Remembering the Halcyon Days of the Trump Presidency
Good times, good times
I was listening to J.D. Vance on the debate stage the other night, reminding us how great things were during the Trump presidency. It got me all nostalgic. You too?
Remember when Trump took a sharpie and drew on the weather map to show that the hurricane was predicted to land where he had said?
Remember when Trump comforted flood victims by throwing them rolls of paper towels?
Remember when Trump stood in the Rose Garden and stared directly into the solar eclipse?
Remember when Trump put his children on his White House staff? Breaking a law that had been passed when Congress didn’t like J.F.K. making his brother Bobby Attorney General?
Remember when Trump put his inexperienced son-in-law Jared in charge of practically everything, including peace in the Middle East?
Remember when Trump moved the U.S. consulate to Jerusalem, which was taken as a terrible insult in the Muslim world?
Remember when Trump retained a hotel near the White House that foreign governments used to funnel money into Trump’s bank account, in contravention of the constitution’s Emoluments Clause?
Remember when Trump said he put all of his business interests into a blind trust run by his children, so he wouldn’t be distracted (or conduct funny business) while president? Except he really didn’t? As compared to when Jimmy Carter famously sold his peanut farm when he became president?
Remember when Trump charged the government (full freight) for boarding his Secret Service protectors at Mar Lago?
Remember when Trump forced top government officials to stay at his properties (at full freight, again) while travelling?
Remember when Trump tried to get the G7 to meet at his shitty Doral Miami golf club near the airport, to promote the failing resort?
Remember when Trump banned Muslims from entering the country?
Remember how hatred, division, racism, and transphobia rose off the charts as Trump fanned the flames and gave permission for it all?
Remember when Trump moved the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS) and National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) from Washington D.C. to Kansas City and 2/3 of the employees left rather than move? Losing a substantial amount of government expertise and institutional knowledge?
Remember when Trump called the dictator of nuclear-armed North Korea “Little Rocket Man” and we all held our breath waiting for the nukes to begin to fly?
Remember when, shortly after, Trump declared he was in love with his Little Rocket Man?
Remember when Trump started a trade war with China, using tariffs that raised prices for Chinese goods in the U.S.? And when, shortly thereafter, he fell in love with China’s leader?
Remember that creepy photo of Trump and a couple of Arab leaders with theirs hands on a glowing globe, as if they owned the world?
Remember when that dude threw a shoe at him during a press conference? Oh, wait, that was George W. Bush. Sorry. (Also good times! Remember the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? And the missing Weapons of Mass Destruction? And Saddam Hussein in the spider hole?)
Remember when we enjoyed photographs of kids languishing in cages at the southern border, separated from their parents? Some to never see their parents again?
Remember when he prevented one of his teenage caged kids from getting an abortion she wanted?
Remember when Trump asked Russia to please get him the mythical lost Hilary Clinton emails?
Remember when we waited breathlessly for months for the completion of The Mueller Report, which finally showed how Russia interfered with the 2016 election to get Trump elected, and how Trump committed crimes to obstruct the investigation? And how Obstructor-In-Chief Bill Barr immediately tanked it? And how Trump claimed it actually exonerated him, seeing as how he wasn’t immediately arrested and put in prison? And how those crimes could still be prosecuted today if we had an Attorney General with a little more spine in his back?
Remember how Congress investigated it too, and the impassioned closing argument of California congressman and soon-to-be U.S. senator Adam Schiff where he warned us that Trump would continue to betray us?
Remember when Trump got impeached for pressuring Ukraine to drum up a false investigation to make political rival Joe Biden look bad?
Remember when he got impeached for the January 6 insurrection?
Remember when the party-over-country Republican senators refused to convict Trump and remove him from office for either impeachment?
Remember the January 6 insurrection?
Remember when there were only four known cases of COVID in the U.S. and they were on a cruise ship docked in port? And Trump tried to keep them confined to the cruise ship, even though there were surely many unknown cases of COVID already in the country? And how Trump ensured us that COVID would just go away and be all over in two months? And how a million Americans died of COVID in the next couple of years? Of which, at least half a million were due to Trump’s mishandling of the crisis? And how COVID is still raging five years later?
Remember when Trump himself nearly died of COVID? And passed the disease around to White House staff and others?
Remember when he theorized that maybe COVID could be cured by drinking bleach or putting an infrared light up your bum? And then people died from drinking bleach?
Remember Trump’s “Infrastructure Week” that kept being declared but never happened?
Remember when Trump tore up the Iran nuclear deal? And the Paris climate accord?
Remember when Trump took strong measures to battle global warming? NOT!!!!
Remember how your sphincter clenched for four years, wondering and fearing what the madman would do next?
Ah, those halcyon days of yore!
I think I just gave myself PTSD.
What are your favorite memories of those happy years when Trump Made America Great Again?
