Yes, We're Harping on This Again

 

     Perhaps it's no coincidence that the closer we get to the midterms, which are about 80 days away, the more revelations we're hearing about "President" Trump. It makes perfect sense. Take down Trump, lower his approval ratings, you take down the GOP and ensure that they lose both chambers of Congress. It's tempting to speculate who in the government is talking and why but I'll leave such speculation to others.

     Natalie Harp, the "human printer" that follows Trump's shambling, bloated body like Pig Pen's dust cloud, is getting a lot of attention lately. Lately, she's been given a new nickname as Trump's "binkie", like a human security blanket. She has no analogue in presidential history. And her role as "special assistant to the president" will be renamed by less sympathetic future generations as "special cultist".

     Because that's truly the only honest way to describe Harp's slavish devotion to an infamous misogynist and narcissistic psychopath like Donald Trump. Even during the happiest time in their marriage, assuming happiness was ever actually a component of it, even Melania never showed more than a small fraction of the loyalty and devotion that Harp daily showers on Trump.

     We've heard the stories for months now. The love letters, the ceaseless glowing shit written about Trump from random right wing asshats that she prints up for Trump on a portable printer since he can't go for more than a couple of hours without someone complimenting him. We'd heard how she'd literally lived in the women's locker room at Bedminster years ago when she was denied a room so she could remain near Trump.

     Less than two weeks ago, we learned that when Trump slipped off Air Force One in Ankara on July 8, he'd left behind at least two Cabinet officials and Stephen Miller after receiving a so-called credible threat of an Iranian strike but took Natalie Harp with him.

     Is there some hanky-panky going on between them? Again, I'll leave that type of speculation to others, partly because the thought of Harp or any woman having sex with Trump revives images of Jabba the Hutt licking Princess Leia.

     The newest story that came out just this evening is guaranteed to exacerbate Trump's already toxic attitude toward CNN's Kristen Holmes. It's a revelation that makes Harp look even more comically pathetic than she already had. According to Holmes, When Trump was about to go to a courthouse in Manhattan, Harp was told there was no room for her in the SUV. A screaming match then ensued in the lobby of Trump Tower and eventually, she dove into the cargo hold of the SUV.

     Holmes said she'd seen a picture that someone had taken of Harp in the wayback of the SUV (although she pointedly didn't share that with us nor provide any corroborating proof that this incident even occurred, thereby immediately dooming it to the level of mere speculation). Yet today's revelation is perfectly consistent with a young woman who plainly gargles Trump's Koolaid and is willing to debase herself, someone who has no pride or shame in her dubious service to Trump.

     Say what you want about Melania, say that she's every bit the elitist sociopath that her husband is (and you'd be right) but you have to admit that Melania at least has her pride and that she'd never hurtle herself into the trunk of an SUV so she could be near Trump. In fact, out of Trump's countless appearances in Manhattan courts, Melania never showed up for a single one of them.

     But at the very least these revelations show how willing and eager Trump is to surround himself with mentally and emotionally deranged individuals like Natalie Harp. It shows how desperately Harp needs to be near Trump and how desperately Trump needs to be near a constant source of adulation.

     It's well-known by now that Trump hates female journalists, even the right wing ones. He proved that just yesterday during an Oval Office meeting that should've been a feel-good ceremony for 16 year-old lifeguard hero Ryder Williams, who saved a 10 year-old boy's life in California last month (Tellingly, Trump told the child, “I don’t know if I’d do it. I wouldn’t, probably. You’re lucky I wasn’t on the service that day.”). Because we all know that Trump is a craven, self-interested sociopath who would've serenely watched that little boy drown rather than get his swollen feet wet.

      But he also, typically, ruined what should've been a positive once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a young hero by tearing into Kristen Holmes, calling her "loud and boisterous". The White House then piled on later that day online by dragging Holmes' children into the melee.

     Natalie Harp to Trump represents the exact opposite of a female journalist, someone who approaches Trump with nothing short of unquestioning subservience and reverence. This is the only woman that Trump finds useful. Plus, the fact that she's sort of young, blonde and attractive doesn't hurt, either.

     But as the revelations about Harp pile up and become a distraction from the midterms, don't be surprised if Trump jettisons his human printer and moves her laterally out of sight like he did to Kristi Noem.