2022-10-24: President Failson
Hey, at least he'll be hilarious in retrospect.
Hey, at least he'll be hilarious in retrospect.
Donald Trump's response to COVID may have been the biggest blunder in the history of American politics. Bear with me here...
COVID is a deadly disease that originated in China, speculated (mostly by morons) initially to be some kind of escaped bio-weapon, the spread of which can be mitigated by wearing a small article of clothing. Trump has a base of rabid supporters who cling to his every word and are, by and large, vitriolically racist against Chinese people. Put them together, and you've got the recipe for a massive political win. If I were a religious person, you could easily convince me that this was divine intervention in his favour.
All the man had to do was mail out some American flag (or just as likely, MAGA) printed face masks and play up the anti-Chinese racist fervor that was already brewing in the US and he could have won the 2020 election in a fucking landslide. Everything was in place for this. The fates practically handed the election to him - and he threw it away. Instead of doing any of these things that would have been wildly popular with his base and would have received bipartisan support, he did. Uh. Not that.
Rather than do the obvious thing, rather than take the free win and at least be remembered fondly, he decided to try to have his cake and eat it too. Acknowledging the virus would have put a temporary dent into the economy, so fuck that. Not only did Trump choose to pretend the virus simply wasn't a problem, he encouraged his base to ignore safety measures and opt for actively harmful "alternative" solutions (See: Ivermectin). And then they listened to him, like they always do.
And then tens and tens of thousands of them died.
The US has had some terrible presidents, in fact I'd say they've almost all been terrible , but I don't know of any who literally sacrificed their own voters to Capital to own the libs. Trump's anti-response to COVID cost him the election not only by tanking his image, but by — and I really don't feel like I can place enough emphasis on this — killing his own voters. I can't think of any perspective from which this is an ideal outcome.
Anyways, I look forward to seeing what people are nostalgic for from around that time in 20 years.