Putin & Trump (The Master & Apprentice)

Like a lot of people, I don't think that Trump actually ran for president hoping to actually be  President. My 2 cents is that he ran as a publicity stunt to keep his name in the public eye after a wind down of The Apprentice. Then he found his particular blend of juvenile playground sadism got a warm reception amongst the populist masses that swarmed his rallies. And almost by accident he found himself elected.

Once he got to the office though, his talent for fraud and corruption found an office and organizations ripe for exploitation. I suspect early on he received a fairly detailed briefing on Vladimir Putin that included an estimation of his ill-gotten wealth stolen from the Russian economy and concluded: "That's my goal." Not only is he staggeringly wealthy, he is justifiably feared for having people executed and almost certainly will never be held to account for his various crimes since he has thoroughly corrupted and co-opted the apparatus of the Russian state to his own ends. With his new idol firmly in mind he set about funneling as much government money to his own business interests as possible. Secret Service staying at his hotels, foreign governments booking huge blocks of rooms for non-existent guests to curry favor, Air Force personnel staying at his Scotland club, appointing his children and relatives to jobs they are completely unqualified for but which they also could exploit. (See: Ivanka's trademarks in China, Jared's deals with Middle East potentates to rescue his family's own bad real estate deals.)

But, unlike in Russia, the US still has a semi-functional justice department with ambitious prosecutors and Trump - even before coming to office - had a loooooong history of various financial crimes likely both of civil and criminal nature. If he hadn't run for office, almost certainly these would not have been prosecuted given that most similar cases are not. Alas, our orange Icarus flew too close to the sun.

Throughout the last four years of Trump's endless re-election campaign it has been very obvious that he is simply running to continue to get donations to fund his legal defenses so that he can avoid paying the army of lawyers himself with the ultimate goal of getting into office so that he can pardon himself and make everything go away. (Except those pesky NY state cases.)

He recognizes that if he doesn't win, the cases against him will grind forward. Except this time he won't have an ongoing campaign apparatus from which to siphon money from, meaning he will actually have to pay for his own legal bills. Or maybe I'm wrong and there is a strong desire out there in the amber waves for a twice-failed presidential candidate, convicted of slandering a woman he has been credibly accused of sexually assaulting, facing a $400 million fine, who almost single-handedly lead the Republicans to losing control of the Senate with his terrible endorsements AND who will be 82 years old in 2028.

So in a very real sense, this is an existential election: first, for the nation as it faces a candidate who at best will use the office of president to loot the government for his own benefit and at worse will *also* allow the absolute nutters of the 2025 Project to run hog wild and send us back to 100 years Legislatively and 250 years back to having a king above the law instead of a president. (Oh wait... that has largely already happened - thanks John Roberts.) But it also a very existential moment for Trump himself. If he loses, this is it - he will have to face the legal issues of his own making on his own as a two-time LOSER in the race for presidency.