Trump II

The worst sequel since Return to the Blue Lagoon

Despite my best intentions to avoid doing so, I find myself paying attention to the presidential election. I don’t want to. My desire to expend any mental energy worrying about November right now is nil. And yet here I am, reading the same goddamned process stories, prognostications, and invariably faulty analysis that pops up every four years. The pundits are irritating and almost always wrong. Herein: I present my own faulty analysis.

Every presidential election is sold as “the election of our lifetime.” How else to raise the billions of dollars now needed to compete for the nation’s highest office? Usually, the contest is described as some sort of savior versus some sort of apostate. Which is which depends, of course, on your political affiliation but let’s be honest: Obama vs. Romney hardly constituted an existential exercise.

The punditry would have us believe that Biden vs. Trump II is such an exercise. Is it? I don’t know. Nobody knows. The question at hand isn’t his intention to remake the nation in his own psychologically-challenged image, but his ability to succeed.

Gross.

Some things are safe to predict: Trump’s enemies will find themselves facing prosecutors over flimsy allegations. Trump has promised to go after Democrats he believes have done him wrong and he will use “his” Justice Department to go after them, abusing the judicial system not so much to imprison his rivals but to bankrupt them. I doubt that even Trump will be able to break the entirety of judicial branch sufficiently to make imprisoning political rivals the norm.

Second, if Trump wins the White House again he will (again) lose control of Congress during the midterms. That alone should serve as a handbrake on his lunacy. Even the first two years of his presidency are likely to be somewhat checked by a narrowly-divided legislature. The same is almost certainly true of Biden as well, although it seems to me that Biden is more likely to win outright control of both houses than Trump.

Third, we can expect rising political violence. I think it’s most likely to keep coming from the right, as Trump uses the office to signal to his unofficial cadre of brownshirts to go after various classes of the Undeserving: Muslims, trans people, immigrants, or whichever vulnerable groups upon which he chooses to direct his ire. It’s also possible we could see some political violence rising from the left, although if we do, I suspect it’s likely to be more of the “property damage” type than the “beating up people in the streets” type. My guess is that Trump will try to capitalize on any political violence as an excuse to put soldiers on American streets which could, in turn, create a profound schism in the military.

Fourth, he will, again, court our adversaries and alienate our allies. Does that mean we abandon Ukraine? Probably. Netanyahu - ostensibly an ally who acts more like an adversary - will be given freer rein to do whatever he wants in Gaza. (I know there will be those who argue he already has free rein but I don’t think that’s the case; I think the Biden administration is doing what it can to pressure him to pull back.) China will simply flatter and bribe Trump to get whatever they want, which might include Taiwan. And Kim Jong Un will write more beautiful letters and continue sending missiles flying over Japan.

Finally, Biden will leave Trump a good economy, which he will take credit for before squandering. I don’t know he’ll fuck it up but he will just like he’s fucked up everything in his entire self-pitying, flaked-and-peeling life. Fair to say a second Trump administration will leave this nation poorer, dumber, and less equipped to lead the world.

I do see one potential silver lining to a new Trump presidency. I know it seems crazy to say now, when the cult of Trump has never been more concentrated or intense, but I think there’s at least some possibility that a second Trump administration ends with even his own people turning their backs on him because, for all his bravado, they will see their lives have not improved, nor will he have been able to satisfy their bloodlust. Nothing will because he himself will have fomented their hatred to such a point that nothing less than outright civil war will quell them. Don’t get me wrong: I think he would give them civil war if he could. I just don’t think he can.

The ultimate irony of a new Trump presidency is that it will only make his supporters more angry, not less. Their anger is his special sauce and he will do everything in his power to keep them infuriated. Which raises the question: will their anger eventually turn on him? I think so.

So it’s possible that, when all is said and done, Trump may leave office a broken and defeated old man, the victim of his own bloviating and empty promises. The wreckage he leaves will be considerable; some Democrat will come in and do their best to clean it up and mend fences with the neighbors.

A Trump loss will force a Republican reckoning now; a Trump win will force a Republican reckoning later. Whenever that day comes, I think we can all agree that, when faced with the chance to reclaim the sane center right of American political discourse in order bring our nation back into the traditional alignment which has served it so well for over two centuries, or tack even further to the extremes as they seek to appeal to their shrinking geriatric white base, they will choose the latter. Moreover, they will continue to nominate nutjobs, narcissists, crooks, and religious zealots. And the nation will continue its slow slide towards… ?