Trump's idiotic "trading cards" are the last straw for Republicans — but in God's name, why?
They didn't mind the coup, the corruption, the sexual misconduct or the lies. But a trading-card scam — horrors!
{NOTE: A version of this essay first appeared in Salon on December 27, 2022.}
Since Donald Trump’s “Major Announcement” the week before last turned out to be selling ridiculous digital “trading cards” with his head photoshopped onto bodies he wishes he had, Republicans have been abandoning him. It is beyond puzzling how this latest grift in a lifetime of grifting could be the Trump Bridge too far for many Republicans.
Let us consider a few of the things he has done and said that were not enough to get them to turn against him and how his supports might react to them:
Taking more than $400 million (in today’s dollars) from his father and, during the decade between 1985 and 1994, losing over a billion dollars—more than anyone else in America— and declaring bankruptcy several times while claiming to be a great businessman?
Losing vast amounts of money while running a casino, a business where the house always wins?
Well, look at all those buildings with his name on them—and his private jet!
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Using fake names to pretend to be his publicist and call reporters to spread stories that he was having sex with many top celebrities?
Uh, everybody likes to blow their own horn.
Reacting to the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11by saying that the building he owns at 40 Wall Street had been “the second-tallest building in downtown Manhattan … and now it’s the tallest”?
Gaining celebrity fame by telling people, “You’re fired”?
Declaring “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters” [translation: “People who follow me are so stupid that they’ll support me no matter what I do”]?
We’re with him—100 percent!
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Allegedly raping his first wife, Ivana, in a fit of rage and casually asking her the next morning, “Does it hurt”?
Describing Marla Maples when she was his mistress as “nice tits, no brains”?
Uh, well, they were big …
Declaring, “You know, it really doesn’t matter what they write [about you] as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass”?
Bragging almost constantly about all the other women he was having sex with while he was married?
Responding to a question about whether he has ever had a “threesome” by claiming he has “slept with” three women at the same time?
Declaring “I’d rather have a retarded hot woman than a slob who’s a doctor”?
Saying of journalist Megyn Kelly after she asked him difficult questions in a debate that she had “blood coming out of her wherever”?
Calling women “bimbos, “fat pigs, “dogs,” “slobs,” and “disgusting animals”?
Boasting, “I did try and fuck her. She was married, and I moved on her very heavily … I moved on her like a bitch!”?
Saying that be grabs women by the pussy?
Well, ya know, that’s just what men do, and he’s a real man!
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Boasting on worldwide television about the size of his penis?
Proclaiming at a dinner party during the 2016 campaign “I don’t need Viagra. I need a pill to make my erection go down.”?
What’s wrong with that? He’s an alpha male!
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When asked if he has an age limit for young girls he would have sex with, first responding, “No,” but then catching himself: “No, I have no age — I mean, I have an age limit. I don't want to be … with, you know, 12-year-olds,” and saying that 35 is “check-out time” for women, suggesting that his age range for those he wants to have sex is 13 to 35?
Obviously lusting for his daughter, saying “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps, I would be dating her,” “Don’t you think my daughter’s hot? She’s hot, right,” “she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father . . . ,” and answering a question about what he has most in common with his daughter with “Well, I was going to say sex …”?
Well … people are saying that Democrats are groomers and pedophiles.
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Calling Mexicans drug dealers and rapists?
Admitting that his “university” was a scam?
Refusing to release his income tax records?
Asking Russia to help him win an election?
Mocking a man with a disability?
Intentionally separating migrant children from their families and putting children in cages?
What’s the problem?
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Faking “bone spurs” to avoid being drafted and later saying he felt “like a great and very brave soldier” in his “personal Vietnam” of avoiding STDs from all the girls he was having sex with while the troops were overseas, because vaginas are “potential landmines”?
Saying of John McCain, “He’s not a war hero; I like people who weren’t captured”?
Referring to Americans in the military who were killed in wars as “losers” and “suckers” and refusing to visit a military cemetery when it was raining because it might mess up his hair?
Trump is a real patriot and, you know, those lady parts can be dangerous places.
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Hovering over Hillary Clinton like a stalker during a debate?
But, her emails!
Insisting that his small Inauguration crowd was the largest in history?
Introducing the concept of “alternative facts” (aka lies)?
Inviting the Russian foreign minister and ambassador into the Oval Office, yucking it up with them, and revealing to them top secret intelligence?
Leading people to reject science, think that climate change is a hoax, and taking the United States out of the Paris Climate Accords?
Doing everything he could to undermine NATO and help Putin?
Scuttling the Iran nuclear deal?
Calling Haiti and African nations “shithole countries”?
Attempting to blackmail Ukraine to help him win in 2020?
Benghazi!
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Saying the Nazis who marched in Charlottesville in 2017 with torches and chanted, “Jews will not replace us” are “very fine people”?
Saying he wants to be, like Xi Jinping, president for life and have everyone stand when he enters a room?
“Falling in love” with Kim Jong Un, the world’s most evil and murderous dictator?
Insisting on a Fourth of July parade of military equipment through Washington, as Putin, Xi, and Kim have in Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang?
Calling Putin a “genius” for invading Ukraine?
Telling a gang of rightwing terrorist thugs to “Stand Down and stand by”?
Embracing QAnon insanity?
Openly consorting with Nazis, white nationalists, and antisemites?
He’s unpredictable! He goes his own way! It’s great!
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Thinking that Frederick Douglass, who died in 1895, is an up-and-coming person who “is being recognized more and more”?
Thinking the Continental Army “took over the airports” from the British the American War for Independence?
Ah, history is past, who knows anything about that?
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Telling more than 30,000 lies—an average of more than 20 a day— as “president” ?
Using his position as “president” to enrich himself and his family?
Pushing through a massive tax cut designed to make people like him richer, with the benefits going largely to the very rich and giant corporations, further increasing the wealth and income gap in the United States, to the detriment of the people he says he will help?
Appointing rightwing extremists to the Supreme Court and so revoking women’s right to control their own bodies?
Hiding the severity of Covid from the public, resulting in at least 200,000 more American deaths than would otherwise have occurred?
Science is a hoax! Vaccines are evil! Doctors, nurses and "public health" officials are communists. Repeal the 19th Amendment! Freedom!
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Intentionally promoting the Big Lie that the election had been stolen from him, further dividing the nation and endangering the survival of our Constitutional Republic?
Plotting a coup to overthrow the American Constitutional Republic and make himself dictator?
Stealing top secret documents?
Calling for the termination of the Constitution and reinstalling himself as president?
Nobody cares! But this grotesque digital trading card scam? That's too much — we have to draw the line somewhere!