Dear Jeb,
OK. You win. Sort of.
You’re saying you warned us about Donald J. Trump becoming a “chaos president.” Now you’re crowing a little bit too loudly about the prediction that has come true.
Let me admonish you, though, on a key point: You were far from being the only observer to make such an observation.
Granted, many of us didn’t precisely use the term “chaos president,” as you claim to have done. A lot of pols around the country — especially some Republicans just like yourself — used some quite harsh language to describe the fellow who won the election this past year.
Mitt Romney warned of electing a “phony” and a “fraud”; Rick Perry called Trump a “cancer on conservatism”; Ted Cruz, another Texan, described Trump as “amoral.” There were others, but you get the point.
A lot of us out here in Flyover Country referred to Trump’s unfitness for the office. The implication, although not stated explicitly, was that his absolute ignorance about public policy, politics, public service and government would lead to the kind of chaos that has erupted in just the first 100-some days of his presidency.
It’s all coming to pass.
Will it doom this guy? Will it result in impeachment and conviction in the Senate? Will it force him to quit before the House impeaches him?
I am not going to bet the farm on any of it. He should have been toast while running for office when he said Sen. John McCain wasn’t a real “war hero,” or when he mocked that New York Times reporter’s disability, or when he acknowledged grabbing women by their private parts, or when he disparaged the Gold Star couple who spoke against him at the Democratic National Convention.
Jeb, he not only withstood all of that tempest, he parlayed it in some perverse fashion to shore up his standing among your party’s “base.”
Yep, he’s the “chaos president,” just as you said it would be.
Make no mistake, Jeb. I detest the guy as much as you do. Maybe more. It is appalling in the extreme that he managed to win the election.
I now plan to wait for the special counsel to do his job. We’ll get to hear from James Comey shortly when the former FBI director tells the Senate Intelligence Committee what it needs to hear.
And we’ll all get to watch as the chaos continues — and you’ll get to gloat some more.