Donald Trump

Presidents, as well as other famous people, used to get a small entry in these one volume encyclopedias that used to be popular when we still had books. Here is Nixon:

I've been having some fun with Trump humor books, finally. I'm optimistic about the November election.

So we are now ready to write one of the "encyclopedia entries" for Trump. Mostly factual. Trump himself has almost no sense of humor, but there is a comical twist to the whole affair from 2016 on. Going in, Trump and fellow libertarians wanted to make a point: we don't need your government regulation and all those emergency functions. We can figure it out on our own. Here we are in 2020, and we do need the government in our current mess.

Donald Trump, 1946-2021, 45th President of the United States

Donald Trump was a reality TV-host and billionaire, who also had a line of failing casinos. His real estate business was run by professionals, Trump was rarely involved in anything but meeting leaders of countries and getting his name in big letters on the hotel. He was basically a brand, sold to anyone he cared to be involved with.

Before we launch into Trump, let us note that much of his support was from voters who hated "the government telling me what to do." This applied to farmers, property owners, mines, the oil industry. After we got Trump, he launched immediately into harassing women and liberals with executive orders. Defund Planned Parenthood etc. A different type of government intrusion. A friend reported going to get a hair cut in the summer of 2020. A male customer was not happy having to wear a face mask. "I don't like the government telling me what to do with my body." The hair cutter (woman) responded: You are lucky you don't have a uterus.

Trump took it upon himself to destroy the legacy of Barack Obama, including the healthcare plan still in use by tens of millions who do not have work related insurance. Trump resented a black man using presidential powers and making a fool of Trump at a correspondents' dinner. Trump had to run for president.

So it was that he also landed in the campaign when a lot of white working class folks had lost their factory and mining jobs. Catching just 100 000 of these people in the right states, Trump convinced them that foreigners, Democrats and the Deep State were at fault. It was a bad time for many, so someone had to be at fault! Trump then captured enough votes in the antiquated electoral college to win the election, as it was. Perhaps Russia and an army of internet trolls helped.

Trump proceeded to go directly into his America First program. He fashioned himself an autocrat. We will build a wall with Mexico. Trump did not realize how the federal government works, or even the presidency. He also did not want it to work, as far as government agencies go. They merely slow down enterprise and give money away to...liberals and the poor. But fortunately for us he failed in many ambitious projects, as he did not work well with congress and really did not understand funding. At first, he seemed to operate only with executive orders, blocking visas from foreigners, in a list of countries that seemed to all be Muslim countries. Except of course Saudi Arabia. We all had to witness a strange ritual of Trump and Saudi royalty with a strange glowing globe. It was a lesson to us all in just how wide the powers of a US president are. Obama tried some of the same, with severe criticism from the right.

The foreigners actually continued to come. Some had lived in Europe before. It turns out we do not have enough college educated people from the US in many fields, from Silicon Valley to the health care industry to engineers to doctors.

Congress two years later changed enough to slow him down even more. Through his four years, Trump did learn that the court system was as difficult for him now as it was when he was just a billionaire. Careful manipulation of courts would need to be put in. "Get me someone who can fix this." It did not help any that Trump attempted to make deals with foreign governments with no state department team involved. Some of these deals benefited Trump politically and personally and were seen as illegal by many.

Trump decided foreign countries were bad for America, aside from Russia.  Also, international agencies were bad. He liked to pull out of everything and cancel anything that Obama signed. He pulled out of climate agreements, WHO and would have destroyed NATO in his second term.

The simple-minded folk who voted for him ( see Just How Stupid Are We? by Rick Shenkman) were in the dark for most of the four years of Trump's only term, never realizing they paid for tariffs Trump placed on goods from China that they buy at Wal Mart. Another thing that Trump was very successful at was interpreting science to his "base." They had been trained by Foxnews and Alex Jones to be suspicious of science. Trump was just the man to explain that coronavirus was nothing really bad, it's like the flu. And you don't have to believe in global warming anymore. Because it's still cold in the winter.

Trump is telling the same stories about Democrats (abortion, Biden etc.) for the fifth year in a row. They still pile in to listen to him. Even with coronavirus in the arenas. Just seconds ago he rambled on to talk about Brazil and the virus and going "herd" (herd immunity) after rambling about stock markets. And Obama is still "giving Iran 150 billion dollars." It was the Iranians' own money frozen in bank accounts.

Almost a year of the Trump "presidency" was wasted chasing real or concocted evidence in Ukraine against Joe Biden and his son Hunter. He was impeached by the House for the attempted quid pro quo (holding off aid to Ukraine for weeks).

Trump was briefly shaken by this disloyalty by his own congress, but finally saved by his Senate where red states still hold power. And things that he failed at always nagged him, even after the bluster in his Tweets about "I won." So he would sick his most skillful and also most crooked Attorney General Bill Barr on assorted enemies, firing officials and judges left and right. Barr never acted for the US, he was always just Trump's survival machine. Trump also had many loose ends in his private matters. The story for four years was that a sitting president could not be taken to court.

The stunts that Trump pulled to stay in power are too numerous to list. Other stunts were purely election tricks. Concerned that statues were pulled down and federal buildings were vandalized, Trump sent unspecified federal troops to cities. The number of troops was too small to achieve "law and order" as he stated, but did indeed provoke crowds to more violence and clashes with Trump and Barr provided troops. Trump immediately went to claim that the "far left" was taking over the country. In truth, all cities had plenty of troops to keep order and arrest the worst offenders. Trump had no legal right to send federal troops to do policing. Even the National Guard, when called to disasters, does not arrest people.

Fortunately for the US, the voters drawn to Trump in 2016 and 2018 were not as dominant in 2020 by election time. Black Live Matter protests brought in a lot of black and Democrats voters who somehow forgot to vote in 2016. And the Trump followers did not care for any Republicans after him trying to cash in on this populist movement. They failed to act dumb and regular while speaking, and appeared pretty much like the politicians that they were.

The election was coming up and Trump was faced with both angry voters and a pandemic. Things did not look good, though denial worked for the 40% that never left Trump: It was a Chinese virus. With bad polling, Trump got his Republican support at state level going at a thing they are usually good at: vote suppression and even fraud. Trump had a brilliant idea: The 40% like me, there are 50-60% that hate me (Trump word: Never Trumpers). Let us stop them voting so we can get their block down to 40%.

The above is not far from the truth. Trump supporters have 40 plus percentage of the vote. Trump haters about the same. A large number is now independent, and the Democrats do in fact have more registered voters than the GOP. The trouble is that Democrats are in big cities. It does not gain you anything to get 62% of the vote instead of 52%. You still win that district.

In November we were done with Trump, though he actually caused a lot of trouble for months after. But he was a one time phenomenon, he was not coming back. The people would want him, not some Cruz type of politician made to be like Trump, if 2024 were to happen.

We were all sitting on the edge of our seats in January. I believe the coup that Trump supporters tried when the electoral votes were counted had a purpose. It was not likely to change the count, but since Pence now became a nevertrumper, the president wanted him punished in some manner. Tens of millions of Americans followed the situation daily, hoping that plane would go to Mar a Lago as soon as possible, taking Trump away. It was even more so among people who followed Trump on Twitter, as it was possible to gauge his activity there daily. Then he was banned.

In June of 2021 Trump choked on a chicken nugget at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Secret service failed to dislodge it, when called in to check on him 20 minutes later. He is buried at Mar-a-Lago.

The chicken nugget incident ended the claims by Trump that he won the 2020 election. Vice President Pence also gave up any claim to the presidency at that point.

End Note:

Here we are in 2021. Donald Trump will still be a force in the 2022 election, so he can get revenge on those Republicans and states that did not back him. If trump survives in politics to 2024 and does get onto the primaries, it will be a big mess. Also, two aging men running may results in some health issues for at least one candidate. Trump is obese, so we can only hope that will stop him at some point.