The man under the rug

There is often a man behind the curtain, an ordinary person pulling cranks and levers for the spectacle of a great green hologram and burning flames, the mortality behind the magic. But, in the case of Donald Trump, the curtain is a rug, and the rug is very big because the rug must hide a great deal of damning facts and corrupt clutter that must be swept somewhere to avoid questions that cannot be answered without damning confessions and perhaps a bit of embarrassment and even shame.

Here’s the context from Donald Trump’s life as described in an ABC News article that led to the previous paragraph:

President-elect Donald Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent Friday’s sentencing in his New York criminal hush money case.

In a filing Wednesday morning, defense lawyers argued that sentencing Trump — who has attempted to halt the case based on a claim of presidential immunity — would damage ‘the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government.’

‘Most fundamentally, forcing President Trump to defend a criminal case and appear for a criminal sentencing hearing at the apex of the Presidential transition creates a constitutionally intolerable risk of disruption to national security and America’s vital interests,’ Trump’s lawyers said.

I get that Trump doesn’t want to carry the responsibility of his own actions and decisions because to do so is to face his own mediocre reflection, that fact that he is dumb enough to do stupid things and bad enough at the stupid to get caught in the immoral act. He’s a real slouch of a criminal, often too clumsy and obvious for many to care and in many ways far too normal and slovenly to arouse anything other than sympathy from those willing to forgive themselves only by forgiving (or ignoring) his couch potato spores.

But Friday’s sentencing is not what will put stress on the institution of the Presidency. Donald Trump is the source of the stress. The Republican Party is the source of the stress. The historical context and circumstances that made the Republican Party and many independent voters alike ripe for sharing in and carrying the grievances of this blundering con are the source of the stress.

The privilege of the powerful is that their weakness can be portrayed as strength. Donald is asking the Supreme Court to mute discussion of his foibles, to free him from having to hear about his own foolish acts. That’s weakness — not strength. That’s lack of responsibility. That’s the immaturity of a stunted individual. That’s Captain Hook fighting wars with little boys because he as a pirate never grew up, just more and more entrenched in rituals of violent make believe.

And those Supreme Court robes are starting to look less and less judicial and a lot more like nightgowns for telling bedtime stories about presidential immunity and potentially the immunity of a President Elect and beyond that and second star to the right who knows.