(Hey, He Might Like the Idea)

President Donald Trump speaking.



Looking at current circumstances, Trump’s face is the step-stool his former allies are using to escape the dumpster fire they and Trump lit up… from inside the dumpster. Plunging down in the fiery depths of Trump’s own making is the rest of the Republican party that threw its lot in with him.
This, obviously, is a hopeful turn of events.

There is no way out for Trump save the tiny glimmer of hope that he might secure the nomination, defeat Biden in the 2024 election, then, after pretending to swear to uphold his oath for the second time, immediately declare himself ‘pardoned’ from every crime he has committed or will ever commit in the future. Which he will get straight on with doing once the chair behind the resolute desk is re-sized for his comfort.
There are, however, a very large number of impediments, obstacles, and an entire thesaurus’-worth of problems with that hope of his. Chief among those is the fact that states can already declare him to be ‘disqualified’ to run for president and remove him from the ballot. After his inexorable conviction by one or more juries of his peers, the pressure on states to have him disqualified will be much more substantial.
Then consider public consciousness of his criminality and the threat he represents. Consider the attempts at creating unitary legislatures being struck down (for now), which would have allowed the legislatures to ignore the will of their voters. Also consider the prospect of any of the Republican challengers for the nomination endearing themselves to (slightly more) moderate Republican voters who will find only dejection at even the idea of voting at all should Trump beat their candidate.
Let’s not forget to pile on with how many of Trump’s MAGA candidates burned Republican hopes of a ‘red wave’, how the nation recoiled and responded at state polls to the Trump legacy of ending a crucial right to everyone who can become pregnant, and a litany of lies, fuck-ups, insulting virtually every demographic including veterans, and oh… tele-fellating foreign despots (or maybe even up close on his knees). Oh, and even GOP donors are getting a bad taste for Trump.
The good news is that this looks bad for the proto-fascists who put all their faith in Trump. It also looks very bad for Trump, obviously. History books as well as every verifiable and super-well-documented fact are going to illustrate a very clear picture of the single most incompetent, wannabe almost-dictator in all of the available memory of the entire world… unless he does one thing:

Pretend it was his plan to destroy the GOP all along… and save the nation from them, from fascism, and ummm… himself.

Imagine the speech he could give, right on election night, as he announces (with unexpected eloquence) that he’s withdrawing from the race for president;

“As you all know, I have been hounded for many crimes. I even wear this (lifts pant leg to reveal ankle monitor) as a result. As some of you know, I’ve been a Democrat for most of my life. But I wanted to save the country from the fascists. I wanted to make our system strong.”
*Crowd Cheers*
“So I decided to run for president.”
*More Cheers*
“I did, I won.”
(Okay, we get it, they’re just going to cheer after every sentence.)
“And then I tested the system. I pushed our institutions to the brink. And I sacrificed everything; my wealth, my health, and even my freedom… So I could end the threat of fascism to our country.”
“Everything I have done I did for this country. The threat is smoldering. My MAGA candidates are sabotaging so many Republican races.”
*Mixed Cheers*
“The threat of the Republican party, the party that I have single-handedly split in two, divided against itself, and left weakened by siphoning off voters so that Republicans will not hold power again for decades, and maybe even… cease to exist as a party.
Tonight, I announce that I am withdrawing from the race, from the presidency, and giving my congratulations to Joseph R. Biden.”

– And he is whisked away while the crowd tries, ponderously, to figure out what just happened. Imagine the headlines! Imagine the articles, the news stories, the jaw-fell-through-the-floor-to-the-center-of-the-Earth reactions of pundits, anchors, podcasters…




Soooo… yeah, nice fantasy considering that in reality Trump is an empty, narcissistic, egomaniacal, puerile, sexist (just all ‘ists’ to save time), ignorant, incompetent, and ultimately pathetic in the saddest sense, black hole of a human being.

We can thank whatever sources of grace we want that he is just enough of those things to fail at destroying the nation. Yes, he gets one more shot. Maybe. It’s not a great shot, and we still need to do everything in our power to not merely stop him, but to flush all of the would-be fascists and the Movement Conservatives trying to resurrect the Gilded Age. Then, through education, provide every person in the nation with history, civics, and the ability to think critically so the forces of darkness, the enemies of democracy, cannot get their claws in the national machinery, belonging to We the People, again.

The only way for Trump to avoid going down in history as all of the above, and instead be regarded as a visionary, brilliant, self-sacrificing hero is to simply admit to what he has, in fact done. If he owns everything he’s done, he could ‘win’ after all.

Thanks for indulging my little fantasy. Now back to work in the harsh but hopeful real world.