Aiden Lutjen, staff writer

Ah, yes, Donald Trump. Just when you thought he’d finally stop infesting the news like a five-foot long tapeworm in your digestive system, he continues to pop up time and time again—and by pop up, I mean literally never going away. He’s everywhere. Still.

Personally, I’ve been trying to stay away from most news sources for the sake of my own mental health, but man, that is basically impossible now. Especially so with former president Donald Trump. He was a handful from the very beginning (and that’s an understatement), and only proceeded to get worse the longer he remained in the spotlight. As amused and relieved as I am that he’s currently under investigation and being prosecuted with criminal charges (or at least attempts to do so), for a laundry list of situations he’s been involved in, it’s honestly been pretty nerve-wracking. 

Really, let’s be honest here: rich people rarely face genuine consequences for their sickening actions—let alone rich, white, straight, cisgender, Christian men. Now, before anyone gets up-in-arms about that bit, let’s keep in mind that not all of the men that fall into that category are horrible people…they’re just enjoying a type of privilege no one else can possibly experience. It’s not a bad thing to be privileged per se. It’s when that privilege is used as a weapon against other people (directly or indirectly) that things get complicated.

I digress: Donald Trump has recently been increasingly terrifying and amusing at the same time, which is quite the feat indeed! Let’s start off somewhat at the beginning of this rapid circus show.

I’m sure the vast majority of people are well aware of Trump’s insistence that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. The main problem here is that, quite simply, it wasn’t. His claims come from nothing but a childish bitterness of “me not winning is unfair because I said so.” Just a few things to list briefly here to emphasize my point: his own attorney and other officials at his side went on to say his claims were blatantly false, alleged mass voter fraud has been completely thrown out by government officials all over the country, a desperate 46-minute long video of Trump providing false and skewed “evidence” was published to social media of all places (I don’t know, maybe he could’ve at least tried Fox News or something? A good bit of their lot enjoy the taste of his boots anyway), and quite a bit more.

Do I really have to dive into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol again and emphasize how he took no responsibility, showing basically no true sympathy for the horrible event, despite it all being done in his name? If you didn’t catch my Jan. 6 article from last semester, I recommend giving it a look to see what I’m talking about.

Skipping ahead quite a bit to much more recent events: if you happen to have somehow not even heard of the classified and top secret documents that magically went missing, only to be found by law enforcement clogging the pipes of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, literally where have you been? Yes, this man actually stole important documents from the White House, only to attempt to get rid of them via flushing them down the toilet. Is anyone else getting “the toddler flushed mom’s keys down the drain” vibes, or is it seriously just me?

Oh, and don’t even get me started on how this laughingstock tried to pay one of his lawyers with a horse instead of the money promised.