By Ben Olson
Reader Staff
Dumb springs eternal, and it feeds a well that will never run dry.
Recent statements from President Donald Trump might have ended a politician’s career in years past. Now? Well, we’re so backward and bankrupt in our souls these days that it doesn’t even move the needle.
On Aug. 25, Trump told reporters, “A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we’d like a dictator.’”
In the words of Walter Sobcheck: “Shut the fuck up, Donny.” Nobody is saying that but you and your minions, Der Prësident.
A day later, when Trump threatened to deploy National Guard troops to public streets in Chicago, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker had some choice words for the commander-in-chief:
“This is exactly the type of overreach that our country’s Founders warned against, and it’s the reason that they established a federal system with a separation of powers built on checks and balances. What President Trump is doing is unprecedented and unwarranted. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional. It is un-American.”
Pritzker is correct across the board. The founders of our nation knew there would be threats to our system of government from people like Trump. That’s exactly why they built in the checks and balances that every one of us learned about in our high-school U.S. government classes.
Our Founders had no way of predicting this outcome, though — that about half of our population would be either too ignorant or complicit to resist a grifter like Trump as he erodes the structures that have ensured no individual or movement could operate with unilateral power.
In response to Pritzker’s criticism of his decision to send troops into Chicago, Trump first insulted the governor’s weight (that’s rich), then vomited out some choice words that should make every American shudder.
At a Cabinet meeting on Aug. 26, Trump claimed his authority as chief executive has no limits when it comes to deploying the National Guard.
“Not that I don’t have — I would — the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States,” he said, in his usual stuttering, weaving fashion.
That’s an interesting departure from Trump’s first term, when he agreed that Guard deployments in states were dependent on gubernatorial support. His Homeland Security secretary, Kristi “Nazi Barbie” Noem, said in 2024 that if former-President Joe Biden tried to federalize National Guard troops it would constitute a “direct attack on states’ rights,” and spark a “war” between Washington, D.C. and GOP-led state governments.
At the same Aug. 26 meeting, Trump reached deep into his bile bag and belched out another winner: “The line is that I’m a dictator, but I stop crime. So a lot of people say, you know, ‘If that’s the case, I’d rather have a dictator.’”
Again, nobody is saying that.
I’d like to end with a story that exemplifies the depravity of our president.
In 2022, Trump’s ex-wife, Ivana, died after falling down the stairs. He didn’t bury her in a cemetery; rather, he interred her next to the No. 1 hole at his golf course in New Jersey with a plain stone marking the grave. You see, New Jersey gives tax breaks if land is used for a cemetery — no property tax, no income tax, no sales tax. By burying one person on his golf course, Trump shielded the entire estate, quietly registering it as a nonprofit cemetery company. That decision has likely saved him hundreds of millions of dollars in tax payments.
Nothing is sacred to Trump — not even the mother of his children. What makes you think you are any different to him?
