The Panic of 2016
A lot of my progressive friends are very worried about the possibility of a Trump administration. Every time a new Nate Silver column comes out about the Rust Belt states or Michael Moore sends a letter to Ivanka asking her to do something about her father, my friends hit the panic button. Should they move to New Zealand or Canada?
I ask them, what is the worst thing that can happen if Trump wins? Will the Republic fall?
Okay, let’s say the people really want an irresponsible incompetent, temperamentally unfit for the job candidate, even though he claims he has “a great temperament.”
Say, they want the first so-called Republican ever to praise a former KGB boss, an enemy of his country, trying to subvert our electoral process. His best bud Putin would send him to the salt mines in Siberia for even thinking such things. Forget the Manchurian Candidate; this may be the Muscovite Candidate.
Let’s say, further, the folks want a man so trustworthy that he tweets –his most reliable form of communication—some outrageous policy, says he stands by it, then walks it back, all in the same tweet.
Say the voters want a man who has learned everything about foreign policy from his beauty contest business; a man not only ignorant about our history, but proud of it. He is a credit to the history faculty at Trump U.
And while we’re listing all his qualifications, say the folks are happy with His Hairiness being the greatest liar in the annals of American politics. If his mouth is open, you know he’s lying.
It’s a head- scratcher why this man who you can tell by his body language would make a rubble of the Oval Office— to go with our generals—hasn’t been taken off the streets and put away for his own safety, instead of being one of our two major candidates running for the most important job in the world.
In a worse case scenario –and this is a hypothetical I must warn worrywarts who are already on the edge— let’s say our man emerges victorious, as campaign rhetoric goes.
By some fluke, he had increased his blacks approval rating from 1%.
It turns out to be true that Mexicans love him. Muslims love him. Women love him. The physically disadvantaged love him Believe me, as he said, everybody loves him.
And the Nader Effect, named after Ralph Nader without whom the election of Bush in 2000 wouldn’t have been possible, giving us the Iraq War, now in its fifteenth year, seals the victory.
Given all of that, I’m still not buying that time-share in Winnipeg.
Here’s why.
First of all, he will lose in November.
Should I be wrong, I further predict the 45th president, Donald J. Trump, born in a log cabin on Fifth Avenue, will have the shortest-lived administration in our history.
William Henry Harrison (R.I.P.) now holds the record. The ninth president (1841-1841) lasted 30 days (March 4- April 4). No, he wasn’t assassinated. The 68-year old died of natural causes: pneumonia of the lower right lung, complicated by congestion of the liver, according to the autopsy of the day. It all began with a cold, caught while reading his Inaugural Address, the longest in history (8,455 words), in wet freezing rain without wearing a raincoat, gloves or hat, in the spirit of the hardy pioneers he was extolling.
The hypothetical Trump administration will be lucky to last so long.
Trump has been called a fascist. To be fair, he is no fascist, even though he is playing one on TV. Believe me, he is only a mentally unbalanced egoist. Fascists always have plans, systems of government. Trump makes it up as he goes along. His M.O. is saying whatever comes out from his hair, going through his mouth without passing through his so-called brain. The policy is then codified on Twitter, which can be changed even every hour.
If elected, he will spend his first 100 days – or 29 as I project— throwing his ideas against the wall. Put them on the train at Grand Central, as they used to say in the Madison Avenue think tanks, and see if anybody rallies around the flagpole in Union Station Washington.
The Trump New Deal, or whatever his program might be called, will have to pass through the legislative branch. Congress, as we know, is dedicated to making sure nothing gets done.
The executive orders he bragged will enable him alone to fix whatever is broken will be thrown out by the Judiciary branch, ala Obama’s great reforms.
If the new president ignores the two branches in the checks and balance system, he will face the threat of impeachment. The charges: Treason, fraternizing with the enemy, whatever. But that won’t be necessary.
By the 29th day, or even before, the president will wake up in the bedroom next to the Lincoln Bedroom occupied by his foreign policy adviser, the Henry Kissinger of his administration, Vladimir Putin. Checking his body language in the mirror, he will ask himself what does he need all this agida for? He’s a winner, not a loser.
In an address carried on all networks, the president will say in all candor the country is in deep shit since his election. For the good of the nation, his party, his family, especially his latest favorite wife, Melanoma, who has enrolled in night school, and is considering becoming a professional presidential speech writer, the short-term president will be announcing his difficult decision to resign.
In the usual three-sentence triplicate Trumpian manner, he will assure the public there is no need to be concerned about his future. Much better more promising business opportunities have opened up since Election Day. He will be exploring his options.
As in leaving failing businesses, he will be exacting a penalty for using his good name. But he will be giving the country a break in leasing the executive mansion, now renamed Trump House & Golf Course, as well as the use of other improvements, such as the Bank of Trump (formerly U.S. Treasury) and the use of his name on currency (the nonsectarian In Trump We Trust). I wont go on.
Given his 1,231 law suits currently pending, according to the evil crooked New York Times, and his continuing reluctance to show us his tax returns, as the 45th President climbs into the Trump Air America chopper, flashing the victory hand signals (D for Donald) Donald (I’m no crook) Trump will return to his practice as a real estate gonif.
And so it goes.
Even scarier is the realization that Vice President Pence, according to the Constitution will now be the 46th president.
I better stop this before even I wont be able to sleep at night.
--
Marvin Kitman
Sept. 9, 2016