I find it both laughable and unsettling when I scroll through Twitter and see the AI-generated images (popular on the Right) of Donald Trump with huge muscles and movie star good looks, wielding a machine gun, riding a lion, or decked out in a Superman cape.
Donald Trump is no Superman. It is pretty obvious by now that he is a petty little man who has never been loved by anyone. I do not say this mockingly but instead with much pity. Donald Trump has never known one second of what it feels like to be loved simply for being himself. When I let myself imagine what that absence might do to a person, it gives me real pain.
In Donald Trump’s case, this lack of love was combined with an abusive and impossible-to-please father, a self-involved mother, and an enormous fortune. His bluster and fake tough guy persona are efforts to impress and hide the needy child at his core. If you have ever seen the animated movie Spirited Away, then you know that Donald Trump is much more like the oversized destructive baby named Boh than like Superman. He demands attention and revels in chaos.
The past nine years, ever since that ridiculous ride down that ridiculous golden escalator, have left me increasingly saddened by my fellow Americans. So many good people seem to have adopted a petulant huckster as their hero. And no matter what he says or does, his idolators lap it up. I have never seen a more obvious example of the old adage about it being easier to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled.
Donald Trump has never cared about anyone other than Donald Trump. He does not care about the people who work for him. He does not care about the people who voted for him. And he certainly doesn’t care about doing what is right for the American people. He uses people until they are squeezed dry and then he throws them away. There is nothing heroic about his narcissistic behavior. Nothing.
Compare Donald Trump to Jimmy Carter. Carter attended the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis during World War II, ready to serve the country wherever he was needed. He graduated in 1946 and was stationed on submarines in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He then did graduate work at Union College in reactor technology and nuclear physics and served as senior officer of the pre-commissioning crew of the Seawolf, the nation’s second nuclear submarine.
Donald Trump avoided serving in the armed forces during Vietnam by getting a doctor to attest to the “fact” that he had bone spurs in his feet. (Funny how those bone spurs never seemed to bother Donny one day of his entire adult life since…).
Jimmy Carter married Roslyn Smith in 1946 and they remained married for more than 70 years, clearly still in love right up until she died in 2023. Donald Trump has had numerous wives and numerous affairs and treats women like he treats everything else in the world—like objects to be used until he is done with them.
President, Jimmy Carter locked himself away at Camp David with Menachim Begin and Anwar Sadat and refused to let them leave until they had signed an historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. He used the power of the United States to champion human rights throughout the world. He created the Department of Energy to focus on making America more energy independent. He doubled the size of the national park system and tripled America’s designated wilderness areas.
Donald Trump in his first term gave the top 1% a massive tax cut (increasing the national debt by TRILLIONS of dollars), weakened environmental protections for America’s land, air, and water, weakened relationships with long-time allies around the globe, and praised Vladimir Putin, Jair Bolsonaro, Viktor Orban, and Kim Jung Un. He also promised to repeal and replace Obamacare and to create and pass a much-needed infrastructure package to rebuild America’s aging highways, ports, airports, and bridges. Needless to say, he reneged on both of these promises.
(Obamacare is still the law of the land and Joe Biden finally did in fact pass an infrastructure bill.)
After losing the election of 1980 Jimmy Carter went on to live another 44 years. He spent those years working to make the world a better place. His Carter Foundation eradicated a terrible disease called river blindness in many countries. He worked to shine a light on unfree and unfair elections around the world. And he helped build houses with Habitat For Humanity.
When Donald Trump lost the election of 2020 he lied about it. He whined and moaned for four solid years about the unfairness of it all. In other words, he remained true to the petulant, spoiled, insecure brat at his core.
And now here it is, almost January 20, 2025 and Donald Trump is about to be sworn in again as President of the United States of America. At this point all I can say is that we get what we deserve. We have voted for a proven failure to lead our country. There is something rotten at the core of America these days. Rather than choosing to be led by people like Jimmy Carter, we are opting for Baby Boh.
What could possibly go wrong?
I’ll tell you some of what I predict will go wrong. These are in no particular order:
Most cabinet picks and other high positions will be approved by the Senate. Trump will have the Supreme Court, Senate, and a closely-divided House all in Republican control. And still he will not act on his “concept of a plan” for healthcare. Too many people benefit from the ACA for him to really mess with it.
He will push all of his people to ramp up deportations and the actual results will not come even close to his promise to deport millions of people. It will become clear that behind the scenes Greg Abbott, Ron DeSantis, and many wealthy GOP donors are lobbying Trump to be very selective in his deportations so that the building trades don’t grind to a halt.
Likewise, wealthy GOP donors and some Senators will push Trump hard to scale his tariff plan waaayyyyyyy back.
If Trump ignores their pleas and institutes widespread tariffs, prices (and inflation) will rise, unemployment will rise, and China and Russia will strengthen their alliance while the US loses even more global influence. The European Union will put some real distance between the US and EU and the US will be bargaining from an increasingly weak position.
The quality of the air and water in America will decrease as Trump loosens environmental regulations.
Trust in vaccines will plummet even further as RFK, Ladapo, Joe Rogan, and other fully unqualified people steer public health policy and discussions. Deaths of children from previously-controlled diseases will spike.
Likewise, maternal mortality rates will rise.
On the world stage, Vladimir Putin will feel emboldened to do whatever he wants to do—this will mean harsher crackdowns on any perceived dissent within Russia and more overt meddling in other countries.
Same is true for Netanyahu in Israel (if he manages to stay out of jail). He may feel empowered to annex parts of the West Bank and starve Gaza.
Christian Nationalists in the US will push as hard as they can to get Christianity into schools and other publicly-funded realms.
The Justice Department will see mass resignations as Trump uses it to punish anyone he sees as an enemy.
Trump will leave office on January 20, 2029 with approval ratings around 23% and will be widely viewed as the worst two-term President in our long history.
