Does anyone else see Donald Trump as another O.J. Simpson?
The latter committed a gruesome double homicide, and having gained his freedom from the almost certain fate of life incarcerated, he turned around and committed another wham-bam felony, earning himself a 33-year sentence.
Trump escaped his deserved fate from dallying in a panoply of crimes, as laid out in the Mueller Report, then turned around and committed more criminal and anti-constitutional acts which might earn him the political equivalent of a long stretch in purgatory, if not actual incarceration.
Trump is otherwise compared by pundits not to O.J., but to a mob boss. To me that comparison strikes home not so much because of the manner in which he routinely defiles the office of the presidency, but because he has never learned that his time is running out; that ultimately he'll strike out. Thugs never learn.
Which leads me to yet another of the both-sides balancing act of the Times' Frank Bruni. The man must suffer from the same dysthymia I do, although I still have many a good day. Bruni, on the other hand, is trapped in an unending vortex of gloom โ and by God he wants us to know it. His ministrations of dread are bi-weekly primal screams about the uncertainties of good conquering bad, even badmen like Trump.
Take, for instance, this latest bit of Brunian moroseness:
"Bringing the country together [after Trump's impeachment] would call for more than a talented politician; it would demand a miracle worker. None of the Democratic presidential candidates qualifyโฆ.
"From the House Republicansโ persecution of Hillary Clinton through the permanent hysteria of House Democrats under Trump, Washington has devolved ever further into a place where process muscles out progress, grandstanding eclipses governing and noise muffles any meaningful signal."
Those are astounding statements, much like the ones a psychiatrist would hear when treating a chronically miserable patient. First, how can Bruni know that every Democratic presidential candidate lacks the talent of producing the miraculous? I grant you the probability seems slim, but it also seemed slim upon Abraham Lincoln's or Harry Truman's ascendence.
As for House Democrats' "permanent hysteria," they have been possessed of anything but. In fact more than once I have snickered or grimaced upon hearing some House Democrat on cable news self-piteously moan about what a sad day it is when he or she is compelled to recommend ousting the mob boss in the White House.
Why the sadness? It's always a joyous day when a hoodlum like Trump gets his comeuppance. That, I'm sure, is how every House Democrat feels, yet they're also compelled to evince grave solemnity before the cameras.
So let us rejoice that Donald O.J. Trump might now be looking at the final reward for his life of crime. He has, for sure, earned all the ignominy that the next generation of political historians can heap upon him. However in my own little dysthymic, Brunian way, I'm not counting on it.