Kari Lake bottoms out
Is there anything sadder than unrequited love? It’s being reported by undisclosed sources that failed gubernatorial candidate and election-denying loony Kari Lake has insinuated herself into Donald Trump’s life — and Trump ain’t all that thrilled. She’s moved into a suite at Mar-a-Lago and is living high and loud inside the presumption that she’s Donald Trump’s best bud and his pick for Veep.
Trouble is, no such formal arrangement has been made. There has been some speculation in the press that she would be a logical choice if anything as insane as a second Trump bid for the presidency should ever be officially mooted. Meanwhile familiarity is breeding a lot of contempt.
I could have told her that without asking. First, she needs to take a long hard look at what Trump’s first Vice President looked like, Mr Vanilla Generic. If charisma was magnetism Mike Pence wouldn’t stick to a fridge made of lodestones. Pence is so bland he practically screams “Don’t look at me!” If ever there was a Pence opposite in temperament, Kari Lake is it, in a very annoying kind of way. Pence is the kind of person Trump is going to pick for VP, not Lake.
Second, Lake apparently didn’t get the memo that Donald Trump is a sociopathic narcissist, just like she is. He doesn’t like surrounding himself with other attention whores because he’s the Most Important Person on Earth and he doesn’t want anyone to ever forget it, not even while he’s asleep.
Third, loyalty to Trump’s loony ideas won’t automatically make you Trump’s best friend. To be sure, it’ll keep you off Trump’s growing shitlist, but that doesn’t mean he will want to hang out with you. He didn’t even particularly like hanging out with Mike Pence.
Trump likes to have henchmen around him, people he can count on to do his dirty work, people who he can brag in front of without having to deal with their own neediness, people who aren’t famous (or infamous) in their own right.
What’s more, Kari Lake is a desperately needy and pathetic woman, exactly the kind of person narcissistic, self-absorbed jerks like Donald Trump really can’t stand. In fact, Kari Lake is the kind of person most people can’t stand. I’ll tell you how much they can’t stand her: despite what Lake claims, not even the thick-as-flies Arizona MAGA loonies could get her elected governor.
Lake is aware of this chatter about the pesky reputation she’s forging for herself at Mar-a-Lago and it will come as no surprise to anyone that she has a cringeworthy rationale for it. After all, nothing bad ever happens to Kari Lake. She never loses elections and she certainly isn’t becoming unwanted by Trump. No, all this anti-Kari talk is coming from “pathetic attempts from Team DeSantis” to create “drama,” as one Lake spokesperson puts it. Elections aren’t the only thing she’s in denial about.
Now, I’m not saying that Ron DeSantis is exactly threatening Albert Einstein’s legacy for genius, but he’s at least smart enough to know that Kari Lake would be a bad VP choice for Trump. The notion that DeSantis (or someone on his team) is spreading rumours that Trump doesn’t like Lake for Veep is laughable. Nobody really cares. In fact, I don’t even care, so much so that I’m going to stop writing about it, right now. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.