I hate Donald Trump

When I was in high school I had one of those friends who claimed to never hate anyone. If he harboured anything like antipathy for someone at all he would claim that, instead of hating them, he preferred, as he put it, โto intensely dislike them.โ If you werenโt among the kids who split that particular hair (or infinitive) then Iโll bet you knew someone who did. I eschewed such weasel words but I was, nevertheless, careful about whom I cultivated any hatred. Like love, I believed, hatred should be reserved for that special someone.
It was around the same time that the late Andy Rooney, the guy with the amusing anecdotes at the denouement of โ60 Minutes,โ said that he had only ever hated one president of the United States in his lifetime. He wouldnโt name which one it was but it was easy to guess. I think he meant Richard Nixon, and Iโm pretty sure Mr. Rooney wanted us to know who he meant. I never hated Nixon. At most I entertained a certain belligerent contempt tinged with pity for Nixon. But truthfully, Iโve never hated any president of the United States. Until now.
As I write this, the American death toll due to coronavirus has just surpassed 100,000. What did Donald Trump have to say about it? He tweeted this:
For all of the political hacks out there, if I hadnโt done my job well, & early, we would have lost 1 1/2 to 2 Million People, as opposed to the 100,000 plus that looks like will be the number. Thatโs 15 to 20 times more than we will lose. I shut down entry from China very early!
Heโs banging that China drum again, of course. He’s been dining out on that one for months. What bothers me most about that is, itโs not just that heโs conning us, itโs that heโs doing it with so little effort, so little imagination, so little originality. Well, this particular political hack is thoroughly tired of Donald Trump. Trump is like a huckster who artificially raises prices so he can lower them to what they were originally and then call it a discount. Care to take a guess what Trump will say when we pass the two million deaths milestone?
This overt, incessant gaslighting by changing provable history wouldnโt be so galling โ or perhaps it wouldnโt even be galling at all โ if so many people didnโt believe in him. Itโs a miracle of wilful ignorance that people can watch Trump tweet all day long about television shows heโs watching and let him get away with pretending that heโs โworking night and day for us.โ The fact that the only thing heโs done at all to help with the coronavirus pandemic was to announce his impotent partial travel ban to Europe and his full but conditional travel ban to China is a disgrace all by itself. Itโs a prodigy of indolence. How much effort does it take to order a travel ban, or a travel restriction? About the same time and effort it takes to write this sentence.
Those of you who know me know that I seldom miss an opportunity to remind people that Donald Trump is both a child rapist and a murderer. As egregious as those crimes are they are not the reason I hate Donald Trump. I know of plenty of child rapists and murderers, and while I despise their crimes I canโt summon personal hatred for them. At best I hate them in the abstract. They donโt merit anything beyond that. But I hate Donald Trump viscerally, with my whole being, and I think I know the reason why. I hate him because of who and what he represents. I hate him because itโs personal.
For one thing, Trump is a type that I have despised all my life. Trump is the bully with the ducktail haircut, a product of the thick, swaggering, cruel, unfunny, stupid underbelly of the human species. Trump is the specimen that menaces and disrupts and mocks and belittles. Trump is the asshole at work who gets away with everything because heโs the son of the bossโ kid sister. Heโs the hamfisted bonehead with a little too much power. Heโs every clown who ever ruined a perfect sunset or a gorgeous piece of music with a belch or a fart. Heโs the classic vulgarian, the quintessential lout, the one kid on the block that you used to know for a fact would never, ever become president of the United States.
Trump has validated every slope-shouldered, mallotheaded Quasimodo in America. Heโs a role model for every Neanderthal ruffian, every philistine, every barstool bonehead whoโs single-handedly solved all the world’s problems โ if only he could be in charge for a day! Trump doesnโt merely comfort them in their ignorance, heโs catered to them, lifted them up, legitimised their ignorance, made them think their ignorance is in fact wisdom after all. Trump is their ignorance. Trump is their hero because heโs just like they are, even though he hates them.
Trump doesnโt wear a mask during a global pandemic because he doesnโt want to appear weak. Heโs too much of a tough guy. At least, thatโs the official White House reason, as near as I can tell. So he retweets a comment mocking Joe Biden and his wife for wearing a mask at a public event. I think the real reason Trump wonโt wear a mask in public is because Trump doesnโt want to smear his makeup. Trump wears makeup because heโs a coward, and he wonโt wear a mask because, even though he will save lives by setting a good example, heโs more worried about how he looks than about saving lives. He really is that small, that arrogant, that callous.
Donald Trump is the only person I can think of who has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Even Charles Manson had musical talent. Even Hitler had courage on the battlefield. So did Joseph McCarthy, for that matter. But Trump? Trump is a coward, a draft dodger, a talent-free know-nothing. Trump is the guy who would say something rude and offensive at the end of Beethovenโs 9th symphony. Heโs the spirit of the guy who insists we never landed on the moon. He lounges around like the lazy asshole that he is and attacks people who do great things because he canโt. He diminishes the great so he can appear greater.
Trump is a little man, a petty man, a revengeful, unsmiling, humorless man, a man who holds a grudge forever. Not only does he lack the courage and grace to laugh and admit it when heโs been proven wrong, he will pursue anyone who beats him with a vindictive relentlessness that is beyond rational belief. Heโs hated Barack Obama ever since the night, in 2011, when Obama produced his birth certificate at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and laid to rest forever Trumpโs โbirtherโ conspiracy theory. Since then Trump has vowed revenge, a revenge he will never claim. Because no matter how hard he tries to destroy President Barack Obamaโs legacy and credibility, Trump can never be Obama. Obama will always be a great man. Donald Trump will always be a little man.
And then there are his tweets. The endless, whining, cringing, self-pitying tweets. The self-congratulating, mocking, hateful, belligerent, divisive, bottomless tweets. All day long. When he finally fell silent this last Saturday I thought that maybe even he had had enough. But no, he was doing something more important, finally. He was playing golf.
So yes, I hate Donald Trump, and I hate the people who follow him, and I want you to hate Donald Trump and his followers too. You will not be a better person, or a better Christian, or a better Muslim, or whatever standard or measure you hold yourself to, by loving pure evil. Some hatreds are righteous. This is one of them. Use that hatred and help us to defeat Donald Trump in November. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
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Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.