Millwauke, July 18th 2024
Donald Trump accepts the Republican nomination to run for President for the third time. A crowded field of challengers had fallen by the wayside as the GOP base backed their hero.
Marjorie Taylor Green held his hand aloft like a victorious boxer as she was announced as his running mate. Together they repeated the lie of the stolen election, and promised revenge on the cabal of Liberals and Immigrants who had stolen America away from real patriots.
A week later Joe Biden accepted the Democrat nomination at the convention in Chicago, the first time the Democrats had been there since 1968.
Throughout the campaign Trump looked ill. The bloated, orange faced bombast had been replaced by a thinner, greyer man, the suits too large for him, somehow shrunken. He had faced court cases winning some, losing some, he was damaged, but with enough momentum from his supporters to get him over the line as nominee. Fox News, who once abandoned him, were back uncritically supporting to keep their viewers engaged.
But while Trump looked ill, Biden looked worse. He made fewer campaign stops, and when he did he looked confused, not even sure where he was. Speeches would trail off, leaving the President gazing glassy eyed into the distance. Biden’s down home format left him with less room to disguise his many senior moments with razzmatazz.
When election day came America watched when sullen acceptance as Donald Trump won.
Trump once again got fewer votes than his opponent, but the quirks of the electoral college, and some creative vote counting by Republican Secretaries of State made him President again.
Washington DC January 20, 2025
His second inauguration was even more sparsely attended than his first, cold drizzle blanketed the capital. The A list of celebrities and musicians turned down their invitations, so it was left to Kid Rock to sing the National Anthem, in his own inevitable way
That was the last time Trump was seen in public. Grey faced and hoarse he struggled through an inauguration address that rambled on, mostly concerned with his court battles of the last few years.
His administration made a single policy announcement – it was enacting Schedule F, reclassifying 50,000 federal employees as political appointments, and sacking them immediately. Some initial announcements were made about replacements, mainly right wing bloggers and QAnon advocates but most posts were left unfilled, and Government ground to a halt.
With both House controlled by the Democrats there will little else the Trump administration could do.
At first the vanishing President, and the moribund administration were the source of jokes, mainly from left wing comedians and media figures, until it became clear that this was serious.
The state of the Presidents health became the subject of the kind of speculation that accompanied ageing Russian politburo members. Perhaps he was in Mar E Lago, maybe in the White House.
Weeks went by, with no sign of Trump, just old footage of him playing golf. Rumours spread of a disastrous stroke. The Constitution was consulted, and lawyers engaged.
Washington DC February 7th 2025
Marjorie Taylor Greene took the lectern to deliver the State of the Union address. Drag queens, woke, and the courage of Donald Trump were her main themes, along with lots of God and Guns. She ended promising to bring down the global cabal of Satan worshipping Paedophiles. Or maybe a cable.
As she sat down President Putin congratulated her via twitter. The 48th President of the United States, and leader of the Free World.
Postscript
Just imagine for one moment they you wanted to destroy the USA, lumber it with a catastrophe of a President who would destroy America’s reputation?
Someone already did that for us, a writer called Richard Condon wth his book the Manchurian Candidate. It was made into a brilliant movie with Laurence Harvey and Frank Sinatra. The plot involved a popular charismatic candidate for President who is persuaded to pick an ignorant, stupid running mate to broaden the appeal of the ticket. The charismatic candidate is assassinated, leaving his hopeless running mate a shoo-in. Once President the no hoper trashes America’s reputation and drags it into an unwinnnable war in Asia. The book was published in 1959, the movie released in 1962.
And then Kennedy was shot, LBJ became President, the US escalated it’s engagement in Vietnam, and the movie wasn’t watched for decades until Alex Cox picked it for his late night BBC2 show. It is well worth a watch, just avoid the Denzil Washington remake.
Trump appears determined to run for President again in 2024. His route to the nomination is a tougher one than the last 2 times, and there are a faction in the GOP who will try hard to stop him. He also faces huge legal problems, that at any moment could land him at risk of prison.
He does still command lots of support in the party’s base, and is by far and away the best known, loudest and most attention catching candidate.
Whether he can win is a different matter, and it depends on whether the Democrats find a decent candidate, whether the election is contested honestly and how much foreign (Russian) money is in play.
But then imagine that the US has a 78 year old, morbidly obese President. Who lives on a diet of junk food, and can’t climb stairs. Whose health is failing in front of our eyes.
And who sadly passes over, leaving his VP in charge for the next 3 or 4 years.
PS2 More bad Trump fan art
