DONALD TRUMP'S WORST NIGHTMARE

DONALD TRUMP’S WORST NIGHTMARE

©Wendell Griffen, 2019

Donald Trump’s derangement is happening in real time in front of the world.  The whole world knows that he has been impeached – charged with abuse of his office as President of the United States and obstruction of the U.S. Congress – meaning that he now, officially, has been identified as a sociopath.  However many times he may call his behavior “perfect,” “beautiful,” “the best,” or whatever other superlatives he likes to use, Trump now is an officially known menace to the United States. 

But that isn’t Trump’s worst nightmare. 

Trump’s greatest nightmare, and his constant terror, comes because his impeachment has come at the hands of a woman.  Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, masterminded the 2018 campaign that resulted in Democrats winning control of the House of Representatives.  Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, is third in line of succession to the Presidency (behind Vice President Mike Pence), has a rock solid hold on her San Francisco-area Congressional seat, and enjoys widespread support and admiration from people across the United States because she has qualities Donald Trump has never demonstrated and cannot feign. 

Nancy Pelosi is an intellectually brilliant, morally centered, socially conscious, politically savvy, and financially secure woman, mother of five children, and wife.  Nothing in Trump’s personal, social, commercial, and political experience prepared him for Speaker Pelosi.  Trump’s relationships have always been transactional and unprincipled.  Beyond that, Trump has always been able to conduct transactions with women from a position of power, be it the power of his wealth, celebrity, male privilege, or capacity for ruthlessness.  Nancy Pelosi marks the first time that Trump has been forced to deal with a woman who held equal power, let alone a woman capable of using her power with great skill on so many levels. 

For these reasons, Pelosi is the person Donald Trump fears most.  She does not respond to his attempts at bullying.  She knows how to belittle his antics without disrespect for the office he holds.  By masterminding Trump’s impeachment after having spent more than half of 2019 publicly refusing to support calls for it, Pelosi has won stronger support from across the Democratic Party and growing admiration from political independents and moderate Republicans.  Her political stature is sound and growing stronger.  Meanwhile, Trump’s stature is shrinking with every childish message he posts on Twitter and every lie he utters. 

To make matters more terrifying, Trump has no power to control Pelosi.  He can’t control her with money.  Pelosi is personally wealthy.  She leads the body in the U.S. Congress that initiates all laws related to taxation (revenue).  Trump can’t control Pelosi in the media because he has no credibility, Pelosi has credibility, and the world knows this is true.  Trump knows that he can’t change the judgments of people who aren’t brainwashed by his sophistry concerning his dishonesty and Pelosi’s veracity. 

And what makes Pelosi especially frightening to Trump is that he can’t find a man able to rescue him from her.  You see, Donald Trump grew up knowing that his father (Fred Trump) would rescue him from unpleasant realities, including his personal, social, and public failings.  In Donald’s world, affluent white men are supposed to run roughshod over the rest of the world, including (if not especially) over women, because that is what Fred Trump taught him. But no man can rescue Trump from Speaker Pelosi. 

Trump may have thought he would be rescued by Senator Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader.  Imagine Trump’s alarm when it became clear the night of his impeachment that Pelosi’s respect for McConnell’s position as leader of the Senate would not make her ignore his contempt for fairness and integrity.  Pelosi did not hesitate to publicly criticize McConnell’s blatant political and personal bias concerning Trump’s impeachment trial. 

Pelosi knows that as Speaker, she (not McConnell) decides when to lodge the articles of impeachment against Trump in the Senate.  Pelosi (not McConnell) decides when to identify the Impeachment Managers (the people from the House who will serve as prosecutors during Trump’s trial).  Pelosi knows her power and knows that McConnell’s personal and political standing, including his skill in dealing with the media and his standing with the rising U.S. population of people who of color and women, is far beneath her own, and shrinking.

January 2020 will bring new causes of alarm for Trump.  His impeachment trial in the Senate will probably be defined by the skills and tenacity of men and women chosen by Pelosi as Impeachment Managers.  The month will conclude with Trump being forced to negotiate with Pelosi on the State of the Union address, when he will be the first U.S. President to make that address while facing charges of abuse of office and obstruction of Congress.  If the trial hasn’t ended before the State of the Union address, don’t be surprised if Trump attempts to belittle or berate Pelosi.  He will fail at that also, and will simply be upstaged by her intelligence, professionalism, and courageous grace.

Some people seek pastoral support during troubling situations, but that approach won’t help Trump.  First, most fair-minded adults in the United States (including a growing number of devout people from across the religious spectrum) reject the views of his chaplains, white religious nationalist preachers like Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, and Jerry Falwell, Jr. 

Trump’s chaplains aren’t going to change Trump’s insecurities about being exposed, charged, and out-witted by Nancy Pelosi, a reverent pro-choice Catholic mother and grandmother.  Her established record for principled public policy without resorting to sectarian chauvinism may not matter to Trump.  However, it will highlight Trump’s sociopathic conduct, clearly shine through the foggy bombast of his chaplains, and cause more people to decide that Trump is unfit to lead a nation no matter what his chaplain cheerleaders tell him. 

Nancy Pelosi is Donald Trump’s worst nightmare.  She has the power, skill, and grit needed to expose his corrupt personality and political, cultural, and moral incompetence to the world.  Speaker Pelosi will do so, for the remaining days of Trump’s presidency, no matter what the outcome may be of his pending impeachment trial. Pelosi knows that Trump is a menace to democracy, so she will use the full weight of her authority to protect the United States and wider world from Trump.  She will do so every day, with grace, dignity, unflinching courage, to honor her oath of office and the values that have guided her entire life.  

Trump not only picked the wrong place (the Oval Office) to showcase his sociopathic personality and political incompetence.  He picked on the wrong woman (Speaker Nancy Pelosi).

Welcome, Mr. President, to your longest and most terrifying night.