So here we are. Looking down the barrel of another Donald Trump term as President of the United States. I can't say that I am exactly pleased with this result. In fact, you might just say that I am filled with furious, unbridled rage. But I can't change the results, and I'm not going to spend four years claiming that the election was stolen unless there is actual, verifiable truth and not just piles of bullshit from random dudes on YouTube.
I know a lot of us are anxious about what the next four years will bring and literally nothing Trump has done since Election Day has eased any of our fears. He has managed to live down to every low expectation we had, from escaping jail to nominating all his friends for spots in his cabinet. He will probably continue to find ways to piss us off even before Inauguration Day, I'm pretty sure.
And while I cannot predict what will happen once Trump is sworn in again, I am keeping certain things in mind as we continue the countdown to the inevitable.
No president has ever accomplished 100% of their goals: Every president promises to do many things while in office, but not a single one has yet to achieve every single thing that they set out to do. And I don't expect Trump to be any different. While it's true that this term will have more Trump loyalists than the last one, as far as I know, the ACLU still exists, and they are still intent on fighting Trump just like they did the last time. There's also the fact that President Biden has been picking left leaning judges to serve all over the country, as one of his last "F.U."'s to Donald before he leaves next year. And of course, the Democratic Party refuses to roll over and die. They will be combatants against MAGA, and I am sure they will win *some* battles, even if the victories are short lived.
Another thing worth remembering: we're talking about Donald Trump here. A man notorious for lying. A man who has not uttered a single truthful word in his entire life. So, why would he start to do so now, at 78-years-old? This is the same man who told us in his first term that we were going to have a big beautiful wall at the southern border and that Mexico would pay for it. How did that go again?
With that being said, even if Trump is able to achieve 5% of what he set out to do, that will still mean that America is 5% more fascist than it is now. And if it is only 5%, which part of the country will that 5% hurt? Is that 5% women? Is it Black people? Is it the trans community? Is it the working class? His policies are going to have a negative effect on at least some people, the only question is, which ones?
2. We won't know the full extent of the damage Donald Trump causes until years from now: A year or two can go by, and things might seem relatively the same as they are now. Because of this, you might have right wing politicians and media crowing about how America is great again, and maybe even your apolitical normie friends will be telling you, "You were worried over nothing."
Yeah, give it 5-10 more years.
It takes a while to see results, so we won't be able to know just how bad things actually are until enough time has passed. Think of it this way: Trump dismantled the pandemic response team in 2018. We didn't know what damage that would cause until Covid hit in 2020. Trump added Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court while he was in office. In 2022, Roe v. Wade was overturned. And right now, we are seeing meat being recalled because of regulations that Trump cut while he was POTUS.
So, in the year 2032, you might be looking at your phone, and you might come across a news story that makes you go, "WTF!?" If that happens, just remember, that at one point in time, Donald Trump was re-elected the President of the United States, and not only that, but he actually won the popular vote this time, too!
I didn't write this to fill you with a false sense of optimism, nor did I write this to fill you with an even greater sense of nihilism. I'm writing this to be realistic and to look at the big picture. I really do not know and cannot possibly know what is going to happen over the course of Donald Trump's 1,461 days as President of the United States. We are all going to just have to wait and see.
Maybe we'll end up in a country where you can still see liberals in Netflix movies and musicians can still make anti-Trump songs, but you won't be able to watch porn or buy condoms. Maybe we'll end up in a country where there's still gay pride parades and people can still get divorced, but you can't retire at 65 anymore, and the water is dirty. Or maybe we'll end up in a country where things stay relatively the same, the only real difference being that CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, and CBS are no longer on the air. We just can't predict what's going to happen between 12:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time on January 20, 2025 and 12:00 P.M. Eastern Standard Time on January 20, 2029. There's a myriad of ways this can go, and that is somehow both hopeful and absolutely terrifying.
In the end, perhaps what saves us from Donald Trump might just end up being Donald Trump. Because maybe Donald Trump doesn't use his second term to live out his dictator fantasies. Maybe Donald Trump's second term plays out much the same way his first term did: with bizarre online posts, embarrassing gaffes in public, and many, many trips to golf courses.