Happy Days are Over for Donald Trump

Have you ever heard that great, Depression-era song “Happy Days are Here Again?” It’s been playing in my head lately—rather annoyingly—and I couldn’t figure out why. Then I realized that my subconscious was thinking about Donald Trump, and it was being ironic.

For Trump, “Happy Days are Gone Forever” would be a more fitting song title. Three years into his president and with 100,000 Americans dead (and counting!), I can say with some certainty that he will never again be as popular as he was in 2016, not even among his own followers (many of who will soon be ex-followers, or dead from Coronavirus).

Sure, he might get to enjoy another racist Trump-rally or two, but never on the same scale as in the past. And even if Trump somehow manages to gain “re-election” this November through another Electoral College / Voter Suppression cluster-fuck, he will be a lame-duck whose approval numbers will drop like a turd down a well. As more and more previously sane people regain their senses, the GOP Senators and Reps who have so slavishly supported him for years will begin to distance themselves, at first, and then blatantly repudiate him. (“Trump? Who? Never heard of him.”)

Either this year, or in 2024, we will have a Democratic president. I guarantee it. And when that happens, the best Trump can hope for is a few more quiet years of life in semi-exile down in Mar-a-Lago, of the sort George W. Bush has suffered in Crawford, Texas. In the worst case, he ends up in state or Federal prison for one of the many laws he has broken both before and during his tenure as president (including, I believe, Conspiracy to Defraud the United States).

Trump’s most likely future, of course, lies somewhere between these scenarios. Deep down, we all know that he will probably escape prison. But he will be hounded by legal trouble, both criminal and civil, for the rest of his life. His business empire—such as it is—will go into immediate and catastrophic decline. His status as a beloved celebrity will transform into that of a pariah. And the legacy of wealth and influence that he had hoped to leave to his children will, instead, be one of debt, disgrace, and anonymity.

Hey. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

In Trump’s America, Kids Get Screwed

Have you noticed how badly kids are getting screwed by the Trump administration?

There is the obvious case of the migrant children who have were separated from their parents at the border under Stephen Miller’s state-sanctioned child abuse policy. And, of course, we all remember the betrayal of the DACA Dreamers—foreign-born kids who, after being promised amnesty when they voluntarily came forward, have been living under the threat of deportation since Trump took power.

But it’s not just immigrant kids. When you think about, all the kids in America are getting screwed. They get shot in their schools because the GOP is in thrall to the NRA (a domestic terrorist organization). They face the prospect of growing up in a world ravaged by climate change. And, just this week, Trump officials announced plans to cut food stamp aid, which primarily feeds poor kids.

On top of all that, Trump has added one trillion dollars to the national debt (which our kids will be stuck with) in just the past year.

Still, I’m sure Trump is a good man at heart. Deep down. Somewhere.

Either/Or

Yeah, we’re in a Civil War…

I’m guessing that most people outside of the U.S. (that is, most of the people on Earth) are unaware of how bad things are in the country right now. I call it a civil war. True, we aren’t firing guns at each other yet (well, not unless you count all the high school kids who’ve been killed as a result of right-wing gun policy). And we aren’t as divided geographically as we were in 1861, when the last civil war took place.

But in almost every other way, red-voters and blue-voters might as well live on different planets. We don’t watch the same TV channels, listen to the same music, or laugh at the same jokes. We don’t go to the same churches.

If you’re a Republican, you probably think Donald Trump is a strong, transformative figure who is doing his damnedest to help the common man. If you’re a Democrat, you probably think that Donald Trump is essentially a Russian agent, installed by Putin so that he can systematically destroy as much of America’s political, social, and economic stability as he can before being impeached or voted out.

If you’re a Republican, you probably believe that our once-esteemed Federal agencies like the F.B.I. and Department of Justice have been factionalized—that is, infiltrated with evil Hillary Clinton sympathizers—and have therefore become enemies of the state. Heck, the whole free press is rigged, as far as you’re concerned (except for Fox News).

Clearly, this deep schism that has opened up between left and right in America is the symptom of some real, traumatic change that is propagating through out culture. If you ask me, that change is Globalism (and, also, Globalism’s evil cousin, technology). Virtually all the good-paying, low-skilled jobs that once girded the middle-class are gone, either sent overseas or taken over by automation. That’s even more true in rural states. Vast sections of our population have been caught in the fifty-year upheaval which our modern, post-industrial economy has engendered.

These are genuine, titanic problems, with real human suffering as their consequence. Of course, if you’re a Democrat—and a liberal—like me, you think that Trump is probably the last person on Earth to address these problems. (Unless he’s a Russian agent, in which is the best person to tackle them—from Vladimir Putin’s point-of-view. Heh heh.)

Obviously, one of us is crazy. We can’t both be sane. Either Trump is a great man who will break the logjam of Big Government or he will go down as the worse president in history (yes, even worse than George W., because Trump is actually destroying us at home, while W was content merely to get us into a bunch of stupid wars overseas).

We probably won’t know which of is crazy, however, for another year or two.  Eventually, we’ll turn the corner—into a more modern, high-tech, semi-socialist state like the U.K. or France, or into an increasingly violent, benighted 3^rd-world country like Venezuela.

Place your bets…

I’m a Rabid Democrat, and I’m Ready to Vote for Rod Rosenstein for President

Last week, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein gave a brief but powerful defense of the Rule of Law. He’s obviously a very smart guy, and a very honorable one (not to mention pretty funny). And, yes, Rosenstein is a Republican (never mind the fact that Trump is trying to convince the Heartland that he is some kind of liberal Nazi mole).

Why can’t the GOP run guys like Rosenstein instead of the clown we’ve got now?

 

Paul Ryan Fires House Chaplain for Being Too Jesus-y

WTF, Paul Ryan…?

The Kids Have Already Won

There was another massive student walk-out yesterday in support of stronger gun laws. I’ve gone to a couple of these marches myself, and I have been overwhelmed by how inspiring these kids are.

People on the right can take solace in the fact that the #NeverAgain movement hasn’t achieved much in the way of actual laws (although any progress is amazing, given how tightly the NRA has held our politicians by the balls, especially here in Florida). But I think such right-wingers are deluding themselves. The #NeverAgain movement isn’t just about guns. It’s about activation of a new voting block: the Millennials.

This block will soon be more powerful than all the other, tired voter types that we’ve become used to talking about: the Soccer Mom, the Security Mom, and, of course, the Angry White Male.

The Millennials are educated and media savvy. They are multi-ethnic, environmentally conscious, and progressive. They are religiously liberal, forward-thinking, and almost impervious the brainwashing techniques that got Trump elected.

And they’ll soon be old enough to vote.