Trump's Last Dance
From the online fever swamps, one truth is clear: Trump's days are numbered.
For such a political beast, I rarely write about politics.
It’s not that I’m afraid of possible blowback. If anything, it’s out of a sense of compassion for readers. We are firehosed from all directions by political news and punditry. The last thing anyone needs in a life that’s already jammed with stroke-inducing bills, Machiavellian bosses, needy ungrateful children, somnolent spouses, pesky website passwords, and crippling back pain is more political codswallop.
And yet, here we are.
What I’d like to talk about, though, isn’t the doom and gloom of our political landscape. It’s hope for the future of America.
Before we dive in, though, I have a confession to make: When it comes to politics, I sometimes fail to read the room.
The Sunday morning that President Biden announced he was stepping down as the presumptive Democratic nominee, I was so rattled, I forgot how to properly fold a coffee filter for the Chemex. Rattled, as in I had to look it up on YouTube. I remember John asking me a simple question and me staring blankly at him with my mouth open. I was convinced that we, as a Party—hell, as a nation—were now chumming the waters for another Trump presidency.
I was wrong.
What I didn’t take into account is this: Politics aren’t about policy; they’re about emotions. Just emotions, in fact. To me, the choice between Trump and Biden was an obvious one. Biden spent the last four years righting a ship of state that had been capsized with gleeful malice by Trump. Biden carefully patched that ship with record healthcare enrollment, job growth that outperformed any previous administration’s, a dramatic drop in violent crime, the first over-the-counter birth control pill, student loan debt forgiveness in the millions of dollars, renewable power as the second biggest source of electricity in the U.S., a sweeping crackdown on “junk fees” and overdraft charges …. I could go on, and trust me, that list is impressive.
A more dramatic reversal of the past forty years of rich-get-richer, trickle-down, neoliberal Reaganomics I have not seen in my lifetime. I thought it would be enough to get Biden reelected, despite his age. I thought other people were seeing the same things I was seeing.
They weren’t.
What they saw was the disastrous, halting, shambolic debate between Biden and Trump on June 27th, 2024. I saw it, too. In a swoon of despair, I closed my laptop, grabbed my phone, and threw myself into the Wordle archive. Here was the rancid breath of another Trump presidency hot on my neck.
But then, President Biden did something so unexpected, Trump still can’t wrap his head around it: Biden stepped down. He cleared the way for Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Governor Tim Walz to reignite a campaign that was in danger of collapsing. More than that, he allowed for the possibility of Trump’s political career finally coming to an end.
I want you to imagine what it might feel like to skim your phone’s news app without seeing the word “Trump” in every headline and lede. A life without his sneering voice, his Shredded Wheat hair, his racist quips, his endless self-pity, his thirty-four felony convictions, his rape adjudication, his two impeachments, his ever-growing chorus of former Cabinet members warning us that another Trump presidency will spell disaster for the country, his 884 January 6 insurrectionists who have received sentences—over 500 jailed as of this writing, his “Never Surrender” gold high top sneakers costing $399, his $60 “Trump Bibles,” his six bankruptcies, his ex-wife buried at one of his golf courses (“for the tax break”), his coked-up namesake son, his fake colleges, his fawning attention to dictators, his failed casinos, his old-man narcolepsy during his criminal trials, his personal odor, his glitchy solipsistic pressers, his fulsome lies, his slitty-eyed ice-queen of a wife, his unseemly interest in his oldest daughter, his Sharpied hurricane trajectories, his “just inject Clorox” Covid cures, and his golf motel bathrooms stuffed with classified documents.
Take a moment to let that sink in. Because for the first time in ten years, we may be able to make him go away. Forever.
Here’s why.
If Trump loses the 2024 election, he loses his usefulness to the Republican Party.
Trump’s failure to deliver at the ballot box has caused Republicans to suffer the following setbacks:
· the 2018 midterms, which were a stinging rebuke of Trump and his policies.
· the loss of the 2020 presidential election (62 “election fraud” lawsuits were filed, nearly all of which have been dropped or dismissed.)
· another no-red-wave midterm election in 2022, where Trump-backed Arizona candidate Kari Lake was trounced by her Democratic challenger, and deep-red Kansas voted in favor of abortion rights.
All of these losses have rightly been lain at Trump’s feet. But if you add in his possible defeat in this year’s presidential election, Trump will promptly be “retired.”
Until I talked to a handful of staunchly conservative Texas Republicans a few weeks ago, I didn’t understand how badly these failures have doomed him. One remarkable feature of the Republican mindset is binary thinking: It’s all win/lose, good/bad, straight/gay, Democrat/Republican.
The refusal of these Republicans to vote for Trump in 2024 isn’t because of January 6 or his rape conviction. It’s because they see him as a loser.
Trump’s strongman image is eroding. His crowd sizes are smaller than Kamala Harris’s. He hasn’t been able to successfully rebut her accusation of being “weird.” After the assassination attempt of July 13, 2024, Trump stopped making public appearances for weeks. When he did hit the campaign trail, he spoke to a dwindling crowd of supporters from behind a wall of bulletproof glass. A few days ago, Trump got spooked and abruptly ended an interview with NewsNation, saying “We aren’t safe here.”
At the age of 78, Trump is also facing the daunting prospect of debating on live television a younger, savvier former prosecutor. Does anyone want to take the over/under on that?
If Trump loses, it will comfort you to know that Harris has built a substantial legal team for any post-election skulduggery. It’s not unreasonable to assume that tactical plans are already in place to protect the Capitol and the vote certification.
No one is getting caught flat-footed this time. The element of surprise is gone.
Trump will also be gone. For all their much-vaunted Party loyalty, the Republicans can be mercenary about shedding political dead weight. The rightwing populism of the GOP will likely remain, but the malevolent, feral narcissism of Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States, will once and for all devolve into the bitter rantings of an irrelevant old man spewing hatred on his failing social media platform.
We’re going to survive this, America.
We’re going to survive him.
And once he’s gone, our peace-of mind, our dignity—indeed, our country—will be returned to us.
Copyright © 2024 Stacey Eskelin
I smell the defeat of Orange Caligula coming closer every day.
Today's best news: one of my friends from college drove from New Jersey through Pennsylvania and Ohio, to Indiana..... without seeing any signs for the Putrid Orange Ghastly, no cultists wearing MAGAt hats at rest stops, no billboards, nada about the Orange Horror.
It's a good sign, particularly in Ohio.
your strong, heartfelt, emotional, steely words....such a talented writer you are. i think i have been crying since 2016...sadness, fear, apathy, futility. and on this read...tears still. except something has changed. the tears are of joy, hope, cleansing and comfort. no sitting around hoping now. doing something. thank you for posting this masterful piece, stacey.