Donald Trump just unwittingly spoke the truth for once
There’s something about a million monkeys and a million typewriters. The number of monkeys change in the telling of it, and what they’re ultimately able to type changes too, but the point is that given enough time and enough numbers they’ll come up with something comprehensible and astonishing, usually the complete works of Shakespeare, or at least his most famous play, Hamlet.
In this particular case it only took one monkey, Donald Trump — and my apologies to monkeys for comparing them to Trump. But what Trump came up with was a single statement of absolute truth: “The [2024 presidential] election,” he said, “will decide whether your generation will inherit a fascist country or a free country.“ I don’t think it’s a hyperbole to say he’s absolutely, 100% correct.
Of course, what he meant was, absurdly, the opposite of the truth. He meant that little old “Sleepy” Joe Biden, the man he characterises as too senile to run the government, is going to mastermind a Hitleresque takeover of the United States and turn it into a Fourth Reich that will oppress Americans for a thousand years. But we can ignore that for the time being and take the warning on its face. We know that’s what Republicans will do because they’ve already told us they will.
Republican state legislatures across the nation are already trying to rig their governments so they, and not the American people, can decide who will be president in the future. They’re doing it in the name of “election security.” They’re doing it “for your own good.”
Trump and current Republican members of Congress have already indicated they intend to roll back many of the civil rights of Americans and “destroy wokeism” should they regain power. They have promised to strip away gains made by Biden, including his reductions in healthcare costs. And Republicans have promised to raid and destroy social security.
These are hardly surprises. A party whose single legislative achievement the last time they were in power was to hand millionaires and billionaires huge tax breaks that Americans are only now paying for, can hardly be expected to do differently the next time. Only this time around they are especially furious and will do far worse on that account.
Republicans see that they’re failing with the American people. They see that they’ve become toxically unpopular with everyone but the paralysingly stupid. The hand-wringing, as it were, is on the wall. They are desperate to win because even they understand that it could be their last chance to convert America into the fascistic, Handmaid’s Tale-style theocracy that they envision.
Of course Donald Trump admires Adolf Hitler — it’s said he keeps a copy of a book of Hitler’s speeches in his bedroom — and, like Hitler, he has already announced that he intends to take vengeance on his enemies should he regain power. That will probably include having them jailed or even murdered. I wouldn’t put it past him. One of the things he envies about Vladimir Putin is his ability to summon the death of anyone he hates.
Oh, but Trump didn’t stop there in predicting gloom and doom for America. He also said that “Your country is being turned into a third-world hellhole, run by censors, perverts, criminals and thugs.” In other words, America now qualifies as what Trump once characterised certain other nations as: “shithole countries.”
His remarks come as a grand jury in Georgia considers indicting him for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. His remarks come under the weight of 71 criminal indictments from state and federal prosecutors. His remarks come because he’s trying to terrify and bully Americans into taking action before it’s too late for him, before he goes to prison.
Touchingly, Trump insists that he’s doing everything for the American people, that he’s a martyr for us. “I am doing it for you,” he proclaims. “I am being indicted for you.” And all this time I thought he was being indicted for hoarding dangerous, top secret documents and then lying to the FBI about it, obstructing justice and paying off porn stars — for himself. Instead he’s doing all that for little ole me? I’m touched. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.