From George Washington to Joe Biden, and 44 other presidents of the United States, there was never one like Donald J. Trump. And yet, the second time around, thanks to 49.8% of American voters (1.5% more than Kamala Harris got), we are all now, it seems, his apprentices.
He should be considered the president of decline. In fact, there couldn’t be a clearer sign of how the populace of a great imperial power sensed that their country had hit the downhill slope and was sliding ever further down, and responded by increasing the likelihood (twice!) of yet more decline (and fall) when it comes to this country and possibly everything else on this embattled planet of ours.
One question is whether Donald Trump could try to break with all political conventions in this country (not to speak of the 22nd Amendment) and, despite the devastating defeat of so many Republicans in Tuesday’s election, run for election (a fourth time!) for a third term in office. I know that, even for him, that’s undoubtedly unlikely, but you never know, do you? Not now that his people are already at work trying to mess with the congressional elections in court (and out of it) in cases they are essentially certain to lose, possibly within days of the publication of this piece.
And yet, don’t ever sell Donald Trump short. We’re talking about the president (as in “precedent” or even “unprecedented”) who continues to talk about how he “would love” to run for another term in office and has insisted that he has “the right to run again,” adding, “ I don’t know who is going to be your next president and I think the law said, I’m not 100% sure, but I think the law says I’m not allowed to run again.” But referring to his defeat in the 2020 election, he promptly added:
“They cheated us on the second one because we won it three times. So, I think I have the right to run again.”
So much, of course, for the 22nd Amendment. And I’m sure you won’t be shocked to learn that the Trump Store is already selling “Trump 2028” hats (for a mere $55 apiece!), one of which he wore at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in July, where he joked about not a third but — yes! — a “fourth term” in the White House.
His Department of (In)Justice seems to be revving up and practicing for just such a future. After all, it tried to mess with — essentially steal — the Senate election in Alaska in a distinctly unprecedented fashion (that the courts have indeed blocked). And President Trump has already taken full credit for what his DoJ is now doing there. (As he put it, “I’m the one that said ‘Do it.’”)
And yes, his wildest moves are generally being blocked in court (and could be blocked as well by the “blue wave” Democratic Congress that voters have just swept into office), but who knows when he might try to end that in some (at present) unimaginable fashion? After all, so much that he’s done was unimaginable until, of course, he did it! In truth, who knows where he and his crew will go from here. As always, he distinctly gives unpredictability new meaning.
Can there be any doubt that, with a figure like Donald Trump as president, we now find ourselves in an ever more unpredictable political world on an ever less predictable planet? And in that context, here’s a question: Who in the world can the Democrats even come up with to deal with such a situation?
Oh, but let me just mention one little sign of (distant) hope: only the other week, 80-year-old Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the presidency from Brazil’s right-wing version of Donald Trump (and Trump ally) Flávio Bolsonaro. And just a day ago, the Democrats, with a striking electoral turnout, have indeed won control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Here’s my own best guess as to where we are now: the American voter has distinctly had it with Donald Trump and is ready for something (and someone) else, but that, of course, may not matter a whit to Trump. Let’s be clear that whatever mad thing(s) he does next, he is distinctly the president of decline, and not just the decline of what was once possibly the greatest imperial power on Planet Earth, but of this world as well.
It’s not even headline news in this country that this summer’s stunning heat in Europe is believed to have accounted for a record 50,000 deaths. In short, we are now on a planet that’s as mad as our president and potentially at least as destructive (if not, in the decades to come, far more so).
Donald Trump is, without a doubt, an environmentally destructive president, as he and his crew eternally push for the production of yet more oil, natural gas, and coal. (Mind you, oil and gas interests gave $75 million to his most recent election campaign.)
Even worse, the second of the three great powers on this planet is led by Vladimir Putin, who, almost five years ago, launched a devastating war against Ukraine that wages on and continues to pour world-heating fossil fuels into the atmosphere in staggering quantities. And like Donald Trump, he, too, seems to consider climate change a distinct non-event. (And, of course, in the process, Trump and Putin have turned the whole future climate-change economy over to China, whose leaders are quietly preparing to become the planet’s renewable energy superpower, while making a fortune off our planetary disaster.)
In that context, consider it no small thing that, in 2024, a majority (if not quite 50%) of American voters were prepared to reelect a president guaranteed to do his best to take this planet down in a major way. Imagine the books — true horror stories — they’ll be able to write about this president of the ever more (dis-)United States of America.
Once upon a time, this moment of ours simply wouldn’t have been believable. It would have been ludicrous if it had appeared in the past dystopian novels of authors like George Orwell or Aldous Huxley. At least to this old man. And if I had read this very piece when I was young (or actually reading Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World), I would have considered it both a terrible joke and the world’s worst (and least believable) dystopian fiction.
And yet here — and nowhere else — we all are, whether we like it or not, his apprentices on a planet distinctly going to hell in a handbasket.
This piece has been edited for length and clarity. It was originally published here.
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