Christmas morning dawned shockingly warm, so I loaded up Hazel and Jack in the truck and drove the 10 miles to town for a walk on the trail.
The trailhead doubles as the parking lot of our county extension building. As I leashed up the dogs, two small older-model cars pulled in and parked beside one other at 9 a.m. sharp, and in palpable, polite silence, a young man and young woman exchanged a little dark-haired preschool girl, still in her pale pink princess pajamas, from the father’s backseat to the mother’s.
The divorced parents neutral parking lot exchange.
Parents and children of divorce will recognize this scene. As a stepchild three times over, I felt for these young parents. Christmas was always the worst holiday for shared custody agreements. Competition. Lack of money. Yelling and tears. Clock watching. Dread. A never-ending season fraught with tension from the minute stores brought out their sparkly decorations until after New Years.
I was always waiting for Christmas to be over.
Our current political situation has the same vibe. I live in rural Kentucky – deep red Trump country – and this time around I had a strong feeling all year that Mr. Trump would easily win re-election.
This election was over before President Biden’s disastrous June debate performance.
This election was over before Vice President Harris consistently filled every big stadium in the alleged swing states with massive, exuberant crowds and top celebrity entertainers.
The election was over before the massive ad campaign targeting the trans community or the fake stories about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Ohio or that time Mr. Trump appeared to fellate a microphone on stage.
This election was over before Mr. Trump raised his fist and yelled “Fight, fight, fight!” for the cameras, right after being shot at in rural Pennsylvania. Yes, even before this.
This election was over the instant Mr. Trump became the nominee.
This election was over the instant Mr. Trump became the nominee because we have a citizenry obsessed, first and foremost, with unobtainable wealth and celebrity.
For all of Mr. Trump’s flagrant ignorance, meanness, lawlessness, pettiness and continued inability to discuss policy at any level because he does not understand governing, he is what half of Americans crave most in today’s TikTok scroll, Facebook comment section, Twitter/X snark, Instagram perfection, lottery ticket dreams, internet porn, and Joe Rogan bro muscle culture. Americans want everything Mr. Trump has – the fame, the money, the mistresses and wives and sexual assault, the planes and limos, the proud depravity, the laziness, the I-don’t-give-a-shit-and-fuck-you attitude, and he’s gonna show ‘em how to get it all with zero consequences, you just watch.
Half the country handed him the keys to the White House again because what they really want are not lower gas prices, cheaper eggs, or even a regulated southern border. Like an addict jonesing for their drug of choice, Americans want their Donald. They recall fondly the 2016-2020 season of The White House Apprentice and have been praying for the Season Two launch, which promises to far outshine Season One.
Even as these same voters fear his policy decisions could destroy their lives.
If that’s not addict behavior, what is?
In a Dec. 26 Washington Post story titled “After backing Trump, low-income voters hope he doesn’t slash their benefits,” reporter Tim Craig writes, “Steve Tillia, 59, receives $1,600 a month in Social Security disability payments and $300 in food stamps to support himself and his son. Tillia, who said he is unable to work after suffering from mini strokes, still drives around New Castle with a Trump flag anchored on the bumper of his SUV. Tillia said he’s confident that Trump and GOP leaders will reduce spending by “cutting the fat” out of government — and not slashing benefits. “It’s not cutting government programs, it’s cutting the amount of people needed to run a program,” he said. “They are cutting staff, which could actually increase the amount of the programs that we get.”
Mr. Trump is going on 80 years old. He has been on the national political stage for a decade and dominates all platforms. The press, from whom we expect better, worships at his ratings-making, click-baiting altar. He has already been president, but I still can find no evidence that Mr. Trump understands how any government program works, including social security.
No matter.
He promises, like a divorced daddy promising Disneyworld, to entertain us to death.
In chapter two of his 2021 book Our Own Worst Enemy (which I highly recommend, along his recently updated audiobook of The Death of Expertise) Tom Nichols describes what a 48 year-old Los Angeles, California male voter told the NY Times back in 2016, that “he would much prefer Mr. Trump to Mrs. Clinton. Though he said he disagreed with some of Mr. Trump’s policies, he added that he had watched The Apprentice and expected that a Trump presidency would be more exciting than a boring Clinton administration. ‘A dark side of me wants to see what happens if Trump is in [he said]. There is going to be some kind of change, and even if it’s like a Nazi-type change, people are so drama-filled. They want to see stuff like that happen. It’s like reality TV. You don’t want to just see everybody be happy with each other. You want to see someone fighting somebody.’”
I would like to know what new national Democratic strategy competes with this.
We are stuck with Mr. Trump and his voters the same way a divorced mother is stuck with a miserable human being of an ex-husband. So here is what we will do. We will focus on our own health and attitude; we will keep him out of our house; we will meet him in a neutral location when we have to; we will ignore his attention-craving antics; we will pick our battles while keeping the peace; we will spend our energy taking care of the most vulnerable.
This is our shared custody arrangement with the country.
I moved into this mode back in October. I am rarely on social media, and God knows I avoid cable TV news, and even some regular TV news, like a woman holding out a crucifix to stave off Dracula.
And unlike how I spent the last 8 years openly talking with Trump voters and patiently listening to their conspiracies, reasons and rationalizations, this mother has moved on.
Good luck with that, I say, as I leash up Hazel and Jack. Good luck.
--30--
Cross-posted from Reporting from Dog Lake.
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