During his inauguration speech this past Tuesday our new President spoke once again about reversing America’s decline, again. This confused me, as I was fairly certain he’d already Made America Great Again, during what I think of as the First Again, 2016—2020. Those were the good ol’days, weren’t they?, when little brown kids were stacked in cages like stray cats and the country unraveled because we didn’t have enough 25-cent masks to go around.
What’s most curious about all that greatness is how all of it was undone by a pair of Bidens, Joe and Hunter, a dynamic duo who are, by Trump’s own repeated assessments, puddle-sucking ciphers (one of the few points in Trump’s agenda it’s impossible to dispute). Their subterfuge raises a very obvious question:
If the First Again was so great, how did this pair of turtle turds ruin it so quickly?
<Insert sound of turtles pooping here>
Arguments that something simultaneously is/isn’t form one of the main aorta’s of Trump’s thumping appeal, and while this rhetoric is clearly intended to mislead, his analysis is spot on: there is something rotten in Denmark, and it’s not just because that city’s located in Ohio.
Depending on how much you squint, the declines occurring across America today are a mix of the positive and the negative, while the rest are waiting to unfurl like seed pods. We may disagree about the pros and cons of various immigration policies, but one indisputable decline has involved the brain-power of our citizens, 77-million of whom voted for this knucklehead. (To be fair to some of them, we’ve created a system where the other realistic option was voting for Biden/Harris, or Harris/Walz, or whichever flubbery arrangement the DNC eventually decided on after exactly zero people voted to support those candidates.)
For readers hungering after a spreadsheet analyzing our collective decline, I’m sad to say that I’m terribly inept at tracking such things. Despite my working class background, I simply cannot manage to feel as personally aggrieved as the white man who was born a millionaire and is now leading our country. Again.
Instead I’d like to try my hand at a little fortune forecasting. I’m curious if Trump’s Second Again can create a greater America than the First? An America great not only in itself, but one that is capable of outlasting the impending counter-effects of the DEI-acronym-wielders in their electric cars and gender-less bathrooms.
In other words, come January 2028, could a queer little twerp like Pete Buttigieg or a goober-eyed toad with a name like Hakeem or, god-help-us, that hot little number AOC, who pussy is just screaming to be grabbed by a pair of very big hands — could any of these ditch-dwelling dropsies undo the greatness of the Second Again in the same way a coke-addled Hunter Biden tanked the first?
History would indicate that No, Trump cannot create such an America. But a singular data point is quite limited, so let’s keep an open mind.
To answer this it may be useful to look closely at The Man making these promises, again. On the very off chance you’re one of the 77-million who voted for him, and/or have spent the past 15-plus years with your head stuffed inside your own duodenum, let’s take a quick review of some pertinent facts, chosen at random from a list that is way, WAY longer than this website’s server could support:
Our new Jefe is a convicted felon and sex offender whose every utterance is a Rorshach reveal of blotted incomprehension. He proudly denies reality, incites violence, lies without compunction, and openly fantasizes about dating his own daughter. He’s a man with piles of cash who somehow failed at running a casino on three (3) separate occasions.
(Seriously, I’m not making that up. Honestly, stop and think about how bad you have to suck as a businessman to fail at casino. For god’s sake, we’ve given Native Americans smallpox, genocide, alcohol, enslavement, and rampant, generational poverty, and they can still run these things with their eyes shut…)
He’s the oldest President inaugurated in American history, a fact that may or may not explain much about the intelligibility of his sand-shifting positions, has been involved in over 4,000 state and federal legal proceedings, and is responsible for procreating both Donald Jr and Eric Trump.
(It’s curious how when you list things out like that his appeal really comes into focus…)
We know what we’re getting into here, just as we know that the years ahead will devastate many lives. Late-night comedians will once again flourish in feckless fields of self-righteousness, and while this whole thing really does feel like a surreal skit straight out of Merde! magazine, the impending realities sour the wit with bitterness and rage.
If you’re like me and in a position to put your head down and skirt by, aka The White Man Shuffle, a move that is by no means limited to white men, let me just say that I get it. Over the next four years your stock portfolio will likely increase, the odds of anyone deporting you are quite low, and if things work out you may finally be able to visit Greenland without the odious task of first obtaining a travel visa.
There are a host of other-centered reasons why this isn’t a great way to spend the next four years. But instead of fellow-feeling, I’d like to speak to your self-interest. You remember that old thing, right? We have about 1500 more days of this to endure, with the high likelihood of another 1500 following that. (All total, that should be enough time to change to Constitution so he can govern in perpetuity) Who do you want to be, both on January 23, 2028, and for every day between now and then? Because while it’s all but guaranteed this country will be much worse off than it is today, that doesn’t mean you have to be too.