Trump's Victory is Great News...
...for authors writing popular history books 100 years from now.
The 2024 election is going to be one for the history books. Quite literally. Whether you are setting off fireworks or curled in a fetal ball next to your bed following the 2024 election, you have to admit it’s an amazing story. Whatever befalls us the next 4 years, people who write popular history books 100 years from now are going to love it. I’ve written about Trump a bit in my book How Madness Shaped History, but I’m really jealous of the folks who are going to write about this with the clarity of hindsight.
Just to kind of summarize this story:
· In 2015 a blatantly narcissistic real estate tycoon and reality television star with no real political experience declares his candidacy for president by claiming “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people”. This type of off-the-cuff comment would end most political careers, but Trump wipes the floor with established Republicans in the GOP primary.
· The Democrats respond by nominating one of the least popular women in politics, Hilary Clinton, for the presidency. Even at the time I figured they might have just wrapped a big bow around her and left her on the Republican National Committee doorstep.
· Clinton initiates the go-to Democratic strategy which persists to the present day of wooing voters by calling them bigots, racists, sexists and “deplorables”…or, more recently, “garbage”. It might be time to reevaluate that approach…
· Trump wins 2016! The Democrats, in a spectacular failure to learn from, well, failure, blame voters for being racist and sexist.
· They also try to claim he colluded with the Russians to steal the election, claims that ultimately prove to be false.
· The next four years are a clown show of chaos. Trump is impeached…twice! But not removed from the presidency. Blessedly, rich people are spared the oppressive burden of paying taxes. Other than that, surprisingly, nothing really bad happens at least until the Covid19 outbreak.
· I’m honestly skeptical the Covid19 outbreak would have gone much different with a different president, but it amps up the chaos and polarization which were already pretty bad. It catalyzes a race moral panic following the murder of George Floyd by police officers, and creates a mainly false narrative that systemic racism is widespread in the United States. The Democrats embrace a peak “woke” set of largely anti-American beliefs in a remarkable act of self-sabotage.
· In their primary, Democrats mainly run as a bunch of wokescolds aside from Joe Biden, who runs as an actual human being. Biden wins the primary!
· Biden then beats Trump in the 2020 election! After running on a moderate platform, Biden’s presidency naturally becomes pretty much the wokest most left-wing one in recent history.
· Trump denies he lost the 2020 election, further entrenching right-wing polarization and inspiring a riot at the Capital in January, 2021, as the election is being certified.
· Democratic prosecutors launch a series of prosecutions at Trump for behaviors that both he probably did, and which are simultaneously also clearly political in nature (both things can be true).
· Trump is convicted of 34 charges related to paying off a porn star not to reveal details of their affair. You can’t make this story up, I’m telling you.
· As president, Biden, it turns out, is steadily devolving into a turnip. Although he gets some things right, his presidency is mostly a failure, and he becomes unpopular.
· During Biden’s presidency, inflation soars. It eventually goes back to normal, but prices are locked in high. DEMs and much of the mainstream media tell voters that the economic pain they feel is mainly in their heads. This works about as well as it does when husbands use this line on their wives.
· In their great wisdom, the two political parties renominate Trump and Biden for the 2024 election. Almost no Americans want either of these men, but what the hell, right?
· In a debate performance, Biden’s dementia, which had previously been taboo to mention out loud (cuz agism!), becomes painfully clear to everyone.
· In a painful, drawn our process, the keys are taken away from Grampa Biden. Well, at least he’s not allowed to run for president again. Presumably, he’s actually allowed to keep the actual keys to the nation until January, 2025, which is a bit spooky to ponder. So, nobody mentions it again.
· The Democrat nomination is pretty much handed to Kamala Harris, also deeply unpopular, with a track record of endorsing some of the most unpopular woke talking points of 2019-2020. This should go great.
· Amazingly, Harris actually kind of does manage to summon up some enthusiasm. Some of it is pretty cringe…all the “White Women for Harris” silliness. But she does manage to create some momentum. She also makes what I think was a valiant effort to tack to the center.
· When she finally starts speaking in public, people remember why they didn’t like her in 2019. She’s unable to separate herself from Biden, and revived statements from her back in the late 2010s arguing the state should provide free medical transitions to transgender prisoners haunt her candidacy.
· Meanwhile…people try to assassinate Trump…twice! Or maybe three times, depending on how you count. The most dramatic incident involves a bullet grazing Trump’s ear providing him with the kind of photo, pumping his fist in the air as he bleeds, that is just unbeatable in an election. It also brings out ugly comments supporting political violence on the political left. This moment…a bullet missing his head by mere centimeters, is almost certainly going to be the subject of lots of counterfactual history and fiction in decades to come.
· In November 2024…Trump wins! He beats Harris, but also more or less beats Biden too, reversing his humiliation of 2020. He also becomes only the second president after Grover Cleveland (who?) to have two non-consecutive presidential terms.
I’m sure I’m forgetting tons of crazy in there too, as there’s just so much. Of course, this isn’t even the end of the story. We’ve now got 4 more Trump years, assuming the cheeseburgers don’t catch up with him (hey, I love me a good cheeseburger too, so who am I to judge?). The odds of the next 4 years not being turbulent are exactly 0. There are two wars going on, Trump vows revenge on his enemies, the US educational system is almost certainly in Trump’s crosshairs, his election reveals a massive political realignment with the working class of all races moving increasingly toward the GOP, leaving the Democrats the party of the educated elite. And Trump, of course, is still Trump, an agent of chaos.
All I can do is sit back with my popcorn and soda and hope the tidal waves don’t come my direction. And maybe, years from now, once the dust has settled, maybe I’ll get a book deal to write about all this. Future agents, please call me!