Pretty much exactly where I thought we’d be

Probably in the late 80’s I first became aware of Donald Trump. Mostly through issues of Spy magazine. My mom had some distant run-ins with him in the real estate business in Florida but she had a good nose for bullshit having grown up on a farm. She knew exactly who he was and while her friends in the business went in on on deals with him, only to lose every penny and then some, she stayed far away. Good for her, I got to go to college as a result. Anyhow, it took her friends YEARS to admit they’d been hoodwinked, hornswoggled, lied to or otherwise mislead because their egos could not possibly stand the wound of admitting the simple fact: ya got conned by a con man who is famous for being a con man. It is weird to me how a guy who has a 50 year track record of destroying everything he touches, of ripping off everyone who ever worked for him gets away with it over and over again. And look at Miss Lindsay Graham Crackers getting her petticoats chased through the airport today by outraged trumpkins who deemed her insufficiently loyal enough. Girl, you’re in a cult. I’ve seen a few of them. I lived in South America when Jim Jones was handing out the Kool-Aid. Seriously, that was 100 miles from my house. I also have a really clear memory of The Heaven’s Gate cult as I was in Los Angeles when the Hale Bopp comet made its approach. Trump was epically and classically described as a “short fingered vulgarian” in the pages of Spy back then and that was probably one of the kinder true statements written about him at the time.

When he started his campaign in 2015, I made the same mistake as everyone else: I assumed we were a better country than the one he wanted to be president of. His poison about Mexicans being rapists, etc., was an obvious disqualifier — only to be followed up by his statement calling John McCain a “Loser.” And to be honest, his schtick about how he had paid off everyone in politics and so he was going to expose it all was refreshing. I enjoyed watching him set fire to the other republicans running against him. They were phonies and hypocrites — so watching him call them out, all the while admitting he was a vulgarian (but he was going to be the vulgarian for the “forgotten man”) was, yes, amusing. Still the polls, we had nothing to worry about. Right.

So on election night after I picked myself up off the floor I tried to imagine what the U.S. would look like in four years. Here’s pretty much what I came up with: The US will lose (deservedly) its recognition on the global stage as any kind of world power. We are from this point forward a failed empire. We would be Spain, France, England, Rome, Portugal — has beens who had a certain cache but who had given up on global leadership because we got too lazy and too corrupt and after a terrible fall would be handing the sash and tiara off to someone else. China probably. We would be financially hollowed out. Over leveraged, burning the furniture to stay warm. Asking ourselves where all our money had gone. Well it’s in Davos in the pocket of Chinese, Russian and Saudi billionaires, of course. Your 401K? Your farm? Your pension? Your social security? All leveraged off to get Mitch and Ted and Miss Lindsay re-elected. Our cities would be crumbling and we’d be at each other’s throats. The US looks EXACTLY like I thought it would at the end of his term. One thing though, I did not think he’d make it the full term because all of his grifts go tits up after 2 or 3 years.

I read another person’s ramblings about Trump. You’re right girl, I hate your guts. I really do hate you for being willfully ignorant. For believing his easily and always disproved lies. For selling out my future, your future and the future of your kids who never call you because you’re crazy, so that you could be a part of a low-rent fascist’s movement. Like I said, a fifty year paper trail on this villain and yet, you said “I’m all in.” Now you’re weeping about how evil has won and the dread socialism is coming for your precious food freedoms. Why do trumpists all think there’s going to be bans on food? I guess maybe after 8 years of literal, actual hysteria that Obama was going to grab all the guns (didn’t happen) they’ve moved on to thinking we’re all going to force them onto raw vegan diets? You should be so lucky. Moon Juice is expensive! Anyhow, my mom’s friends who made the same mistake in the 80’s — they did eventually realize the error of their ways and became hard core anti-trumpists. I’m talking white as snow, white white ladies who had cotillions and everything, spending their weekends speed-dialing strangers in Georgia to help them get their five forms of ID and six witnesses and notary public stamps on their absentee ballots. Oh yes girl, we voted him out because we hated him that much. Did you, by any chance, happen to notice he tried to pull a coup this week? But like every other trump enterprise it was also a failure. His dad’s long dead and can’t bail his sorry ass out now. Your con artist (I hope you donated A LOT to stop the steal by the way) will be off cheating at golf in Mar A Lago until that gaudy fortress gets seized from him by his many creditors and after that he’s off to whatever foreign despot will host him while he sells state secrets to the highest bidder.

America as a global leader is no more. When trump allowed his Viking cosplay choads to run amok in the capitol he signaled that we had given up on being a great country. Our cathedrals were space ships, the internet (whoopsie) and vaccines. Our victory in Europe and Asia was our great gift of freedom. Our art and culture both history making and profound. We are now that country that rolled around in Donald’s twitter vomit for four years and can’t get the stink off. You feel bad for us, humbled and pathetic as we are now, but you also don’t want to get too close. I wouldn’t either. We are a sad, future-less country. But like those European empires of old, we’re also a fun place to visit. And now that we don’t have the money or energy to go committing war crimes or what not, maybe come for a visit. Tourism is sort of our gig now that we have nothing else. I mean, once we sort of get our act together on Covid.