Donald Trump will return to the Oval Office with a résumé enhanced by two impeachments, one judgment of liability for sexual abuse, and a plump cluster of felony convictions. He will take the oath of office next week at the scene of his gravest transgression, his incitement of an insurrection on Capitol Hill. Still, Trump soldiers on, as if all the legal accusations against him are badges of merit, further proof of his anti-establishment street cred.

 

Donald Trump will return to the Oval Office with a résumé enhanced by two impeachments, one judgment of liability for sexual abuse, and a plump cluster of felony convictions. He will take the oath of office next week at the scene of his gravest transgression, his incitement of an insurrection on Capitol Hill. Still, Trump soldiers on, as if all the legal accusations against him are badges of merit, further proof of his anti-establishment street cred.

“Since the election, he has proposed so many advisers of low character and dubious qualification that he has overwhelmed the circuitry of the confirmation process and the public sphere,” David Remnick writes. “Across the land, a willing suspension of disbelief has taken hold. (Critical thinking is so 2017.) Certain titans of Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and (God forgive us) the media have hustled off to Mar-a-Lago, a scene of such flagrant self-abnegation, ring-kissing, and genuflection that it would embarrass a medieval Pope.”

Perhaps what is most striking about the ascendant Trump Administration, which takes pains to cast itself as the champion of a forgotten working class, is its own oligarchic features. When Trump steps up to the lectern next week, his company will include “multibillionaires who have shamelessly dispensed with principle to seek an indulgent new President’s favor and enhance their fortunes,” Remnick continues. Read more about the inauguration of Trump’s oligarchy.