Donald Trump will destroy this entire country – its institutions and its safeguards, the rule of law and the customs of civility, the concept of truth and the inviolable nature of valor – to protect his own skin.
This is a damaged man, a man who has always lived in his own reality and played by his own rules. When the truth didn’t suit him, he simply, with a devilish ease, invented an alternate reality. Also, he didn’t start his run for president believing that he could actually win, or even wanting to win. It was just another show, another act in the carnival.
But again, he didn’t want to win to serve the country; he wanted to win to serve his ego. He wanted to win simply because he hates losing, and to come close and lose was far more injurious than to be able to say early on that a party of traditionalists simply wasn’t avant-garde enough for the radical change he represented.
In the process of turning a vanity campaign into a valid campaign, he had to hurry up and ramp up, and he had to take on some of the only people willing to ally themselves with such a ridiculous, tarnished, vile, person. The people he got for his team share many of those same characteristics.
The president won the election. The win shocked the world, including Donald Trump himself. He hadn’t had to alter his most negative traits; he won with them on full display.