‘Trump’ and ‘credibility’ can’t figure in a sentence 

For many, Donald Trump has always had the credibility of a gilded used-car salesman, a man who spends life litigating rather than living it. The very name “Trump” is attached to various bankruptcies, a sham “university” and too many other two-bit scandals to list. If anyone before the election was somehow unsure of whether or not Trump was trustworthy, they have likely decided by now.

No, he’s not. One factor behind this must be the list of Donald Trump’s business and political associates pleading guilty to, or being convicted of, crimes. It is hard to keep track of them all. Here is a list of some key people: Michael Cohen—Trump’s longtime former lawyer Michael Flynn—Trump’s former National Security Adviser Paul Manafort—former Trump campaign chairman Rick Gates—former Trump campaign deputy chairman George Papadopoulos— former Trump campaign staff There has always been a reality gulf between hardcore Trump supporters and everyone else.

Diehard Trump supporters will always remain loyal, but the gulf between the two groups has only grown. Trump rushes to please his base’s most far-gone lunatics in order to further this divide whenever he has a terrible news day. That happened this week, after Paul Manafort was found guilty of eight federal charges and Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to an additional eight.

The day after these twin news bombshells, Trump publicly pledged to have Secretary of State Mike Pompeo look into a cherished talking point from overtly racist white supremacist websites, alleging white farmers in South Africa are the victims of government land seizures and “large-scale killings.” The alt-right became giddy. South Africa said it was “polarising and based on false information and lobbying.” Trump increased his credibility with the alt-right, and lost it with a country. The Guardian reports that white farmers are in control of 72% of farming land in South Africa, despite making up only 8% of the post-Apartheid population.

Experts say the violence farmers face is rooted in the “security situation,” and there is absolutely no evidence race has anything to do with it. The “large-scale killing” talking point travelled from overtly racist websites (some printed the “N” word in articles), to Fox News, and finally into the White House.

This is Trump’s credibility in a nutshell. But ever one to go way further into Crazy Town than expected, Trump invited the QAnon conspiracy theorist Michael LeBron to the Oval Office, a proponent of the dangerous and profoundly untrue lie that a Deep State paedophile ring is trying to take down Trump. The pattern is this: Whenever actual reality (“reality #1”) catches up with Trump and the law closes in on him, Trump retreats further into an alternative and completely fabricated reality created especially to flatter him and make him appear in control (“reality #2”).

The brazenness with which he combats information from reality #1 with disinformation from reality #2 is shocking. National leaders commonly tell lies, even very large lies. But until Trump, nobody has created a fully-functioning second reality they can retreat to in stressful times like it’s a country home—a mental Mar A Lago, existing only in the collective mind of Trump’s base. Many in North America took for granted that the rule of law for all its faults prevailed here. It is difficult to reconcile the idea of a dignified, orderly America with such a banana republic under Trump.

After the 2008 Recession and the Occupy movements, the general public retained its belief in western institutions, even while the US largely refused to prosecute white collar crime. This could be because scams surrounding sub-prime mortgages and the subsequent fallout are complicated. Why a drop in credibility now? Because, nothing is less complex than Trump.

Watching him speak is palpably humiliating. To be sure, the Mueller investigation, which is concluding too slowly for many but does have people pleading guilty, is a sign that Trump may not have corroded America’s institutions to the point of disabling them yet. But to get an idea of just how far he is willing to go to circumvent the law, consider what Trump said in an interview to Fox News after the Manafort verdict: The US President said that “flipping”—cooperating with federal investigators, often for reduced sentences—“almost oughta be outlawed.”

Imagine how happy this would make mob bosses everywhere! For the man effectively in charge of America’s law enforcement to say it should “almost” be illegal to work with federal crime enforcers is bonkers, even for him. But Cohen directly implicated Trump in a felony.

Trump’s tactical thinking seems to be this: if the prospects of one reality seem dooming, pick a different reality. Ordinary people are catching on. Any neutral observer would find it more than suspicious that the person opposing cooperation with law enforcement happens to be surrounded by people pleading guilty to federal crimes. In the world of Reality #2, the made-up world where Trump is innocent and the collapse of everything around him is evidence of conspiracy, people only say bad things about Trump to get a reduced sentence, not because there is an ever-growing mountain of evidence of crime.

When Trump anticipates that disastrous news from Reality #1 will soon be published, he instils distrust in his base by getting ahead of the story by framing it in terms of Reality #2. What could bode worst of all for Trump is the news that immunity was granted to Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization, who was hired decades ago by Trump’s father and who also oversaw Trump’s personal finances.

Weisselberg is in an excellent position to know where the proverbial bodies are buried. Trump was the first presidential candidate in 40 years to conceal his tax returns from the public, which he justified with an ever-changing series of lies. Weisselberg must know about whatever it was Trump was trying to hide. If the president’s longtime lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen could turn in 100 audio recordings to federal investigators after saying a year ago he would take a bullet for Trump, who can Trump depend on to not “flip”? This is the context in which Trump is retreating into Reality #2, searching for loyalty among the most far-gone elements of his base. It’s as if Trump himself knows it’s impossible to believe in both Trump’s innocence and in reality #1.

Even the NRA’s spokeswoman, Dana Loesch, a stalwart of Trump’s base, can’t defend Trump without comparing him to a literal gangster. Loesch said Democrats are trying to “Al Capone the president,” as if Capone wasn’t a murderous arch criminal but an innocent man treated unfairly by America’s justice system.

Trump’s decline in credibility hasn’t been caused by his non-stop boorishness, his racism, his misogyny or his general erratic behaviour in public, even to foreign leaders. This is all very old news to people who were rooted firmly in reality #1 from the start. Trump’s sudden eagerness to obtain credibility from the very people who least have it is what what really tells the story here.

(The writer is based in Toronto and is a keen Trump watcher).