For those less enamored with my long, convoluted diatribes—where I finally circle around to get to the point—here is the skinny: America loves winners, and Trump is a loser.
Ah, you say, but Trump lost the last election and almost half the country still worships him like he was a golden calf. If Americans hate losers so much, why do so many millions still adore Trump?
The big lie: Trump really won; the Democrats and the Deep State stole the election; just as they are now trying to prevent him from becoming President again by concocting legal problems, conspiring to give him quadruple indictments; and making him stand trial in a court of law. Or so they think. I could never comprehend how anyone in their right mind could ever support Trump; then I realized Trump supporters aren’t in their right mind.
Frankly, it scares the shit out of me that current polling suggests Trump could actually win. America is on the brink of disaster. If Trump wins, American democracy, the Great Experiment, will blow apart like an explosion in a chemistry lab. We will be plagued with dictatorship, oppression, racism, hatred, scapegoating of minorities, persecution and imprisonment of political opponents, and loss of virtually all individual freedoms. It will be Game Over for America.
Yesterday I went to the doctor’s office where I was scheduled to get some lab work done. Fortunately, I brought my book, Evil Geniuses, to read while I waited. I found it difficult to concentrate on the book. In the waiting room the TV was showing The Price Is Right, the perennial game show celebrating American greed and consumerism. Distracted, I looked up to watch and remember thinking, America sure loves a winner.
After waiting for almost an hour, I walked out. I rationalized I had an appointment at noon downtown, our weekly Tell Them Tuesday anti-Trump protest. Driving downtown, I turned on MSNBC. They were broadcasting Biden’s speech commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day. As usual, Biden was eloquent, compassionate, and unafraid to confront the issue of rising antisemitism in America. Biden’s basic sense of decency came through.
When I was only eight years old, I was taught about the holocaust in Sunday school. There was one question I could never get out of my head. Why didn’t the Jews escape Nazi Germany when they had the chance? It has only been recently that I have found the answer; the perennial belief that it can’t happen here. For many years Germany was one of the most progressive countries in Europe, and so many Jews lived there because they could thrive in Germany. They hoped the rise of nationalistic fascism and hatred was a bad storm that would blow over. Only it didn’t blow over. Six million Jews were systematically executed by the Nazis.
So, listening to Biden’s words, I told myself that if somehow Trump won again, I would need to leave the country, perhaps fleeing north to Canada, just as so many Cubans fled north to Florida after Castro took over their country.
Later, at the Tell Them Tuesday rally, a passer-by said he would move to Australia if Trump won. He had family in Australia.
Suddenly a white van stopped abruptly in front of our protest. A man jumped out of the truck. Some of us thought we were about to be assaulted. Yet he had stopped to unload some lumber needed in a nearby restaurant. But that didn’t stop him from loudly condemning our group saying he could tell we were all Democrats, because Republicans like him worked for a living. If I had thought of it at the time I could have replied, “You mean you are fortunate enough to have a job; Biden did that!”
After the hour of holding my sign saying BIDEN: DEMOCRACY THRIVES on one side, and TRUMP: DEMOCRACY DIES on the other, I headed home.
Driving home I heard the latest skinny on the sex scandal trial in New York. Stormy Daniels, the porn star he paid off, was testifying.
Six years ago, I planned to write a book including all the factors that created the perfect storm that put Trump in the White House. I had read over a dozen books, each of which told THE reason Trump won, and Clinton lost. One book claimed it was the eleventh-hour blunder by James Comey saying Hilary was still under investigation. Another said it was the demagogic fomenting of hatred and racism as advocated by Steve Bannon. Another lamented that built-in sexism is still lingering in our society, in which so many believe any man (even Trump) was better than any woman (even Clinton.) My favorite political pet peeve was that our anti-democratic, antiquated Electoral College gave the election to the candidate who got less votes.
Yet one major factor I never considered, one that might have been even more of a tipping point than Comey’s October surprise, was that Trump illegally paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about their sexual escapade. After the release of the Access Hollywood tape, Trump knew he was toast if the humiliating details of his encounter with Stormy Daniels became public.
Yesterday, the humiliating details of this affair became public. When you are a malignant narcissist, your greatest fear is public humiliation. This was a major psychological impetus for Trump to erroneously insist he won the 2020 election. He couldn’t bear the thought he was the loser, so he convinced himself he had won.
The trial isn’t over. The other three indictments are far more egregious crimes. But this trial exposes Trump’s lack of decency in the most humiliating fashion. There is a good chance Trump will be incarcerated for violations of the gag order before the trial is over. There is a good chance Trump will lose his case. What will Trump do then? Say the Democrats rigged the trial? Probably. Regardless, the more people see Trump as a loser, the fewer people will vote for Trump.
This morning, I read something that gives me hope. It was on page 747 of a biography of Ulysses S. Grant. History doesn’t precisely repeat itself, but it rhymes. Lincoln was one of our greatest presidents. But at the time he was facing re-election the outcome looked dangerously uncertain. Grant ran for re-election against Horace Greeley. According to Ron Cherow’s biography…
Despite his seeming detachment from the race, Grant possessed a finely honed political sense and an excellent grasp of state-by-state politics…
The more Greely talked, the lower he sagged in public esteem. “Greeley’s foolish speeches surely must weaken him,” wrote Rutherford B. Hayes, “and destroy what chances he had.”
The hapless Greeley was subjected to such personal pounding that he afterwards sighed, “I hardly knew whether I was running for President or the Penitentiary.”
It is my firm hope that Trump’s current legal travails—such personal pounding—will prove Trump’s undoing. In court, Trump looks like a loser. And Americans only love winners. Thus, Biden, the man who exemplifies common sense and decency, will win out over Trump, the man who personifies stupidity and indecency. I pray I’m right. If I’m wrong, I’ll have to move to Canada.