Bullseye

8/01/19
Prompt or not: bullseye
~*~

Winning.
Trump consistently brags about winning.
He rarely mentions service.

In the summer of 2016, when I read Tony Schwartz's exposé, Donald Trump's Ghostwriter Tells All, in The New Yorker, I found myself drawing comparisons to how things turned out with my ex-mental health therapist.

I've been through some bizarre things in my life. Most people might think the trip with jimson weed would be the most bizarre. And it was bizarre. 

Yet, even compared to that, my experience with John Knapp was bizarre and bewildering. The bewilderment has eased as years have passed.

In one of Knapp's thirteen 2011 online smear pieces, he made a statement, "Game on." But he was the only one playing a game. He lied. He threatened. He made himself out as a victim. He name-called. He assigned evil motives. He rallied his supporters, until he then turned on most of them.

Almost a year earlier Knapp's last words to me in an email, where he accused me (among other things) of "destroying our friendship" and of disloyalty were, "Have a nice life." 

Almost a year later Knapp threw those same last words publicly at one of his defenders whom he had turned on. Someone who, like me, had been one of his clients. Someone who, like me, Knapp chastised for their disloyalty.

As I read Schwartz's exposé, it was uncanny -- the similarities with Knapp. But the uncanniest words came at the end when Tony Schwartz writes Trump's last words to him, after Trump chastises Tony for not being loyal and for not remaining silent. Trump said, "Have a nice life."

For a moment, I stopped breathing.