Donald Trump vanished from sight for a few days last week, which is good because he’s not something you should look directly at for long. He’s like the sun but more orange and carcinogenic.
On the liberal side of the internets, there was much rejoicing over the prospect that Trump had died. People were planning parties and coming up with specialty cocktails. This was considered cruel of us, even though Trump is 79 years old and has lived a full life that’s an affront to human decency. Nietzsche once wrote, “Those you cannot teach to fly, teach to fall faster.” I’ve no interest in offering flight lessons to Trump or superficial well wishes. I will simply wait for gravity to finally claim its due.
“Where’s Trump?” started trending around the same time my
piece ran about Trump’s obviously declining health. (I appreciate the extra traffic.) The White House revealed in July that Trump has chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), a condition that occurs when the leg veins become damaged and struggle to send blood back up to the heart, which Trump possesses literally if not figuratively. This was after Trump’s White House physician, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, had released a fantasy land report about Trump’s medical condition: “President Trump remains in excellent health, exhibiting robust cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and general physical function,” Barbabella wrote. (It’s possible that Barron Trump took his father’s physical for him.)Trump is often seen with swollen ankles and bruised hands. Footage from a March golf outing showed him walking around like Frankenstein. If the nation insists on having a dictator, at least this one has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.
There’s been talk that Trump might suffer from serious heart disease or maybe he’s had a stroke. I’m not a doctor so I won’t speculate about his health, but I will say he deserves everything painful that’s happening to him.
This was not the first time we thought we might be rid of Trump. He almost died from covid in October 2020, after botching the federal pandemic response and resisting even the most basic mitigation measures. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow lectured anyone who didn’t express appropriate “compassion” for our fallen leader. After comparing Trump to an average non-psychopath who had lung cancer, Maddow said, “Go right ahead, enjoy that schadenfreude.”
Technically, the feeling of “schadenfreude” is based in either aggression, rivalry, or justice. As I wrote at the time, Donald Trump isn’t merely your successful, seemingly perfect neighbor, and a sick part of you enjoys seeing him suffer a small setback. Donald Trump isn’t even some liberal celebrity who lost her child, and her personal tragedy thrills you for some reason because you're oh-so “pro-life.” Donald Trump is a monster with no redeeming qualities. He’s not an annoying relative you can choose to avoid at holiday gatherings. He’s clothed in immense power, which he wields with abusive glee on the vulnerable and marginalized. He’s made the country, if not the entire world, a worse place. That was five years ago. He’s still at it. Also, if Trump had succumbed to covid in October 2020, he couldn’t have spread the Big Lie, which resulted in his MAGA goons terrorizing election workers. He wouldn’t have been around to incite an attack against the Capitol on January 6, when actual lives were lost because of Trump’s malicious ego.
Trump also survived an assassination attempt that left one of his supporters dead. I’m sure Trump doesn’t remember his name. (I’m actually glad Trump survived, as I think political violence harms us all. Also, he doesn’t deserve martyrdom, just the humbling ravages of age.)
So, I didn’t join last weekend’s celebrations, not because I thought they were inappropriate but because I figured they were premature. Trump is like a supervillain who always returns from certain death in time for a double-sized anniversary issue. Liberals had previously partied like the end of Return of the Jedi after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, but then somehow Trump returned. This is a very disappointing sequel.
Trump did eventually appear again on Labor Day, looking as if he’d been recently embalmed but with the cheap stuff. The wax dummy effect had people wondering if the White House was passing off a fake Trump. No, alas, the real Trump is still alive and plotting to invade Chicago.
Nonetheless, there are many liberals who aren’t eager to see Trump die. It’s not because they like him. They’re just worried that once he croaks, JD Vance will become president. I agree that’s worse than a black fly in your chardonnay, but Trump leaving this world is an objective positive, even if it makes an unqualified couch fucker president. Trump’s chaotic style of “governance” is hardly MAGA’s low point, though. I fully acknowledge that Vance could very well be worse. I don’t share others’ confidence that Vance wouldn’t attempt to overturn an election or cozy up to dictators and betray our allies. Vance has seen what Trump has pulled off without serious consequence, and he lacks any real scruple to hold him back. Still, that legitimate concern is no reason to maintain this horrible status quo.
Besides, while Trump might command a cult-like devotion, Vance is a charisma black hole who’d have to contend with a cabinet filled with vipers. Democrat Elissa Slotkin won the 2024 Michigan Senate race — not simply because of her dazzling personality but because Trump’s cultists didn’t bother filling out the rest of the ballot. At least 20,000 more people voted for Kamala Harris. No one is driving all the way to a polling place just to cast a single ballot for JD Vance. He can’t even order doughnuts correctly.
Prior to Vance, liberals once worried that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was the more dangerous Trump successor. An October 2022 article in The Financial Times declared, “Ron DeSantis is Donald Trump with brains and without the drama.” It suggested that “If Florida’s governor is re-elected, he’s likely to challenge the ex-president’s hold on their party.” DeSantis was re-elected but Trump openly pantsed him in the Republican primary. Vance arguably is even less politically skilled than DeSantis. Yes, Vance dogwalked Tim Walz in their vice presidential debate, but that unfortunately says more about Walz and the idiot consultants who told him to play nice with a known skunk. It’s not a surprise that he got sprayed.
Still, if Trump dies in office, Vance won’t have to win an election, and he’ll have the full force of the government to keep in power, regardless of his approval rating.
We should prepare to deal with Vance, either in 2028 or sooner. However, I won’t waste a second of my time feeling sorry for Trump, nor will I feel any regret over wishing he was no longer around to torment us. If there is any upside to the Trump presidency, it’s what Barnabas Collins once wisely observed: “Death runs faster than any man.”
The only conflict I feel is between my desire his regime fails as soon as possible and he suffers as much as possible.
He is one man. He cannot be in shrieking agony long enough to atone for what he has done.
I'll settle for a long, painful, miserable decline. Long enough for him to see how much he is hated over and over again.