Despite his historic impeachment in the House, Donald Trump will feel emboldened and constitutionally unshackled following the Senate's acquittal vote. The megalomaniac in chief will plunge to unfathomable depths of sleaze as his Titanic-like presidency careens toward November's electoral iceberg.
A fork-tongued predator with an ophidian fidelity to nihilism, a cold-blooded appetite for power and a viperous lust for applause, Trump responds to threats as all poisonous reptiles do: venomously, viciously and without conscience. In his mind, life is zero-sum, thus his repugnant re-election "strategy" is predictable.
Definitely — having called the impeachment trial a "lynching" — he'll further inflame racial tensions with xenophobic anti-immigration policies and rhetorical kerosene to ignite his "base." Snaking deeper into that swamp, he'll continue basking in the ethno-nativist darkness that brought 1844's anti-Catholic riots, 1882's Chinese Exclusion Act and 1942's internment of Japanese Americans.
Possibly, he'll be recorded on a hot mic saying race riots would "boost his crowd sizes." In his serpentine heart, Trump believes such violence might hand him another term "leading" what he's helping become the "United States of Hate."
Conceivably, he'll fake an "assassination attempt" by "some sicko liberal," betting that "sympathy" will boost his "ratings." Anyone believing such a nauseating scam would be against "Trump's principles" — a glaring oxymoron — is acutely Trump-poisoned.
Probably, if he isn't re-elected, Trump will declare his loss as "always part of my plan!" since admitting actual "defeat" requires actual "character."
In 1900, Theodore Roosevelt wrote, "Unless a man is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life," which resonates "bigly" today with Trump slithering around the Oval Office. In November, U.S. voters must banish President Prevarication to the sprawling wasteland of his barren "soul" and desolate "mind."
The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect the policies of The Japan Times.