recorded, “Grab ’em by the pussy, you can do anything?” But he’s the next best thing to God and they love him anyway. His first wife Ivana divorced him when he was caught cheating with Marla Maples, who married him next. But he’s the next best thing to God and they love him anyway. He lies as easily as he breathes and couldn’t admit to a mistake if he tripped over it but still, they love him anyway, he’s the next best thing to God.
Speaking of lies, truth is stranger than fiction when an ex-president, who should be a trusted figure, says “I didn’t do it,” yet most Americans are more inclined to believe a convicted felon and disbarred lawyer like Trump’s former counsel Michael Cohen, who says he did. It’s even stranger that most Americans are more inclined to believe a former porn star than to believe an ex-president.
But according to polls, that’s the truth, not the fiction.
I just read something that reminded me about what Trump told every campaign rally in the closing days of his campaign against Hillary Clinton in 2016. It is an evocative example of truth being stranger than fiction. “Hillary is likely to be under investigation for many years, probably concluding in a criminal trial,” he told one crowd. “If Hillary Clinton were to be elected, it would create an unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis,” he told another. The strange truth is, he was foretelling his own future, not hers. One commentator said something along the lines of, “Trump was right. I voted for Hillary Clinton and sure enough, we got an unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis.” And sure enough, it now includes a criminal trial.
Then there’s yesterday, Trump’s day in court. His lawyers said he was “strong, remarkably tough, remarkably resilient.” But his face, once trapped in the defendant’s chair, told a different truth. Does this look like someone feeling strong, tough, resilient?
Even if he beats the rap, all of this— being charged with felonies, becoming the one getting the lecture instead of giving it— was a badge of dishonor. He was finally in custody, under arrest, the ink still fresh from his fingerprints in the booking office downstairs. He can pretend it’s all a badge of honor, but yesterday had to be one of the worst days, one of the most humiliating days, in the man’s life. He steered clear of the defendant’s chair for decades in lawsuits brought against him. But this time a grand jury of 23 American citizens— theoretically Trump’s peers— had reasons to conclude that he deserved to sit in that chair and not get off Scot-free.
Of course as we knew he would, he painted a different picture when he returned last night to his safe zone at Mar-a-Lago. He had the My Pillow guy there, he had Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene there, he had most of his kids there. Almost everyone who mattered except his own wife Melania. Given that a porn performer is at the heart of the charges against her husband, this had to be one of her most humiliating days too.
Trump ranted, as he does almost every time he opens his mouth, about the 2020 election, always pointing fingers, never providing proof: “Millions of votes illegally stuffed into ballot boxes, and all caught on government cameras.” He ranted about the other indictments in the offing, including the one in Atlanta for illegal interference in an election, saying the D.A. there is “doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call, even more perfect than the one I made with the president of Ukraine.” The truth is, a phone call “more perfect” than the one extorting Ukraine’s president makes it even more anti-democratic. He even maligned the New York judge who will try his case: “I have a Trump-hating judge.”
Smart people don’t do that. But truth is stranger than fiction.
We don’t know what the future holds for Donald Trump or for our nation. This trial isn’t slated to start until December and the other investigations— for election interference, for obstruction of justice, for the insurrection— are still under wraps. But while it’s not proof of anything at all, I’m usually a believer that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. There’s a lot of smoke around Donald Trump. He’s not likely to stay out of the fire. The question is, how much of the nation will he burn down with him?
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 36-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
This is a terrific piece, Greg. Spot on meme as metaphor...and all the rest.
Better he burns than the USA. Well-said, Greg. Thanks