Some people just don’t know when to quit when they are behind

 

Donald Trump just can’t catch a “break” these days. After criminal indictments for tax fraud in New York and violation of the Espionage Act in Florida, now he has been indicted, according to the charging document released by Special Counsel Jack Smith,

…with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The attack on our nation’s Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies — lies by the defendant, targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S. government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election. In this case, my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens.

There are six currently unnamed co-conspirators in the indictment, although it can be ascertained by the details in the charging document who they are. Why seek a “speedy trial”? That should be obvious; Trump hopes that running or even being elected again will shield him from justice, perhaps even “pardoning” himself--a possibility the Constitution neglected to address, although I’m sure the framers thoughts that the electorate would be smart enough (let alone moral enough) not to elect someone president who actively tried to "cancel" their intentions.

Of course your typical Trump voter tends to take all of this as a “personal” attack on themselves. If Trump is a corrupt bigot, then so are they. They are unwilling to step back and say that there are limits to what they tolerate. Like those Amber Heard diehards, they don’t hear—let alone see—what he has done to his own credibility and position. The evidence is right in front of their eyes, but they’d rather stay on board and go down on the sinking ship.

Trump’s latest indictments have only caused his supporters in the far-right media and in the Republican Party to engage in bailing out the water flooding the ship with tea cups. There are “dire warnings” from Fox News “contributors” about “democracy”—you know, the kind of things Republicans don't care much about in states where they have “super majorities” created by gerrymander districts and voter suppression laws—or the engagement in “whataboutisms” like that wimp Kevin McCarthy, or draw a “line in the sand” like MAGA maniac Marjorie Taylor Green, who apparently is considered too crazy even for the extremist Freedom Caucus. 

From Matt Gaetz we hear the hypocritical “defund” the FBI and DOJ, conveniently forgetting how the Trump DOJ was “weaponized” for that farcical Durham investigation that wasted millions of dollars for years for a final "report" that was little more than op-ed piece.

Trump and his supporters are obviously not the only example of people who don’t know when to quit when they are behind. I don’t know how many people are still paying attention to it, but the British royal family soap opera just gets more absurd every day, and it didn’t have to happen. After a brief honeymoon period with the British press, it launched a campaign of constant criticisms of Markle, which the royal court not only was silent about but seemed to condone. You almost never heard anyone in "The Firm" outside of Harry defend Markle or criticize the press’s often highly personal and petty “complaints.”

Markle tried to play the “game,” but the impression I had was that the rest of the royal family just thought of her as an interloper who needed to be taken down a notch or two. It seemed to me that the general belief was that Markle either didn’t know or had to be shown her “place,” and at some point she decided she didn’t want to keep reading about herself in the British tabloids or hear about herself in the tabloid broadcast media.

It seemed surprising (to me at least) that when Harry and Markle decided to move overseas, but offered to continue royal duties on a “part time” basis, this was taken very badly and in an effort to dissuade them virtually everything but their official titles were taken away from them. This seemed extraordinarily petty and vindictive to me.   

The total lack of empathy and denial of any “issues”—particularly of the racial variety—by the “white side” of Markle’s  “family” and new in-laws, when she believed her title at least entitled her to a modicum of respect, explains a great deal about their subsequent actions: Harry writing his book (they needed the money, after all), and that interview with Oprah.

"The Firm" really only has itself to blame for allowing this mess to occur because of its own failure to fully embrace Markle. Sure, it’s easy to attack her because she is apparently thin-skinned and responds to all the brickbats thrown her way by a defensiveness that she may be adding assumed or unfactual details, which people seem to enjoy tearing apart. 

But what about Harry? Wouldn’t one think that his own father would be more “understanding”? Charles certainly seems to have no problems seeing his son eaten-up by the press, public opinion or any other support, particularly financial. Harry isn't even allowed to have an “unofficial” residence in the UK anymore, even in “Sussex.”

Why does Charles seem to enjoy seeing Harry and Markle suffer these attacks? Maybe because Harry isn’t really his “son”? The rumors have been about for a long time that James Hewitt might be his father, although Hewitt himself claims that there is no chance of that. But what else would you expect him to say to protect Harry’s position? The only thing that is “real” is that Charles treats Harry like a “stepchild.”

We live in a world where some people just don’t know when to quit when they are behind. Trump was a man who never “lost”—only “losers” lose, like the investors he defrauded in his  many business bankruptcies, that he was careful didn’t hurt his own financial condition. When faced with the biggest “loss” in his life, losing a presidential election after having acquired a taste for personal corruption at the “highest” level, Trump could have bowed out gracefully and at least exited with a modicum of dignity for history.

But he didn’t do that. He clung to crazed stolen election conspiracy theories and made things much worse for himself by his seeming excitement over the insurrection he had been stoking for months. He could have immediately denounced it rather than later referring to the insurrectionists as “patriots.” He didn’t. 

He could have gone on Fox News and shut up his extremist supporters in the media. He didn’t. He could have told the nutcases filing lawsuits to go home. He didn’t. If Trump had the grace to simply walk away when he was behind, there wouldn’t be this effort to teach him that crime doesn’t pay. He brought this all on himself because he just doubled and tripled down on lies and conspiracies, making himself even more dangerous to civil society and democratic processes.

And then with Harry, Meghan Markle and "The Firm," all of the problems they created because of “hurt feelings” and arrogance could have been settled in a less acrimonious fashion had both sides chosen to come to an acceptable compromise. Harry and Markle didn’t want to entirely ditch their “responsibilities,” but for the Queen and Charles, it was all or nothing, our way or the highway. Why would Harry and Markle not take offense to this when they thought that even their “titles” were not being respected by the British media, and their own “family” seemed to enjoy seeing them suffer?

Of course Harry and Markle didn’t have to tell their own “stories” that “embarrassed” the royal family and outraged the British media. They were left out in the cold to fend for themselves, but could have turned “defeat” into a kind of “victory,” by making the royals back in Britain look like insensitive, useless bigots without much help if they had acted with more “dignity”—meaning keeping their mouths shut and tending to the business of exploiting their “title.” But no, they engaged in a tit-for-tat war with “The Firm” and the British media, and lost whatever empathy or sympathy they had.

Like gamblers who can’t walk away from the table when they are ahead, and keep dealing bad hands hoping for anything to change their luck until they lose their shirts, some people are so absorbed with their sense of place in society that they gamble away those things that provide them that “place.” I suppose that is what happens when people are given things instead of "earning" them: they don't know the value of things until they have lost them.