TRUMP DYNASTY: SEASON 1 REVIEW
It’s a tradition of mine where I write a review of an outgoing US President to assess his accomplishments, failures and overall legacy.
Now it’s Trump’s turn and I’m like, “Man, why bother?”
I mean, seriously. Why bother to assess the legacy of a man who not only was easily the worst and most corrupt POTUS in my lifetime, but also was a POTUS who by most reliable accounts never wanted the job to start with (he apparently went in hoping to raise his brand - and fast cash - to launch his own TV network, not literally win the election) and only really tried to keep it partly out of spite and ego, but mostly to avoid his creditors and stay out of jail. Then spent every day after Election Day screaming that he won by a landslide, the Demos stole the election, and tried everything from batshit lawsuits to an angry mob invading Congress?
In fact, why bother when - after four years of pathological lying, collusion, corruption, racism, pussy grabbing, fake news, brown kids in cages, and COVID-19 - he still got 70 million people to vote for him, after which he convinced some of them to stage a coup on his behalf by pretending the Democrats had already staged one by stealing the election?
I mean, Christ.
To be fair, I’m trying to think of his accomplishments as POTUS, and this is what I have so far:
1. 500,000 dead from COVID-19 (so far)
2.The first POTUS to be impeached twice
3. Successfully transformed the GOP into the Trump QAnon Tea Party
4. Showed us just how complicit the GOP would be if their POTUS successfully staged a coup after losing an election. (Answer: very)
5. Made white supremacy great again
6. Wrecked the economy
7. Covfefe
8. Golf
9. Blew billions on a border wall that doesn’t even work
10. Space Force
11. A dab hand with a Sharpie
You see what I’m saying.
Okay, he also signed the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, but he almost didn’t, and only did so in the name of pressuring China for a better trade deal that he didn’t understand. And that doesn’t balance out everything else he did.
In the end, Trump was an insult comic who ran as a joke and a publicity stunt, accidentally won and treated the job as the grift opportunity of a lifetime. He used the White House mainly to feed his insatiable ego, insult his enemies, undo every single thing Barack Obama did out of spite, and cozy up to every dictator on the planet who he admired. He surrounded himself with family members and cronies whose only qualifications were agreeing with everything he said. He lied about virtually everything. And he fleeced the taxpayers to prop up his businesses and finance his golf trips.
It's also worth noting that his popularity never cracked 50%. It hovered around the low-mid 40s, and I suspect the only reason it dipped into the 30s right before he left is because his coup failed. Nobody likes a loser, especially when you’re on the losing side.
But let’s be clear - the GOP, for the most part, loved every minute of it. Some Reagan conservatives were horrified, of course, and sure, some were onboard mainly for the tax cuts and the SCOTUS appointments (which, let’s admit, were dumb luck). But the GOP embraced Trump and everything he stood for, because he was (more or less) the desired outcome of 25-30 years of Republicans pushing their Angry White Guy culture war against libs, feminists, LGBTQs, BIPOCs, Muslims, non-white immigrants and everyone else they considered to be the enemy of White Straight Male Christian America. They may have preferred someone a little less obvious about it (or at least less prone to psychotic episodes and batshit conspiracies), but they were on the Trump Train all the way to the bitter end because they wanted to be. If the coup had worked, they’d say he did the right thing. Mike Pence probably would have said it right before the MAGA cult strung him up.
That is Trump’s chief legacy as POTUS: the GOP is Trump’s party now. The second impeachment vote proves this. So does Trump’s invitation to headline CPAC. So does the fact that Trump proteges like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Laurie Boebert and (ironically) Ted Cruz are racking up outrage points as if they’re angling for the 2024 GOP nomination. They know Trump still has a posse - especially at the state and local levels of the GOP - and that as far as the MAGA cult is concerned, he is a POTUS in exile, the true ruler of this land denied his rightful place as emperor by an evil liberal Deep State conspiracy against him.
There’s been talk that Trump might start his own party to challenge Republicans who want to get off the Trump Train, but I’m not sure he needs to, considering the vast majority of Republicans would probably join it - which suggests he already has a new party: the GOP itself.
It’s more likely that Never-Trump Repubs will form their own party. And even that’s doubtful because it’s hard to start third parties in America, and it’s even harder for them to win elections.
And so much for Trump. He may be out of office, but he did a lot of damage in four years, and he will come back for more. Even if he goes to jail between now and 2024 (which I have my doubts about, though it would be nice), his martyrdom will drive the GOP to new levels of batshit hysteria.
And this is the govt POTUS Joe now gets to deal with - a two-party system in which both parties live in completely separate realities and one will not rest until the other is vanquished forever.
Are you not entertained, America?
Next,
This is dF
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