A Big-Time Loser, the Biggest

These days Melania Trump and Jared Kushner are apparently the voices of reason inside the Donald Trump White House.

Let that sink in.

While the Donald clutches at the drapes, tables, desks and walls, determined not to be dragged off the national stage because he can’t acknowledge losing the election, Melania and Jared reportedly tried to talk him into conceding.

When the Associated Press and the major networks announced Saturday morning former Vice President Joe Biden defeated President Trump, spontaneous outpourings of joy swept the country and the world. Celebrations were commonplace in cities across the U.S. Donald Trump had predicted riots if Biden won. He got parties. Trump said the markets would tank. They soared.

On Saturday night in Washington, D.C., in Lafayette Square across from St. John’s Church, celebrants sang “Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead.” It was in the same place Trump gassed peaceful protesters so he could get a photo op with the Bible (and yes, he held it momentarily upside down—I was there). The air smelled of cannabis, not pepper spray or tear gas. The crowd looked like America. Young. Old. Rich. Poor. Black. White. Gay. Straight. Muslim. Christian. It was as diverse and happy a gathering as I’d ever seen—outside of the Kentucky Derby infield on a sunny first Saturday in May. I even saw a man with a MAGA hat dancing with a woman wearing a “The Next VP Looks Like Me” T-shirt.

Almost everyone wore a mask.

Trump got the total 2020 experience: After surviving coronavirus, he’s losing his job and his home. Though the president is still screaming about voter fraud and conspiracy, the election was the most transparent in recent memory. It had to be. Volunteers and low-paid poll workers from both parties who only cared about getting the job done right defended the process in real time on every network.

It was messy, but it was American democracy at work.

Trump heard he lost to Biden as he searched for his golf ball in the weeds on the back nine at his favorite Virginia golf course. The president’s response to the news seemed scripted by satirists.

Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s favorite cockroach, held a press conference at the Four Seasons—not the hotel, but a landscaping company in Philadelphia situated next to a crematorium and a dildo shop called Fantasy Island. Third-rate romance and low-rent rendezvous seemed a fitting tone for Giuliani, who promoted the president’s voter-fraud fiction as reporters wondered if they were in a scene for a new Borat movie.

The political press has struggled to understand the Donald from the moment he threw his hat in the ring. At first we mistakenly dismissed Trump as a political sideshow, a mere circus freak. Collectively we underestimated who Trump was and what he brought to the table. Some say the media created him. We certainly gave him enough free air and fanned the flames.

The media worked as it should, despite our many faults.

We worked through threats and attempted intimidation. We worked even as some critics said we should hold hands, take a knee, walk out or just shut up during press briefings. We worked—though some coverage was propaganda, and some coverage was nothing more than fetid sewer water. We worked on the internet, in print, on television and on radio, podcasts, live streams and more. We continue to work through a pandemic, even as it hampers our access to the president.

When the Donald likes the coverage, he praises us. When he doesn’t like the coverage, he mocks us, threatens us and tries to silence us. He is never successful, yet still he tries to make our lives difficult.

On the other hand Trump also makes life easier for us. He needs to be on camera. He views the presidency as an ongoing reality show and loves the attention. Everyone thinks they know who Donald Trump really is because he’s always in the news. Every day you see him, read about him, listen to him and get angry at his moronic tweets (even if you love him). He’s your crazy Uncle Donny who insults everyone, farts in the seat cushions and won’t leave the family barbecue—and terrifyingly also holds the nuclear codes.

During the past four years no one on the planet has escaped the influence of Trump’s narcissistic, egomaniacal energy. He loves that.

Former White House reporter Sam Donaldson told me he had his critics during his years reporting on various administrations but never had to handle what the average White House reporter faces these days. “I don’t know if I could do it,” he said.

Sam sold himself short. There’s no secret. You do what Donaldson did.

You cover the story. You keep covering the story, and when you’re tired and worn out after four years of being beaten over the head with the type of stupidity you wouldn’t accept from your seven-year-old, you outlast the sonofabitch and you keep covering the story.

CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta recently said on-air that Donald Trump is incessant: “He hopes to wear you out.” That’s how Trump survives.

Trump’s dedication to this conduct, even during a global pandemic, might shock the casual observer. He got the virus and his minions got the virus, yet he still won’t wear a mask, and neither will they. Dave Chappelle joked on Saturday Night Live that if you’re going to wear a mask to a Klan rally, what’s wrong with wearing one at Walmart?

On election night Trump held a party in the White House East Room. Among the guests were chief sycophants Mark Meadows, Ben Carson and Kellyanne Conway, along with what looked like extras from The Walking Dead. Besides the reporters, few attendees wore masks. Some later said they were scared to do so because of Trump. Who in their right mind fears Donald Trump? Apparently most of the GOP. In the days after the party, both Carson and Meadows tested positive for coronavirus.

Acosta is right: Trump just doesn’t stop. So neither can we. Whether Trump fails or succeeds, looks like a fool or a criminal, he’s a political Energizer bunny. He claims a conspiracy of thousands denied him victory on election night. He’s wrong. It was 77 million voters in 50 states who wanted his sorry ass shown the door. He cannot overcome that, no matter his stamina.

It is no surprise Trump refuses to concede. He may never do so. If he’s not losing golf balls on the back nine, then he’s in the White House trying to cut deals as he plans another rally to raise money and rage-tweets how he really won.

Trump still has something left to sell in his bag of tricks, and more than 72 million people will eagerly buy. A small $20 donation to Trump could help him pay off his voluminous campaign debt and help him afford better legal representation than Rudy “Fantasy Island” Giuliani.

Trump never thought he’d lose. His rallies, his impeachment survival and his recovery from coronavirus convinced him he was invincible. As it turns out, the con man conned himself. Now he’s trying to con the rest of us one more time.

On Saturday he tweeted “71,000,000 Legal Votes. The most EVER for a sitting President!” But he neglected to mention he lost the race—congratulations on being the most successful loser. Out of all losing presidents, he’s in first place.

At the end of the day Trump is *exactly* what you see when you first meet him. There is no point in searching for hidden, deeper meaning. There is none. Donald Trump is as shallow as his makeup tan. The 2020 election revealed how many in the GOP are just like him.

Trump is an incompetent fascist dictator. President-Elect Biden will inherit the worst crisis since the Great Depression, made more difficult because Trump doesn’t care and will stoke his supporters’ anger and fear. But Trump isn’t trying to stage a coup—he’s trying to bilk his supporters for money. When he leaves the White House, his circus will go on the road. He will scream he was robbed, vow to run again in 2024 and rake in all the cash he can before disappearing into the night, like every con man before him.

Even if Biden successfully deals with the brooding brat currently in the White House as well as the pandemic, another fascist may rise to take the reins of the Republican Party. Those 72 million Trump voters will eventually be led by someone else. We must be wary of a competent fascist dictator—another metastatic cancer in the body politic. (Trump, of course, is the original tumor.)

If we are as slow to recognize a new threat as we were with Trump, and if the blindly faithful remain so, we could be in deep trouble—especially without mental giants like Jared and Melania to guide us to safety.