Things Are Way Worse Now Than They Were In 2016, and It Was Awful Then
Like many people, I have had a hard time thinking about anything other than Donald Trump’s victory since I woke up on November 6th to the dire news that he had won a resounding victory and would be the most powerful man in the world for the next four years.
I’m torn between wanting to move into a cabin in the woods with my family with no electricity or wi-fi and never thinking or talking about Trump and his electoral victory ever again and wanting to only think and talk about Trump’s victory and what it means for us as a country.
We’ve been through this before. I still have PTSD from that awful night in 2016 when Trump shocked the world by narrowly defeating Hillary Clinton in the presidential election.
I am a pessimist by nature with a dim view of humanity, so I was not shocked by Trump’s victory, but I was surprised and horrified. Eight years later, I still cannot understand how Americans could have elected Trump president. The cognitive dissonance never wore off. There is still part of my brain that will never accept that a cast member of Ghosts Can’t Do It held the same office as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, FDR, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama.
Trump’s election in 2016 had cataclysmic consequences. In many ways, we’re still reeling from his actions in office. So it pains me deeply to have to concede that as bad as things were in 2016, they’re much worse now.
In 2016, Trump was a political wild card with seemingly no convictions beyond fear and hatred of Mexicans trying to cross the Southern border. When he took office, Trump didn’t seem to believe in anything except power and himself. He believes in himself to a pathological, delusional level. That helps explain why his followers believe in him to a pathological, delusional level as well.
And to think, there are actually politicians for whom being convicted of 34 felonies and having a mugshot taken would actually be a bad thing!
He was a politically incoherent cynic who seemingly ran for office primarily because being a billionaire reality television star did not give him anywhere near the power he craved.
Trump ran as a populist at war with the establishment, including the leaders of his own party. There was a chance, however slim, that Trump would surprise people by being unpredictable.
Surely, someone who made Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush miserable couldn’t be all bad, could he?
Unfortunately, it turns out that it IS possible for someone who relentlessly antagonized Cruz and Bush to be all bad.
In 2016, we didn’t know what we were getting. At the time, I used the metaphor of MTV viewers choosing the kooky and unpredictable Jesse Camp over the solid and dependable Dave Holmes.
Part of the populace just wanted to see all the exciting, sexy adventures Trump was sure to have against the colorful backdrop of the White House.
That is not the case in 2024. We are not voting for an unknown quantity. We know all too well what Trump will do as president. Nothing good!
Trump’s time in office was a horror show, but there were at least grown-ups around to keep Trump from getting too fascist and crazy.
So many memories!
Ironically, these adults reining Trump in, as much as humanly possible, were often generals despite Trump bragging throughout the campaign about being the anti-war candidate.
That’s not going to be the case this time around. Trump has made it clear that slavish loyalty is all that matters to him when it comes to choosing cabinet members. He won't appoint people because they’re qualified or have relevant experience. Instead, he’s going to hire dedicated cultists to do his bidding.
The Republicans now control the House and the Senate. The Republican Party, at this point, is the Cult of Trump. I don’t expect it to do anything other than rubber-stamp all of his terrible ideas.
In 2016, “grab em by the pussy” somehow did not end Trump’s political career. It didn’t even seem to hurt him with evangelicals or Christians. Stern moralists scandalized by President Clinton getting a blow job had no problem enthusiastically supporting a man who boasted about grabbing women by their genitalia as divinely ordained as long as he pragmatically supported their agenda.
Since then, we’ve seen so much behavior that would disqualify someone from office if it were anyone else. There have been multiple impeachments and a failed insurrection. Trump was convicted of THIRTY-FOUR FELONIES and is so out of it that he recently spent a solid half hour playing depressing songs for his own benefit at a town hall where he was supposed to outline his vision for America’s future.
One cabinet member after another had a bitter falling out with Trump, leading them to criticize him in scathing terms and for him to deride THE PEOPLE HE HIMSELF CHOSE FOR SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITIONS IN THE WORLD as idiots, losers, and incompetents. Somehow, this did not negatively affect him at all.
Trump humiliated himself in a debate, screaming that immigrants were eating dogs and cats. He told American citizens of color to “go back to the shithole countries" that they came from and derided veterans as losers and suckers.
Oh, and there was also that thing where the man ordained by God to lead our nation paid off a sex worker he cheated on his wife with so as not to hurt his political chances.
Forget John Gotti; Trump is the real Teflon Don.
If none of these things kept Trump from getting reelected, then I can’t even imagine what he would have to do to lose the loyalty of his party and his country.
Trump is saying the quiet part loud. He campaigned on the promise that he would abuse the power of government to harshly punish his enemies, a gambit that proved disconcertingly popular with his base of lunatics for whom he could do no wrong.
When he was somehow elected president, Trump was a comparatively young and robust seventy-one. That was eight long years ago. We’ve all aged decades since then, but time has been particularly cruel to Trump.
The twice-impeached, twice-elected past and future president’s mental decline has become impossible to deny or ignore. If he can barely string together a coherent sentence now, I can only imagine how senile and disoriented he’ll be three years from now, when he’ll be a proudly unhealthy octogenarian kept just barely alive by Adderrall, Diet Coke, and incoherent rage.
I’m not going to sugar-coat this. The situation is grim. The future of our nation is at stake. That’s why we need to unite. We need to be our best, strongest selves.
I’m scared of the world in general and deeply pessimistic, but I’m not going to stop fighting. I will do my part to combat the darkness and the ugliness.
We have no choice but to rise to the occasion.
Two kind souls our wonderful public has empowered.
I want to be able to tell my grandchildren that when things looked hopeless and bleak, we fought like hell to make this country a country we can be proud of. We cannot quit or despair, no matter how badly we might want to.
Nathan needed expensive, life-saving dental implants, and his dental plan doesn’t cover them, so he started a GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-nathans-journey-to-dental-implants. Give if you can!
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