THEY'RE JUST WITH HIM FOR THE BIGOTRY:

Outside of what he could do in four years (which most Republicans would have done anyway), he became a three-time loser. The GOP lost the House in 2018. Trump lost the 2020 election, and his stupefyingly ridiculous crusade to claim no one could trust the electoral process in Georgia cost Republicans the Senate. Do you want someone to blame for the American Rescue Plan and the lousy spending bill Democrats rammed through via reconciliation? Blame the former president.

Nearly every problem the man has is the result of a self-inflicted wound. I've lived across the Hudson River my entire life. I am old enough to have watched that charlatan rise through the ranks of the New York City elite in the early 1980s to the point where he became a pop culture sensation, meriting mentions on television shows and in the movies. He never cared about anyone or anything beyond himself. We're talking about a guy who created fictitious publicists (John Miller and John Barron) to promote himself. In the late 80s and early 90s, Trump wanted nothing more than to appear on Page 6 of the New York Post.

He's not a leader. Yet, some people out there behave as if they'd take a bullet for the guy. Would he do the same? Not a chance. He'd be Greg Stillson from The Dead Zone, holding up a baby in front of him for protection.

That's why the completely over-the-top freakout regarding Trump's Mar-A-Lago home getting searched by the FBI is so bizarre. The "new right," as I suppose it is called (it is almost entirely unconservative), has fully embraced the sentiment of Trump as the victim. Now, don't get me wrong. It is a compelling and intoxicating sentiment within a sizable portion of the GOP base, and that's why the outrage was at nuclear levels almost immediately after the news broke. Still, it is Trump who creates these conditions. He makes it happen. No one is out to get him. He is not a persecuted person trying to do the right thing. He gets himself into his legal troubles because he doesn't care about anything beyond himself, and when it comes apart, he chooses to blame everyone else.

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