Can it Really Be That Bad?

I still kind of can’t believe it has come to this.

When I first read about Donald Trump running for president way back before the primaries, I thought it was a joke. I had to look to see if it was an Onion article. I thought, that can’t be real. The guy is a tool. I’ve always thought that about him. Back when he had his Apprentice show even. I didn’t watch it because I thought the guy was a joke. Even then he was kind of a walking punchline. When I heard the name Trump, I didn’t think class or quality, I thought of a turd that had been plated gold; the illusion of quality on the surface, but nothing of value underneath.

Donald Trump

That was before he began running for president.

As the primaries went on, it became clear that he was going to win the nomination for the Republican party. The closer he came to that goal the less funny it was. He separated himself from the others by “speaking his mind”, by “telling it like it is”, by thumbing his nose at “political correctness.” Translation: he insulted his opponents to their face, and gave voice to all the bigoted, ignorant shit that he thought his people wanted to hear. It’s evident now that a lot of people actually did want to hear it.

As I go about my business today, the day after Donald Trump has won the election to be the next president of the United States, there are a few things that I take to heart. I see a lot of people online freaking out. They are in real despair, and I can understand why, but at the same time, this is Donald Trump we are talking about. This man was elected on a platform with zero substance. He doesn’t have any real plans (not practical ones, anyways). I don’t see him by himself as a real danger to America in the long run.

I don’t think he is a danger because I don’t think he believes anything he has said. I honestly don’t think he knows or cares what is real and what he just made up on the spot. There is no difference to him. I look at him, and listen to what he says, and I see and hear a man that will say and do whatever he has to to make himself look good in the moment. When confronted on anything, he flat denies it or pleads ignorance. When asked about being affiliated with someone that makes him look bad, his answer is always “I don’t know anything about them, I’ve never met them.” When confronted about a thing he has said, he either says it was a joke or that he never said it. It doesn’t matter if he is on tape saying it. He doesn’t know or care what is true. The truth is what he decides it is.

What I’m saying is that I don’t believe the man is capable of understanding consequences or planning anything in the long term. He is a narcissist who lives in the moment, and does the thing that is best for him in the here and now. He’s a giant goldfish in a power tie. I believe that his presidency will be a short one, a smear on the history of America, four years of bungling. He’ll Make speeches saying things people will want to hear, and then not do anything that he says he’ll do because he doesn’t care. He wants to be in the spotlight, to be seen as important and respected. He just doesn’t know what it takes to earn respect.

Maybe I’m delusional. Maybe this will turn out to be a dark time in the history of our country. I sincerely hope it isn’t. The fact is, I never took him seriously, and now here he is, so it shows what I know. The house, the Senate, and the Presidency are all republican right now, so there will be changes, but I have to believe that there are enough republicans who are also decent people, that none of the worst things Trump stands for will ever get further than his campaign speeches. He will sit in his office believing he is  important and ride on the works and deeds of others like he has always done. The ones we should really be afraid of are the people around him, because they are the ones who will be doing all the work.

Trump himself is not the sickness, he is just a symptom. The fact that he won isn’t what hurts, it’s how he won. America has looked itself in the mirror, and what we are seeing now is pretty ugly and difficult to face. I think that if we face it together, we can come out the other side better and stronger for it, and it will take more than one goldfish in a power tie to stop it.

Here is a fish tie. It's kind of the same.