more evidence Donald Trump is running a shadow presidency

San Francisco CA

Description

THE MORON WILL NEVER GIVE UP. HE IS A CANCER ON AMERICA. One benefit of never admitting you lost a presidential election -- even though, of course, you did -- is that you can just keep on acting like the president. That's exactly what Donald Trump is trying to do these days, overseeing a sort of shadow presidency for the base of the Republican Party in which Covid-19 isn't that big of a problem, the 2020 election was stolen and he was right about, well, everything else too. As The Washington Post's Dan Zak wrote recently: "A post-presidency is its own kind of office, term-limited only by death, and held at any given time by few men, each with their own ideas of how to wield a more abstract kind of power." George W. Bush moved back to Texas, took up painting and almost never offered commentary -- positive or negative -- about Barack Obama. "I think part of having a fulfilling life is to be challenged," Bush said after leaving the White House. "I'm challenged on the golf course, I'm challenged to stay fit, and I'm challenged by my paintings.... I am happy." Obama, following his departure from the White House in early 2017, angered many liberals with his refusal to speak out against Trump and his efforts to summarily roll back many of the measures the 44th president had put in place over eight years. While he eventually did come out -- particularly as the 2020 race heated up -- with a more biting critique of the Trump years, it was still not enough for many who believed Obama owed the party and the country to blast away at Trump for four straight years. Trump, never one to overly concern himself with how presidents past have behaved, hasn't even ever acknowledged that Biden won the presidency fair and square -- much less stepped back in terms of a public role. In short, Trump has continued to act as though the 2020 campaign is ongoing, which, for him, it apparently is. Rather than issuing a call for unity after a hard-fought race -- a la Al Gore following the lengthy recount in the 2000 presidential contest -- Trump has doubled and tripled down on pushing false narratives to a party base only too eager to accept whatever he says unquestioningly. That decision has, not surprisingly, left the country as divided -- if not more -- than we were in the heart of the 2020 campaign. And turned things like getting vaccinated against a deadly virus that has killed more than 650,000 Americans and counting. TRUMP IS THE BUTT HOLE TO AMERICA. EGO AND NOTHING ELSE PUSHES HIM.