Joe Biden has been president for a week now, and it is certainly refreshing to have what seems so far to be a normally competent administration in place. Even more refreshing is not having Donald Trump in our faces every day non-stop. Suddenly, one day – like a miracle – it disappeared.
It is somewhat comforting to know Trump’s hidden away, almost in exile down in Mar-a-Lago for now, though I hear Palm Beach may be take legal action against him for breaking the agreement he made not to permanently reside there (and not stay more than seven days at a stretch) when he turned the place into a resort in 1993. I’ve also heard that some paying Mar-a-Lago residents are abandoning the resort because of the “dispiriting” atmosphere that descended after Trump moved in. Maybe can’t blame them.
It must be torture for Trump not to be in the public eye, which is surely what drove him to form the so-called Office of the Former President. As if he is THE former president, neglecting the four other former presidents who didn’t feel the need to create a fake “position” when they left office. At least he admitted he’s a *former* president.
I can almost imagine him brooding down there in Florida like Napoleon in exile on the Isle of Elba. With that in mind, it’s a little disconcerting also to remember that Bonaparte eventually escaped from Elba, raised an army on the mainland and marched on Paris to rule for another 100 days. (We once drove along part of Napoleon’s march on our way from the Riviera back to Geneva. Scenic route, to be sure.) Trump may dream that he too has such an army awaiting his return, but if so, it might be a bit reduced – some 150 of the insurrectionists he sent off to storm the Capitol have now been arrested, with we can hope more to come.
Trump might well be disillusioned with them anyway. Or at least their appearance. After all, he reportedly called them “low-class” after seeing them on TV rampaging through the halls of Congress. (Has he NEVER met his most ardent grass-roots MAGA supporters? Maybe not, since I doubt many would be allowed to set foot within the confines of Mar-a-Lago.)
So perhaps he can’t count anymore on that motley camo- and fleece-wearing “army” of rioters. But they’re not his real army anyway, not the one that will do him any good. That would be the jacket-and-tie-clad clan in Congress (well, in the case of “Gym” Jordan, made that "no jacket") who, by refusing to convict Trump in his impeachment trial, seem determined to give him another shot at the White House in four years. They have no morals, no scruples, no backbones – in other words, just Trump’s kind of guys.
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| Napoleon's second exile on the island of St. Helena. Perhaps Trump's next one will be on the island of Rikers. (painting by Franz Josef Sandmann) |
