Did you ever find yourself combing the back streets of memory trying to remember where in your life you had known someone before? Someone whose face, or tone of voice, or singular selfishness stirs vague but incomplete tremors of recognition? Such is the frustrating mental dance I experience time and time again with Donald J. Trump. But then, yesterday, like a bolt of lightning reaching from the sky, the answer struck me in a blinding flash. 

This is the guy! 

This is the guy too lazy to ever do his homework back in grade school, preferring to bully the smaller, brainier kids into letting him copy theirs. This is the boss’ son, unlikeable and blind to his own failings, who lords his family connections over fellow workers like a badge of entitlement, as if DNA far outweighs the value of competence and performance.  This is the millionaire’s son who feels qualified to criticize America’s fallen soldiers as “suckers” and “losers,” even though his wartime medical deferment was a lie paid for by his father. 

This is the guy! 

This is the accountant whose embezzlement bankrupts his employer’s company. This is the big kid who sat behind you during a test and demanded the answers to questions three and five. This is the snitch whose lies ruin reputations, destroy lives and send innocent people to jail. This is the cashier who repeatedly shortchanges his customers. And the sales clerk who steals and sells his customers’ credit card information. This is the coward who only joins in a fight when the winning side is certain beyond doubt. And the president who lies about the severity and dangers of a pandemic to make himself look good; even though those lies may lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths. 

This is the guy! 

And, yes, this is the guy who pays others to take his tests. The businessman who refuses to pay his contractors, the father who never remembers his children’s birthdays, the husband who has an affair with a porn star while his wife is pregnant, the president who tells over 30,000 lies during the brief span of his single term in office. This is the president who breaks every precedent for presidential behavior, then cries “political persecution!” when he faces unprecedented legal consequences.  

This is the guy! 

And lastly, this is the guy who indulges whims as if they were imperatives, cheating on his wives, cheating on his taxes, sexually assaulting women when the fancy strikes him, lying about his wealth to prove his penis longer than the next billionaire’s.  This is the guy who believes in a Jesus who never turns the other cheek or forgets a grievance. The guy whose charity extends no farther than the outskirts of his own best interests. This is the president who could not walk away from the presidency without dismantling the underpinnings of our democracy. The president who believes his single election victory gave him lifetime possession of the trappings of his office and its almost imperial prerogatives.  

This is the guy who almost single-handedly put an end to 245 years of the American experiment. 

THIS IS THE GUY!