The Long Nightmare
Will Tuesday Prove the End of Trump’s Reign?
I remember November 9th, 2016, very well. At the time, I was living in a one-bedroom apartment on the South Shore of Lake Michigan, a perfect little beach pad for a bachelor and his lazy fat cat.
My life was quite simple. I had just finished working for teleSUR English as a weekly columnist and had spent much of the previous three years traveling back and forth to Australia, working with various activist organizations, movements, and unions. I guess you could say that I was contemplating my next move.
For the first year in over a decade, I wasn’t actively working with a political organization. I knocked on doors for Bernie’s campaign but knew he didn’t have a shot. After all, the left was quite disorganized at the time and the DNC wouldn’t allow it. The real benefit of Bernie’s 2016 run was that a bunch of like-minded people, largely democratic socialists, or socialists of some variety, got to meet each other for the first time, build relationships, and work on future projects. And that’s exactly what happened, at least for some of us.
Leading up to the 2016 general election, I was firmly in the camp of political pundits such as Bill Maher and Michael Moore, two people who understood Trump’s appeal and predicted not only his primary victory but also warned that he had a real shot against Hillary Clinton.
Where I live, in Northwest Indiana, Trump resonated with whites in the burbs and small business owners, the petit-bourgeois. In hindsight, Trump’s 2015/2016 primary campaign was brilliant. He cobbled together support from disenchanted non-voters and lifelong Republicans while destroying his establishment Republican challengers with a (disingenuous) quasi-populist and antiwar platform.
No doubt, 2016 was a wake-up call. For me, the jarring realization that large portions of liberal, progressive, and left commentators, writers, pundits, activists, and scholars, were blinded by their ideology, hence incapable of seeing the writing on the wall, was upsetting, to say the least. How could so many of my friends and colleagues be so wrong, so out of touch?
Turns out, they live in social, cultural, and political bubbles. They don’t spend time in rural areas. If they live on the coasts, seldom do they travel to The South, Midwest, or Great Plains. If they do, it’s only for a momentary layover on their way to the next cosmopolitan city or liberal coastal enclave.
That said, even those of us who knew Trump had a real shot at winning were dazed and confused when he took the stage and gave his victory lap. Was it really happening? The reality-TV-show huckster? The failed businessman? The peddler of bullshit culture? Oh yes, it was happening. It was real.
The orange face. The 5th grade-level of speech. The vapid lifestyle. The phony wealth. The failed businesses. The grifting, corruption, and lies. What a fucking disaster. What a fucking shame.
I woke up the morning after the election, hungover and tired. I lit a cigarette, turned on MSNBC to see what the liberals were saying, and sat on the couch. I grabbed my phone and saw that I had a ton of missed calls and texts, but I didn’t bother responding to anyone. To say what? I knew what was coming: tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, militarization, xenophobic policies, so on, and so on.
Absurdly optimistic people held out hope that Trump and the GOP would work together with the Democrats to come up with a major infrastructure bill, but that, of course, never materialized. When Trump did propose something positive, like opening a dialogue with North Korea or pulling troops out of Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan, the Democrats portrayed him as weak on foreign policy.
To be fair, if Trump was actually serious about pulling troops out of foreign countries, he has the power to do so. He’s chosen not to use that power. But that doesn’t mean we should give the Democrats any slack for their cynical political maneuvering.
There’s no need to recall the many crimes and misdemeanors of the Trump Era. They’re well-documented, though some of the more popular claims against Trump (namely, the notion that Putin and Russian agents gave Trump an election victory in 2016) remain dubious, at best, or outright lies, at worst. Here, we are indebted to journalists such as Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Mate, Max Blumenthal, Matt Taibbi, and others who saw Russiagate for what it was: namely, a hyped-up Russophobic ploy by the Democrats to skirt responsibility for their monumental electoral defeat.
But let us never forget that it was Trump who started the racist birther bullshit back in 2011. In 2015, Trump was talking about building walls at a time when this country needs to build bridges with our international partners. It was Trump who made fun of John McCain and POWs. Trump called women “horse faces” and talked about “grabbing them by the pussy.” It’s Trump who’s been accused of sexual misconduct by over 26 women. In 1989, it was Trump who used his platform to incorrectly prosecute the ‘Central Park Five’ on the public stage. Everyone knows he’s been in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Everyone knows the entire Trump clan is using the White House to make money. Now, everyone knows the guy barely paid taxes. The list goes on, and on, and on. It’s tiresome and boring, recalling this asshole’s misconduct, crimes, and reactionary policies.
The fact that the 2020 election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is even close is a testament to the weakness of the Democratic Party and the top of its ticket. Even after eight months of unmitigated disaster, with more than 230,000 Americans losing their lives to the worst pandemic in over 100 years, no one is willing to make bold predictions about a potential Biden victory because there’s still a chance Trump might pull it out.
Let me be very clear: even at the level of pure symbolism, I think it’s vitally important to defeat Donald Trump, knowing full well that Joe Biden’s Neoliberal policies paved the way for Trump’s victory in 2016, knowing without a doubt that Joe Biden poses a whole new array of challenges and threats.
Still, there’s a chance that Trump could win, and if he does, we can imagine how the next four years play out. On the one hand, the pandemic will spiral out of control, leaving medical professionals, essential workers, parents, and entire communities at great risk. Basically, the past eight months but for the next four years, or until everyone is vaccinated, which could take longer than four years. Without question, Trump has already proven incapable of managing the state apparatus during a major crisis.
At this point, we need an intervention just to make it out of the pandemic with a nation and society intact. The Republican-led U.S. Senate has proven unwilling to provide even the most menial economic assistance to poor and working-class Americans, and the Trump administration hasn’t prioritized economic stimulus. Instead, they’ve prioritized campaigning.
I can’t imagine four more years of unhinged late-night Tweets, nor do I want to imagine what it would look like for a Trump administration to oversee the production, distribution, and implementation of COVID vaccines. I’m tired of the batshit-crazy press conferences and TV appearances. And I can’t imagine four more years of Trump’s bumbling on the international stage. The U.S. has been rapidly losing support throughout the world since 9/11 — Trump has only made things worse. And all of this at a time when international cooperation is a prerequisite for our collective survival. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
If the polls are correct (famous last words), Trump will be defeated on Tuesday. If so, I’ll celebrate, but I have a suspicious feeling my jubilation will be very short-lived. I understand the challenges ahead and they are daunting. I don’t have any great hope for Joe Biden. And at this point, I’m not sure I see much hope for ordinary people to pull it together in time to save the republic or the planet. Nevertheless, I welcome the end to this long nightmare, if only for a brief repose.
Vincent Emanuele is a writer, antiwar veteran, and podcaster. He is the co-founder of PARC | Politics Art Roots Culture Media and the PARC Community-Cultural Center located in Michigan City, Indiana. Vincent is a member of Veterans For Peace and OURMC | Organized & United Residents of Michigan City. He is also a member of Collective 20. He can be reached at vincent.emanuele333@gmail.com