Trump in contempt

A judge with a keen grasp of the obvious recently found possible felon/president Donald Trump in contempt.

After 40 years as a reporter/columnist, I haven't had to type “possible felon/president” very much, but I didn't have to type “climate change” or “nonbinary” either. Things change.

Trump, who has an at best slippery grasp on reality, can't help violating a gag order in one of his many criminal trials.

I say “slippery grasp on reality” because you can't describe Trump's grasp of anything as anything other than slippery, although you might be able to use “slimy” if you were talking about Trump and women.

Of course, Trump's most recent (but not final) trial doesn't have anything to do with women, not even if naked genius actor Stormy Daniels was the object of his all-too-fast commercial lust.

It's not even about the fact that he paid her $130,000 to keep her professionally trained actor mouth shut.

There is nothing illegal about having quick sex with a woman. Paying her before the act is prostitution. Paying her after the act is public relations.

The trial is about where Trump got the money, and did he jigger his business records to hide where he got the money.

Right now, I've got $17 in my pocket, three fives and two ones. If I'm going to pay off a woman, she better be a very poor woman.

So, two things surprise me. The first is that thespian Daniels sold out for $130,000. Most people owe more than that on their houses. You'd figure even a moderately intelligent grifter could have sweated Trump for a million. The second is that Trump didn't have $130,000 in a safe somewhere. He's worth billions or trillions or something, right? It's hard to believe he had to start using whiteout on the company's balance sheet just to come up with $130k.

But it was the whiteout that brought him to court on the kind of charges that would embarrass anyone else.

And now he's been fined for being in contempt of court and has been threatened with a jail cell by a judge who no doubt yearns for his days in the Bronx Family Court.

“Contempt,” though a common legal term, is particularly apt for Trump, whose contempt for everything good is the cornerstone of his life and political career.

He's been contemptuous of wives, of marriage, of women.

He has shown contempt for the law, the ballot, the press, and every court except a thoroughly corrupt Supreme Court.

His manipulation of the cheaper kind of patriotism shows contempt for America and the flag. His bible-hawking shows tremendous contempt for Christianity.

His followers, strapped in for the ride to fascism, go with him. Whatever they value, the law, the police, their daughters, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Constitution, every one of these things has to be cheapened and spit on and trampled if Trump demands.

Contempt. Contempt. Nothing is worth honor or loyalty or worship or respect.

I'm sick of it all.

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