It’s early days yet. The count in the US election will probably stretch on for weeks. Polls are useless but credible analysts are showing the current results are following the red mirage/blue wave of 2020. However, the fall of Georgia means for the good of our mental health, we should begin preparing for a second Trump term. I will be more than happy if the following becomes redundant.
[Update: It didn't]
1:
The one saving grace – if you’d call it that – of the first Trump presidency was its rank incompetence. It was a joke from beginning to end. For sure, great damage was done which will reverberate for decades, but apart from appointing partisan lickspittles to the Supreme Court (and I am in no way minimising what a heinous outcome that was), he did almost nothing he said he would. The wall remains unfinished, Hillary Clinton remains unindicted, the Affordable Care Act remains in place, and it was left to Biden to withdraw from Afghanistan.
And this was all while he had the ‘axis of adults’ who figured he may be a sack of shit but at least he was a Republican sack of shit and they could guide him towards what could be considered normal conservative policy.
What everyone from John Bolton to Marine General John Kelly found was the Trump is absolutely uncontrollable. Now the MAGA crowd claim that this axis of adults were the ones who nobbled Trump’s first term agenda (and to a certain extent they’re right) but these were competent people who knew how to get things done in government.
A second Trump administration will likely be filled with ideologues with no experience in government. This is not going to turn out well, either for the American people, or for their agenda. Eventually they will realise that “because I said so,” doesn’t actually get stuff done and Trump will find himself longing for the dignified competence of Sean Spicer.
And it surely takes a special kind of stupid to believe the guy who became a multi-billionaire through government contracts is going to be the one to cut government waste.
2:
We know exactly how people get what they want from Trump.
It’s obvious
that Trump becomes putty in the hands of anyone who flatters him. His mortal
enemies become his best friends with the slightest of compliments – and vice
versa.
What we (and by ‘we,’ I mean sane people) have to do is suck up our disgust for him and play his game. A little like this:
“Congratulations Mr President! My, what big hands you have! I can’t tell you have great it is to have a REAL president back again. This really should be your third term, you know!”
- Yeah, and it would be if it wasn’t for the fake news and all the stealing but at least we’re back now, right? So what’s this meeting about again?
“Well, we wanted to… Wow! You know, your tan is even more radiant in person. I didn’t expect that!”
- Thanks! You know people keep saying it’s makeup but this is all natural. And I don’t even have to go out in the sun or get under one of those light bed things. It just happens. It’s genes. It’s all about the genes!
“Yes sir. Well, we’ve come to you with a recommendation on how to replace the disaster of Obamacare.”
- Yeah, what a disaster! You know I’m gonna come up with something so great even I can’t imagine it yet!
“Well, good news sir! We’ve got the plan right here. We call it Single Payer. We’ve written it all up and you don’t need to do a thing!”
- Single payer! Yeah! It’s genius! Why have all these hundreds, thousands, millions of payers when you can just have one?
“It’s so much more efficient, sir!”
- Damn right, it is! And no-one knows more about health care than me. I basically invented health care. They call me the father of health care!
“We certainly do, sir! Thank you, Mr President! The people are going to love you for it!"
- They already do! But who couldn’t use a little more love, huh?
“I knew you’d see it our way. I was sure Stephen Miller was mistaken in what he said,”
- Wait, what did Stephen Miller say?
“Oh, nothing. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
- Has Miller been saying bad things about me? You know I never liked that guy!
“Well, I’m sure he was just joking when he said you were so far up Steven Bannon’s ass you’d never listen. It was an honour to meet the greatest president in history sir!”
3:
Assuming Joe
Biden becomes a lame duck, he has two months to executive order the absolute shit out of
everything.
Do it all! Ban automatic rifles, mandate Medicare for all, institute a national $15 minimum wage, or even a universal basic income, fire and replace the entire Supreme Court, seize every oil field, deport Elon Musk, revoke Fox News’s licence, outlaw the Republican Party, bomb Mar-a-lago. The Supreme Court ruling in a case brought by Trump says the president has the absolute right to do all of this and no-one can stop him.
I remain (slightly) hopeful that none of this will be necessary. [Edit: so much for that!] But if history has taught us anything, it’s that the last thing Trump will do is what he says he’ll do, and his staff will be too busy trying to find a working microphone to implement any of their horrific visions.
