Year one of Trumpocracy in the rearview
Let’s review what a pathetic year it’s been for Trump since his surprise election. Wait, today’s tweet nutshells it better than we ever could.
On the one-year anniversary of his electoral college victory in the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump celebrated by serving up Trumpiest of Trumpy tweets, in response to Democrat Ralph Northam’s annihilation of Republican Ed Gillespie in the Virginia Governor’s race:
These roughly 40 characters represent Trump’s 365 days since election day ’16 in precise microcosm. First and foremost it is, of course, a lie. Gillespie did indeed “embrace” Trumpism-Bannonism with an amped-up shift toward xenophobic and racist overtones in his attacks and ads.
Second, it’s a typical cop-out, a shirking of responsibility, and a petulant, flailing attempt to claim a victory where absolutely none exists.
Third, it stupidly throws an ally and fellow party member under the bus, demonstrating once again the Trump has no loyalty to anyone but himself.
Those three traits, combined with his usual tweet-voice tone that simply doesn’t sound like an American President (more like the Dumb Jock Who Got Elected Class President Because He’s Good At Football So Why Not?), draw a pretty accurate picture of the old man — an image that matches the picture I’ve been drawing over the past 365 days in my previous posts: He’s lazy, he lies constantly, he’s divisive. One year ago I believe many Trump voters thought that he would change his ways, that he would grow into the job, that the weight of the office would make him become, or at least seem, more presidential.
I myself had unyielding faith in Trump to never possess any such capability to do any of these things. One year later, he has proven me perfectly correct, almost as if checking every box on my Inauguration Day “this is why we don’t even have a president anymore” checklist:
Well … (as expected) that didn’t last long
A year ago, the 2016 election cycle was, in many ways, a referendum on Bushism in the Republican primary and then on Clintonism in the national election. The U.S. electorate is obviously not monolithic, but it seemed to be in this regard. Even their own parties seemed to either vocally or silently wonder when these tired dynasties could finally come to a close. Trump did not so much lead a revolution against these self-perceived, seemingly perpetual first families … he simply filled a vacuum of enthusiasm left by their decades-long erosion. And unfortunately, the Obama-Biden contingent did not.
In fact, Trump seems to fancy himself and his family as the next in line to form his own political-family-brand dynasty (could Jared change his last name to Trump?) But now, just one year later, it appears Trump Brand™ politics is headed for a much quicker, more decisive collapse. On the very first Election Day of the Trump presidency, real actual American-citizen voters spoke in Virginia and elsewhere, and what they had to say was “enough already … enough,” like Simon Cowell shutting down Trump’s William Hung rendition of the presidency.
We still have a long way to go, but today’s albeit limited sample size of results were telling. It was the first voter referendum on the Trumpocracy, and democracy tilted back toward decency. It’s a start, and if one squints you can begin to envision a political landscape devoid of Bushes and Clintons and Trumps, where those names are no longer the beginning and basis for every political argument, and we start discussions with fresh ideas, instead.
Finally, I’ve been waiting for an occasion to publish this image of Trump’s head and its uncanny resemblance to a jar of Cheez Whiz. Happy Anniversary!
