When a friend of mine described the current president as “the Necrotic Toddler” it led to me adopting “Toddler” to refer to him, rather than say the name of that scumbag when I write about him (“Felon of the United States” works too).
It’s not really fair to children — I can’t recall knowing any toddler as horrible or as spiteful as he is — but it does capture a lot of his personality. His complete lack of impulse control, his willingness to say whatever he thinks will work now, then take it back ten minutes later. His continued outraged sniveling about how he really won in 2020 — as his niece Mary said at the time, he wanted to win, he didn’t get what he wanted and that’s the most horrible thing that has happened to anyone, ever.
It also explains why, as they say in old gangsterm ovies, he’s a double-crossing rat. It doesn’t matter how loyally you serve him or support him, the moment it’s more convenient for him to throw you under the bus, he’ll do it. Only now matters. And revenge on everyone he hates, like America’s first black president. Including anyone who reports accurately how his Iran war is a failure.
Part of this, as Paul Campos says, is that “Donald Trump has lived a largely consequence-free existence, and he’s gradually discovered that all of our various “guardrails” don’t actually apply to him, at all.” As Campos has pointed out in several other posts, compliance with the rules is to a certain extent voluntary: if we all speeded or ignored redlights or cheated on our taxes, the system couldn’t handle it. In the words of the movie Changing Lanes, the system works as long as we all agree not to go apeshit.
The Toddler has figured out that he can always escape consequences. Not that he’s unique: money allowed hit-and-run driver Rebecca Grossman to postpone her trail for three years (thanks to good lawyers) while she stayed free on bail and got a sympathetic profile in the media. Happily a court rejected her recent appeal. The Toddler has more money, fewer principles and more belligerence than Grossman. He’s ducked consequences by declaring bankruptcy, threatening to sue people, refusing to pay them (suing him would be a lot more work than it’s worth) and whining. Or simply refusing to follow the rules (one example) and trusting nobody will do anything about it.
As I put it a couple of years ago, “Trump has repeatedly publicized the names of people in his various trials such as judges, judges’ family, witnesses and jurors. He’s been placed under gag orders and violates them … which would get most people locked away in jail. But he’s an important person so he gets a pass.” He gets away with grabbing women because he’s rich and powerful and they know pushing back might be worse for them. He got out of one legal mess by a large donation to Pam Bondi’s campaign when she was Florida AG.
The victim of one of the Toddler’s sexual assaults, E. Jean Carroll won her defamation lawsuit against him. Now the Justice Department is trying to replace him as defendant, because you can’t sue the government for defamation. Her judgment against him would go away; the Toddler will undoubtedly lie that this exonerates him, just like he keeps lying that he’s been exonerated from any association with Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking. He’s also figuring out how he can sue his own government and collect. Apparently it will be a $1.7 billion slush fund to reward allies who got caught and punished for their crimes.
I’ve seen arguments that the sheer flood of rottenness also deadens the senses. What would be a career-ending scandal for Biden or Obama is just one of a half-dozen outrages a day in the Toddler years. Consider, for example, Toddler Junior investing in a company that wants to be the Amazon of mail-order guns. By a strange coincidence, the administration is looking at changing the rules to make that possible. Just great. Likewise, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spent seven months on the road making a reality show paid for by companies with a stake in transportation rather than do the job he’s paid for (not the only scandal in Duffy’s orbit).
The Toddler has also benefited, as this Bluesky post puts it, from so many people treating him as amusing: “I think the disconnect between Atlantic elites is that Americans think Donald Trump is a kid getting to drive a monster truck for Make A Wish and Europeans and Canadians think Donald Trump is the president of the United States.” In 2016 they gushed about how he threw mean nicknames around, how edgy! A few years ago (I can’t find the link) during Biden’s presidency a couple of journalists whined because the Toddler’s Twitter ban was in place — come on, we all miss seeing his insane, rage-filled lies, don’t we? Admit it! It’s so unfair not getting to watch him freak out over this, that or the other thing!
Or consider the comment one anonymous Republican gave before 1/6: sure, we’re humoring him when he says he really won the election — it makes him happy and what does it hurt? Now, of course “he won!” is Republican orthodoxy, even though it remains a lie (and not even a credible lie).
This is one reason the war in Iran has gone so badly: the Iranians have no reason to humor the Toddler, kiss his ass or to go soft on him. I imagine if they could get a satisfactory deal to end the war, they’d be fine with the Toddler getting to brag that he won; that would be sensible for both sides as a way out of this. However the Toddler isn’t sensible; he has no idea how to negotiate, no idea that qualified, competent negotiators would do better than his son-in-law, can’t accept that he doesn’t dominate the situation (or the Iranians). It’s much easier to post AI slop about Iran (see the Campos link) than fix things. Or whine about how anyone who says he hasn’t completely beaten Iran is committing treason. And as it’s all about his ego and how it reflects on him, he doesn’t care how it’s hurting Americans. Or Iranians, who are getting it far worse.
It’s one reason he might try some trick to run again, despite what the Constitution clearly says. He’s never let rules stop him before and as Campos said in another post (which I can’t find the link for), he’s an attention junkie who knows he’ll never get the world’s eyes on him again if he steps down for good. No more coverage of his TruthSocial posts, no more taking him seriously, nothing. And what if a Democratic president tears down his big beautiful ballroom and takes his name off everything? Waaah!
I’d love to see it happen though the media will undoubtedly freak if a Democrat makes things that personal. I hope our next candidate has the spine and determination to do it anyway.
