Put a fork in Donald Trump – the ex-president is done

Mark it on your calendars. This was the week that Donald Trump’s meteoric political career did what meteors often do, colliding with planet Earth and leaving big, ugly marks on the landscape.

The fact that Trump may soon announce his candidacy for the presidency in the coming days is itself a sign of his political collapse rather than strength. When he first ran for president, he did it because he thought it would strengthen his brand. He’ll probably do it this time because he thinks it might make him harder to prosecute. And because he can start one last big attempt to fleece his followers.

Everywhere you looked this week there were stories of the debris being flung into the air as Trump re-entered the atmosphere and, like every other piece of space junk, turned into a bright orange fireball bound for oblivion. There were the revelations by White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson to the January 6 committee and the reactions to her shocking, credible stories about an insane president who wanted to actively lead an armed insurgency against US governments. There were the actions of Trump’s Supreme Court, which over the next few decades can itself be seen as the place where the crashing President left his ugliest and most enduring marks. There was also the sight of Trump’s successor in Europe, undoing the damage the 45th President wanted to do to NATO and doubling down on the Western alliance’s commitment to contain the threat posed by Trump’s benefactor Vladimir Putin. Even a reminder of America’s worst president’s sleazy past hung in the air with the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell for her involvement in sex trafficking on behalf of late Trump buddy and fellow party member Jeffrey Epstein.

You couldn’t tune into a cable news show without seeing footage of the swirling remnants of Trump’s disastrous presidency, twisted character, and distorted values.

Hutchinson’s statement, confident and courageous, was damning for both Trump and his former White House colleagues. It revealed with new clarity and harrowing detail their involvement in a seditious conspiracy against a government they had been entrusted to lead. It also showed their cowardice in not publicly opposing Trump or revealing to Congress what they knew, as Mark Meadows’ former adviser did.

Her testimony hit Washington and the US political scene, as large meteors can, with the force of multiple atomic bombs. Even die-hard members of Team Trump began to abandon ship. They called it “damn,” “hard to dismiss,” and “insane shit.” The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed saying Trump shouldn’t run in 2024 Washington Examiner ran an editorial headlined “Trump Has Again Proved Unfit for Power.” Trump’s former attorney Ty Cobb said, “If this isn’t a riot, I don’t know what is.” Former Trump chief of staff Mick Mulvaney wrote after Hutchinson’s testimony: “It could get very dark for the former president.”

At one of the holy sites of the Republican right, the Ronald Reagan Library in California, Liz Cheney (R-WY), the Jan. 6 committee vice chair, received enthusiastic support from the Crowd as she said, “It’s undeniable — the Republican Party cannot be loyal to Donald Trump and loyal to the Constitution at the same time.”

Even before Hutchinson’s blockbuster statement, Trump began to suffer politically. A New Hampshire poll showed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a dead heat with Trump among GOP voters. National polls also show Trump’s lead over DeSantis is shrinking. Not that Sunshine Fascist DeSantis is much of an improvement, as evidenced by the implementation of its signature “Don’t Say Gay” legislation. In a Florida school district, teachers were warned not to wear rainbow clothing, remove pictures of their same-sex spouses from their desks, and removing LGBTQ Safe Space stickers from classroom doors.”)

Also, the implications of Supreme Court decisions constructed by Trump with the help of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and a major misstatement Roe v. calf by the judges Trump added, as well as the Jan. 6 committee, also had significant political implications. Democrats have recently shown significant gains in general ballots. Thanks to both the former president and his work on the Supreme Court, Republicans are looking more vulnerable, and to the extent that he’s no longer seen as magically helping the party, that could be the final nail in the coffin for trump.

While some on the right tried to challenge Hutchinson’s testimony, they didn’t officially and they didn’t question any of her core claims — including that Trump knew the crowd was armed on Jan. 6 and that he knew the crowd wanted to lead in his attack on Capitol Hill. She stood by her claims. Additionally, many in the legal community saw the testimony as a turning point in bringing the criminal case against Trump. In doing so, they raise the specter of future prosecution and even conviction of Trump and those around him, suggesting that his political position, dire as it looks today, is likely to only get worse.

This is exactly why Trump could announce his election campaign soon. That and, of course, the opportunity to raise more money from backers. The fact that he doesn’t actually use the money he raises for the purposes he claims he does, and yet his donors continue to give, seems reason enough given Trump’s irresistible attraction to fraud. The fact that these scams could also put him in legal jeopardy hasn’t deterred him in the past…but may again contribute to his enduring political downfall in the future.

With further hearings in July by the highly effective Jan. 6 Committee, a key case against Trump seemingly gaining momentum in Fulton County, Georgia, the Justice Department took the phones of a top attorney and went after the Justice Department moron, whom Trump was seeking to install as acting Attorney General to further his coup plot, one can conclude that as bad as this week has been for Trump, he and we will find that it has only gotten worse for him when the dust has settled this week he has fallen to earth once and for all and that all the former President’s Fox friends and all his men will be finally and forever unable to piece together Donald Trump’s short glimmering political career .