The day after our Jackass-In-Chief won the election I cried like a pussy and then wrote, “3 Great Things About Donald Trump’s Victory.”
It was good therapy for me and I hope it calmed down my liberal friends who had become stupidly hysterical.
Now that the Trumpster has been in office for 100 days, it’s the traditional time to judge his performance so far.
In my post-election article, I mentioned three silver linings in the Trump cloud:
- Democracy won.
- Russian-American relations may win.
- Mars may win.
Now that the first 100 days has passed, let’s review each one and consider a few other important points. I'll end with a shocking prediction.
1. Democracy definitely won and Russian involvement is overblown
Even the day after the election, there were mumblings about Russia’s meddling in the election. I dismissed them in my post-election article. I focused on the more important point: democracy won. The underdog won against the Powers That Be.
Regardless, people are shocked that Russia meddled in our election and some even suggest that Russia handed the election to Trump on a silver platter.
First of all, the United States meddles in elections all over the world, including Russian elections. We are the kings of election manipulation. We’ve installed tyrants all over the planet. This doesn’t justify Russia’s actions, but it does make us hypocrites.
Second, most major powers try to influence elections. China tries to sway African elections, Germany tries to move French elections, and Mexico tries to nudge American elections. People are free to donate to political action committees, even if they are foreigners. This is nothing new or shocking. It would be weird if nobody tried to influence foreign elections.
Yes, Russia did it by hacking computers and spreading fake news. That’s a bit more devious than an Albanian writing a check for $1000 to help Hillary Clinton.
However, the hacking and fake news did not swing the election. We are giving Russia way too much credit. Russia’s efforts were just one of the myriad of efforts out there to sway the election one way or another. To argue that their efforts were the main reason for Trump’s victory is absurd.
Remember: Trump won the Electoral College by a healthy margin. It was not a narrow victory, like the 2000 election was, which took weeks and endless recounts to resolve.
Yes, Trump lost the popular vote, but The Donald won decisively on what matters: the stupidly outdated Electoral College.
Had the election hinged on Michigan (or Florida or a couple of electoral points), then people could argue that the Russian involvement and fake news tipped the razor-thin difference in Trump’s favor. But it wasn’t a razor-thin Electoral victory, so let’s stop blaming the commies.
Here’s the hard, real news that many Democrats struggle to accept: Fake news didn't make Hillary lose; Hillary lost because she was a terrible candidate. Period.
Hillary should have automatically gotten 50% of the vote for two reasons:
- She was a woman (female solidarity should have kicked in just like black solidarity propelled Obama).
- She was running against a sexist pig.
If Hillary had been a man, she should have still gotten 70% of the female vote simply because Donald is such a misogynist. Add Hillary’s gender to the equation and she should have snagged up to 90% of the female vote.
With the female vote in the bag, she only needed to get a little bit of the male vote and she would have won easily. I predicted and hoped for a landslide. I was so wrong.
She only got 56% of the female vote.
That’s worse than Obama, a man who wasn’t competing against Mr. Pussy-Grabber.
So why did Hillary get so little female support?
Because she sucks.
Most Americans think that Hillary is so bad and so unappealing on so many levels that she lost to the easiest opponent she could have had. Donald Trump’s victory doesn't show that the Russian involvement was critical but instead shows that she was a horrible candidate.
The 2016 election reminds me of the 2004 election. George W. Bush got reelected in 2004 not because he was so fabulous, but because John Kerry was so utterly boring and uninspiring. Even in 2004, few Americans loved W. It’s just that John Kerry sucked more.
The election was hers to win. She had it in the bag. She fucked up because she’s even less charismatic than Trump, which is saying a lot because Trump must be the least charismatic president we’ve had since Nixon.
Most US Presidents, especially ones who get reelected, smile easily and joke often. Think Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. All these two-term Presidents cracked jokes and smiled often. They were all likable, even if you don’t like their policies.
Have you noticed that Trump never smiles or laughs?
There’s only one photo that I’ve seen of him smiling: that’s when white trailer trash visited him in the Oval Office.
It's so weird and almost disturbing to see Trump smile. It's shocking, really.
Trump’s tough look is probably why Putin likes him. Russians hate fake smiles. And they perceive most smiles as fake.
To sum up, democracy won despite Russian influence, which didn’t dramatically alter the election results. Hillary lost because she sucked.
Lastly, if it’s unclear, I’ve always preferred Hillary over Donald the Disaster.
2. Russian-American Relations
I hedged my prediction from the beginning. I said that the Russian-American relationship may improve, and that if it did, that would be a good thing. However, I also warned that Trump’s erratic, childish temperament could easily toss the bromance between him and Putin out the window.
It seems that Trump’s bombing of Syria was the first salvo in destroying the budding Russian-American relations.
It was fun while it lasted.
Still, I haven’t given up yet. It’s possible that Trump will kiss and make up with Putin. I just hope the American people warm up to Russia. Russia is a million times better than many of our staunch allies (e.g., Saudi Arabia).
3. Mars
My Mars prediction was accurate. NASA was one of the only science programs that Trump did not cut. Trump allocated NASA nearly $20 billion in his budget.
He mentioned space in his inaugural address. Trump is also pushing to go to Europa and back to the moon.
As I predicted, his ego is pushing for space. He wants to buy some real estate on other planet. Of course, he’s frustrated that humans won’t get to Mars by 2024 (which would be the end of his second term), but at least he will be able to make yet another ridiculous claim, like, “I got us there.”
Will Trump get re-elected?
I go back and forth on this one. As I said before, I will never underestimate Trump again. Anything is possible with him.
Therefore, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he were re-elected. Remember, he’s a ratings whore. He would look at The Apprentice ratings more than he would look up the skirts of the Ms. Universe contestants.
If his TV ratings dropped, he made adjustments to boost them up again.
Now that his presidential approval ratings have dropped, he will scramble to lift them up again. The good news is that all he really cares about is his ratings. He has no ideological compass. He just wants to be popular and loved. And he’ll do whatever it takes to achieve that, even if it means doing a 180-degree turn on various issues.
Why is flip-flopping automatically a bad thing?
I hate that the press (and others) blast politicians for flip-flopping.
Scientists flip-flop all the time when presented with new evidence that contradicts prior knowledge. The CEO of Coca-Cola flip-flopped when consumers rejected the New Coke formula. I hope that you flip-flop whenever compelling evidence destroys your prior beliefs.
Maybe Trump will flip-flop on climate change. Maybe he’ll declare that it isn’t a Chinese hoax. Wouldn’t that be a good thing?
Or would you prefer a President who continues to stubbornly believe something no matter how much evidence is stacked against that belief?
“Well, at least he’s not a spineless flip-flopper!”
I expect Trump to reverse many of his positions in order to increase his popularity. Ratings is all he really cares about. He’s incompetent in so many things (including running a business; he’s gone bankrupt four times).
The one thing he’s good at is being popular. That skill might be all he needs to get reelected.
Will Trump get impeached?
Just like I can easily see Trump getting reelected, I can also easily see his administration unraveling so quickly that Congress impeaches his ass.
The Democrats hate him, of course. Only 9% of Democrats approve of his first quarter performance. That's by far the poorest performance in US presidential history.
Trump has never gotten deep Republican support. So it wouldn’t take much—a thrilling scandal—to get enough Republicans to support the Democrats who will lead the impeachment brigade.
Still, it’s sometimes hard to imagine what kind of scandal could take down Teflon Trump. Nothing sticks to that guy. Pussygate would have destroyed most politicians. Think of Congressman Wiener.
Look at the once-mighty Bill O’Reilly. He got canned because in the last 20 years O’Reilly sexually harassed as many women as The Donald harassed last week.
Therefore, I’m really torn. Part of me is sure that he will get impeached. Maybe his lack of paying taxes will bring him down. Maybe a Russian scandal will torch him. Maybe Melania is really a man.
Meanwhile, another part of me is sure that he will get reelected. He’s so laser-focused on getting high ratings that he’ll do whatever it takes to win. That means following the polls like no other President has ever followed them. He rewards loyalty, so he can be slow to fire people, but he’ll do if that’s what it takes to be loved.
Campaign promises mean little
It’s annoying to see pundits decry that Trump ignored his campaign promises.
On the contrary, I was surprised by how closely Trump stuck to his campaign promises. A perfect example is Trump's executive order diarrhea.
But hasn’t he broken lots of campaign promises too?
Of course! Has there ever been a politician who hasn’t?
Are we all so naïve to believe that he was going to do everything that he said he would do?
Do we forget that the two other branches of government can block his efforts?
It's too early to judge, but so far, compared to most politicians, Trump is better than average. Compare Trump's promise record to Obama's. Obama broke about 25% of his promises. Trump's trajectory looks like he'll do better.
Still, as I mentioned above, he's addicted to ratings. So keeping promises is less important to him than keep his ratings high. And that's a good thing. The main reason I'm still open-minded to Trump is that he's approval ratings driven.
Frankly, I hope that Trump breaks some of his promises. I hope he doesn't build a Mexican wall or stop TPP, for example.
Let’s stop talking whether Trump has kept his campaign promises or not. It would be interesting if he kept all of them or none of them. Otherwise, it’s a boring topic.
Predicting the next four years
It’s impossible to correctly predict all the wacky things that will happen under Trump. The only thing that is certain is that it will be a surreal ride.
Stop whining about the election and the Russian tampering. Let’s admit that even though Hillary would have been a better President than Trump, she simply sucked—and that’s the main reason why she lost.
Also, there’s nothing inherently bad with flip-flopping. In some cases, it’s bad if you don’t flip-flop.
I’ll end with a bold prediction: I predict that Trump will be impeached in 2019.
If I'm wrong, then my next prediction is that he won't be reelected because he doesn't smile as much as other 2-term presidents.
What do you think?
Reelected? Impeached? Neither? He’ll just lose the 2020 election?
Or maybe you think he’ll die of a heart attack because of all that cocaine he’s snorting. Or maybe he’ll get assassinated by a KKK guy who dislikes that he flip-flopped on the Mexican Wall. Or maybe a Muslim suicide bomber will take him down.
If he dies, we’ll have dull President Pence. Yawn.
Make your predictions now so you can gloat in 2020!
