They have come from far and wide today to see the elephant in New York City. The #Resistance that promised so much from its dawning days, which turned the fever dreams of millions of Donald Trump-hating Americans into a cash machine for books, non-profits and cable news, has come to its apex. They’re actually doing it! They’re indicting the Orange Man. And the people are coming to town to see it.
The #Resistance has come a long way since Chuck Schumer told Rachel Maddow that then-President-elect Trump was “being really dumb” to attack the intelligence community which has “six ways from Sunday at getting back at you”. It has meandered through a series of heroes who fell short time and again. There was James Comey and Robert Mueller and Preet Bharara, there was Michael Avenatti and the Lincoln Project and a litany of Trump turncoats, from Manafort to Cohen to Omarosa. This parade of bizarre character took to late night-television, The View and the bookstores of America to hawk their wares to an eager hashtag army which dreamed of what was possible. It resulted in headlines that seem so laughable now, but were once written and discussed by people who pretend to be serious for a living: “Tom Arnold is the US president’s No 1 adversary. But can he find the Trump tapes?” is a personal favorite of mine.
Now, they have reached their one shining moment. No matter how thin, no matter how baseless, the former president will turn himself in to be booked on a litany of charges related to business reporting of expenses apparently related to payoffs directed to at least one woman, Stormy Daniels, in an effort to keep her quiet about a sexual relationship. Sex has been the way the left has targeted Trump the most, failing in every other sense to really chip away at his teflon exterior. No matter that there are a thousand other more meaningful and consequential failures to use against Trump — it is his personal predilections that have obsessed #Resistance types the most. They are more offended that he orders his steaks well-done than anything associated with Trump University. It is the brash buffoonery that frustrates them more than any actual grift.
This single-minded focus has driven many Americans into a bizarre and often unhealthy rage. For all the right-wing talk radio focus on Billary or Barack *Hussein!* Obama, the right never took on the type of single-minded obsession the #Resistance has adopted toward Trump — where they are willing to do far more to see him go down than what his fans would do to see him built up.
The delusional desire to do damage to Donald Trump and his most fervent supporters by any means necessary has led us to this bizarre moment: a real-life indictment, historically unprecedented in every respect, which as a political matter only seems to be boosting the man they claim to want to go away forever. This is an act of self-love for the #Resistance as masturbatory as it is foolish: even if everything goes their way, even if they get every legal break on a case that clearly needs it, it will not stop the former president from running, or from winning, the White House once again.
So knowing this, after all that, will it be worth it just for the mugshot of the man? Perhaps that’s all they wanted all along — to see the elephant, no matter the cost.
