By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
McALLEN, Texas | It's a puzzle, one being assembled a piece at a time. There's that Donald J. Trump as weirdo president, as losing president, as riot instigator, as former president, as oft-indicted president, as arrested president, as photographed criminal, as a shrinking personality.
Every step diminishes the guy.
America waited on his departure from The White House, on his indictments, on his arraignments and his jail bookings, on his mug shot. It was all a silly journey, of sorts - the Trump-weary country inching toward the day this clown no longer means a damn.
That's where we are this morning following last night's booking of Trump in Atlanta.
One more piece of the puzzle, as Johnny Cash might sing. Not all that many left to complete the picture's totality. Trump gone and out of sight. No more excitable news reporting, no more waiting in great anticipation.
Trump is on his way out of the sit-com that has grabbed Americans since he entered national politics in 2015. It was a show. Now, it's a mere shadow of the foreboding end that will come, will come soon. It's what happens with news stories. Some have legs and stick around longer than others. Clowns need the media and the media needs clowns, especially in politics.
The stuff sells and, yes, the news media is also about business - making money by selling Ads or commercials. You get a million-plus viewers on a story and you're hot; you get 50 million and it's an industry.
Trump has brought home the bacon for small and major news operations. It costs money to send a news crew to Georgia, but it gets the viewers. The Atlanta Journal Constitution, on the verge of being sold not all that long ago, did gangbusters business yesterday with its almost minute-by-minute reporting of Trump's arrival in town, his motorcade drive to the Fulton County jail, his entry into the jail building, his booking, his photography and his departure.
It was the news of the day for pretty much every news outlet in the Free World. You could even find Trump's booking mugshot on LeMonde in Paris.
But it's winding down.
Every one of these benchmark moments is taking us to final resolution on the Trump saga. The facts are there: you could even ask whatever happened to the war in Ukraine? To the participants of the Republican Party's first presidential debate (2nd one is scheduled for Sept. 27)?
What Trump has done is suck the air out of the room, wherever he is or may be - that's been his star attraction.
Of course, we know it never lasts forever.
And endings are generally bad. That, we also know.
So long, Trump. We hardly knew you...
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