Waco Whacko

Not yet held accountable, Trump continues to stick his finger into the eyes of America

This is what a mob boss looks like

Despite his 90-minute piss and moan-a-thon in Waco, Texas on March 25, former President Donald Trump behaved as though he will evade justice as he always has.  With criminal investigations gathering steam in New York, Fulton County, and in Washington, Trump used his Waco rally not to offer a vision of what he sees as the future of the country in terms of policy, but to agitate and activate his cultist supporters by assailing these investigations.

Of course, there are methods to his madness. One, he is attempting to lay the groundwork for massive protests should an indictment or two or three be handed down. Trump’s incendiary rhetoric is designed to intimidate prosecutors into not filing charges lest there would be wide-scale violence or as he characterized it on social media, “death and destruction.” Already Alvin Bragg, the New York District Attorney who appears poised to ask the Grand Jury for such an indictment, has received multiple death threats. This is a mob boss in action.

Two, his goal is to raise money off of his legal predicaments. No stranger to theatre, Trump wants to do a perp walk led in handcuffs and have a mug shot sent over every fundraising email that can be mustered. He needs whatever money he can corral to pay off (not that he will) his burgeoning legal fees.

And speaking of theatre, Trump’s performance at Waco (the site of the 1993 siege that left 75 dead) must be deemed a flop. Or in theatre parlance, Trump laid an egg.  It’s bad enough that the crowd reportedly had begun to thin out 30 minutes into the grievance-laced speech.

It’s also bad that Trump continues to lie and exaggerate. For example, he told his worshippers that he satisfied his 2016 campaign promise by completing a concrete wall along the 2,000-mile southern border and Mexico paid for it. In fact, only 40 miles of penetrable fencing was constructed in which funding had been approved in the Bush Administration.

However, his biggest miscue and where he stuck his finger into the eyes of democracy-supporting Americans and maybe his own legal defense, is when he led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance while the J6 Choir performed in the background. That choir is made up by inmates serving time for the January 6 insurrection.  And if that wasn’t enough to make you puke, Trump showed footage of those “patriots” storming the Capitol on January 6. And this wasn’t the Tucker Carlson sightseeing tour version.

In other words, he is paying homage, no honoring, the insurrectionists and explains why he didn’t lift a finger as Capitol Police and other law enforcement were being bludgeoned by pro-Trump rioters on that fateful day.

Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, who is investigating the January 6 day of infamy as well as the Mar-a-Lago documents/obstruction of justice case, always needed to nail down Trump’s state of mind as these events unfolded. He needed to prove intent: intent to incite a riot/insurrection and intent to obstruct justice. If Mr. Smith was watching footage from the Waco pity party and how Trump honored the insurrectionists, he may be able to finally check that box. 

He can thank the Waco Whacko.