The breaking news keeps turning out to be no news at all to anyone who’s been paying attention. So, in a shamefaced homage to Polish jokes, “Yo Mama’s So Fat” jokes and Jeff Foxworthy’s “You Might Be A Redneck If” jokes, I offer the “It’s no surprise that…” joke.
It’s no surprise that Michael Cohen turns out not to be willing to take a bullet for Donald Trump. Or serve a long stay in the Graybar Hotel. Thus,
It’s no surprise that Cohen has sprung a leak.
It’s no surprise that a tape shows Trump authorized a payment of hush money to a Playboy plaything, despite claims that he didn’t have sex with her.
It’s no surprise that Cohen says Trump knew about the infamous Trump Tower dirt-on-Hillary meeting in advance, despite Don Jr.’s claim that he never told Daddy about it, though it was Daddy who helped him write a fictional description of its purpose — enabling adoptions.
How dumb do they think we are, to suppose the toady son wouldn’t immediately share an offer of such a juicy opportunity to steal an election? Or give a hoot about adoptions?
It’s no surprise that Trump expects loyalty without returning the favor.
It’s no surprise that the Trump admnistration is saying that, since the illlegal immigration numbers have dipped slightly, separating children from their parents is a success. Of course, this can only work on families crosing the border. So it won’t be a big surprise if ICE begins to inflict some kind of gaudy pain on solo asylum seekers to improve the numbers further by sowing fear.
It’s no surprise that attacks on Cohen, Mueller, Rosenstein and a cast of thousands have been more crazed than usual. The daily appearance of new revelations regarding sexual partners, payoffs, tapes, turncoats, adverse court decisions, and looming trials surely make Trump feel the walls are closing in.
It’s no surprise that it is harder and harder for more and more Americans to take seriously cries of injured innocence from a man whose business and marital career include violations of vows, and of labor, zoning, tax, immigration, fraud, bankruptcy and other laws, not to mention collaboration with New York mobsters, Russian oligarchs, and ongoing investigations into obstruction of justice, violations of the emoluments clause, campaign finance and election laws, and aiding and abetting crimes by foreign espionage agencies.
It’s no surprise that a person whose “Make America Great Again” hats were made in China may not have objected to getting another kind of foreign assistance in winning the presidency.
It’s no surprise that, as an election looms and Trump’s tarnish worsens, freaked out Republicans are joining the president in trying to change the story, cry fake news, or smear the cops on the beat. So, an Army-McCarthy style show trial was held to discredit Peter Strzok, a move is afoot to impeach Rod Rosenstein, and demands have increased for Mueller to bring the investigations to a speedy end.
It’s no surprise that partisan defenders of Trump are so afraid of the damage that will be done to them and their party if the truth about Trump comes out that they are forgetting an important lesson of the Nixon era. Covering up crimes sent more people to jail than those who committed them, and tarnished the enablers forever.
It’s no surprise that a story that outdoes the purple prose of any dimestore thriller or the pot-boiling of the most lurid Hollywood fever dream has legs.
The press, the politicians and the people are never going to be able to resist or lose their appetite for illicit sex, dirty money, covert Russian attacks on America, and a cast of rich crooks, undercover operatives, shadowy cyber criminals, major corporations, media moguls, dragon ladies, femme fatales, and in the starring role a person for whom the old movie moniker might have been invented — The Man You Love To Hate.
All of which means, it’s no surprise that a man who lived by division, greed, betrayal, insult, misogyny, racism, careless cruelty, lies and deceit, macho boasts, fraud, disloyalty, mismanagement and passing the buck should find that when he needs friends more than ever they should be in short supply
It’s no surprise that those who want to live to fight another day are drifting away. The Koch network has repudiated large parts of the Trump agenda and will not necessarily back his more extreme acolytes in the midterms.
And, in a result that may actually be a surprise and breaking news, polls in the some of the swing states that provided Trump’s margin of victory in — Michigan, Wisconsin, and others, are beginning to show that only a fraction of those who voted for Trump in 2016 think he deserves another term.
It will be no surprise if Trump begins to froth at the mouth and bay at the moon when he hears that.