What if — bear with me — Donald J. Trump was, in some primal, clanging, truth-rattling way … right?
Not about the election lies or bleach injections or the pageant of petty vindictiveness that spilled from his thumbs onto the national stage like radioactive marmalade. But what if the system is rigged, the elites are out of touch, the permanent Washington machinery does hum along on influence, access, and plausible deniability?
He saw it. That’s the bitter irony. Trump — brash as a wrecking ball with a Twitter account — identified rot at the center of the American experiment. Lobbyists breeding in the walls. Politicians whose loyalty is for lease. A military-industrial complex that answers more to quarterly reports than to strategy.
But here’s the rub: instead of shining a light, he lit a match. Instead of dismantling the machinery, he hijacked it. Instead of being a reformer, he became the loudest grifter in the room.
He told half-truths with whole confidence. He weaponized legitimate grievances and turned them into tribal warfare. He didn’t drain the swamp — he opened a luxury hotel beside it and charged admission.
If Watergate taught us that the cover-up is worse than the crime, then the Trump era taught us that the performance is often more dangerous than the policy. He was right about the disease—and then sold snake oil from a gold-plated podium.
History will not forgive the squandered moment. Nor should it.