The Groundhog Day Presidency

I was away from the new for days and even weeks at a time this summer. I didn’t miss much. When I did see a television tuned to cable news or read a headline on my phone, the story could have been from any time since the 2016 election campaign.

Disliking Donald Trump is easy. Following news and commentary about his latest outrageous act or statement is exhausting.

Though I lack any evidence for this, I have to imagine some younger voters — and maybe voters of any age — find Trump pushing them towards progressive, and even outright anti-capitalist, anti-market, anti-republican ideals.

Faced with Donald Trump, voters rush to reject “capitalism” and anything that Trump claims to support. If Trump is the free market, why not be a socialist? The problem is, Trump is not a market capitalist (he is a corporatist) and he’s certainly not a fiscal conservative or social libertarian. Trump is all about Donald Trump, with no guiding ideology other than his narcissism.

What Donald Trump does prove is that the Republican Party was as soulless as he is, since most GOP officials and voters won’t reject the nonsense spewed by this president.

I’ve written before that most “Democratic Socialists” have no claim to the label Socialist. They confuse and conflate terms, taking public commons and public welfare and turning those into “socialism” that has nothing at all to do with controlling the means of production. Trump is making socialism acceptable more broadly simply because calling yourself a socialist is a way of proclaiming, “I hate Trump!”

Day after day, week after week, President Trump has said or done something ignorant, racist, sexist, xenophobic, reckless, and (probably) entirely incorrect.

I don’t need to watch the news to know Trump is a lousy person, a horrible leader, and a cancer within the Republican Party.

But, I’m not going to declare myself a socialist. I’m not going to waste time pretending to be surprised by whatever he’s done this week or day. I’m surprised when an hour passes and he hasn’t done something proving his lack of character.

Missing the news, I miss nothing. There’s nothing that’s going to lower my expectations any further. The news is simply a spiral downward.

I realize our leaders have all been flawed. Some of the greatest presidents fell short of their own stated ideals. Some good presidents were men who had to mature and grow even while in office.

We shouldn’t hold leaders to impossibly high standards, but Trump reminds me of the worst of so many all wrapped up into a single symbol of reactionary fear.

Trump is Wilson’s racism and abuses of power. He’s Nixon’s paranoia. He’s Clinton’s lack of impulse control. Whatever you dislike about a past president, chances are Trump has that trait.

Even this post feels like a waste of time and energy. If you defend Trump, I won’t persuade you he’s toxic. If you dislike Trump, I probably don’t dislike him enough to please you.

What Trump has done, day after day, is wear down many of us who used to be news and information addicts. I loved listening to debates and exploring theories of leadership. Trump proved most of the theories I read wrong. If he is reelected, which I believe is more likely with each passing Democratic debate, yet more theories will need to be discarded.

It is hard to be passionate about politics in the Age of Trump. Tomorrow’s outrage will overshadow today’s offense. And whatever he does next week will surely be more shocking.

Decades from now, how will we explain the president who exhausted a nation? My nightmare is waking up and finding nothing has changed even after this presidency ends.