Face it, you’ll miss Donald Trump
As he finally shuffles off this American soil for the swamps of Florida, Donald Trump leaves behind a void.
Yes, he’s a disgrace to the human race, a loathsome creature whose next destination should be Trump Tower, Guantanamo Bay. Sure, he’s a tone-deaf monster who couldn’t rent a shred of humanity during the worst pandemic in a century — then single-handedly destroyed his legacy by refusing to show any grace or humility in the face of an election loss.
But whether you loathe him or hate him, you just might find yourself missing Donald Trump. That’s because he possessed a preternatural skill for lodging himself in our brains for more than four years. Drawing on his experience in reality TV, Trump ruthlessly exploited a human flaw: our insatiable addiction to novelty.
As war correspondents miss the bang bang, and meth addicts miss their teeth, we’ve all become so conditioned to the daily Trump shrapnel bomb that the withdrawal will be palpable. His farewell tour of inciting insurrections and unleashing unhinged lawyers was his parting gift to the country. Weren’t we all glued to our screens on January 6 when his zombie army invaded the Capitol? You’re welcome, America.
Presidents are supposed to shield us from harsh realities. They are the steady hand on the wheel of state that guides us through troubled waters. But Trump wasn’t a president. He was an entertainer who craved attention. And what better way to get attention than wind up the media every day by throwing some red meat? Hardly a day went by that he didn’t ruffle feathers and outrage decent people with his reversals, insults and lies. The shamelessness of his act — he seemed to take great pleasure in playing the bullshit in a china shop — shouldn’t be mistaken as stupidity or mere boorishness. He was delivering what we want — the new — and he was willing to entertain any plot twist, any humiliation to keep the show fresh and full of surprises. And we ate it up.
The new and improved new
“There is nothing new under the sun,” intoned the Old Testament. And, truth be told, there wasn’t much new under the sun for the first 4.5 billion years or so of Earth’s history. The sun rose and set, seasons changed, the cycle of life turned, empires rose and fell, but all in all, not much changed.
And then, everything changed. The pace of technological change began to pick up in the 19th century — slowly at first — and then accelerated exponentially. Even when technology wasn’t obsolete, the advent of planned obsolescence ensured that products were designed to age quickly (especially compared to the new model). Change became more than a momentary spasm until we reverted back to our old ways. It became our preferred state of being — always changing, always awaiting the next big thing.
New music. New dinner specials. New fashion styles. Until the 1990s, new was a very good thing. Not only could the pace of change be easily absorbed by the average human, change was welcome relief from the stultifying sameness, the monotony of a world where not much happened. Personal computers and the Internet signaled a new level of change on a global level But it was the trifecta of the launch of the iPhone in 2007, streaming media and the rise of social media that launched us into hyperspeed. Suddenly, dating apps had us swiping through hundreds of potential mates (daily). Twenty-four hour news channels delivered endless updates on the same breaking news. Pornhub offered a new banquet of smut every day. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram invited us to scroll and scroll, looking for something new. Netflix loaded batteries of new shows into our queue to consume.
And no matter how much content they shove down our gullets, all we could say was: “What else you got?”
Into this yawning maw jumped Donald J. Trump. You couldn’t design a more perfect cyborg to take advantage of this moment in time. Trump wasn’t interested in the affairs of state. He had no time for intelligence briefings or listening tours. He was tweeting, calling into Sean Hannity, and ruling the world’s airwaves day and night. Late-night talk show hosts feasted on his malapropisms. Twitter users created hilarious memes. MAGA worshipped him. Democrats impeached him.
But nobody could ignore him. He was a one-man news cycle, spewing outrage and boners the way a chipper spits out pellets. Nothing seemed to stop him. The pandemic merely annoyed him (he resumed his rallies after a short hiatus). The election didn’t derail him (he merely switched to comeback mode). He never stopped giving us something to talk about, desperately flailing for attention, amping up the rhetoric to grab headlines. Until its inevitable end on January 6.
After four years going off like a car alarm in the Bronx, he stopped. Twitter and Facebook shut him down. The GOP distanced itself from him, sort of. Faced with a second impeachment and unable to steal the election, he lost the spotlight and they took the batteries out of his megaphone. The silence was deafening.
We will miss Donald Trump. And that’s a horrible thing. It’s like missing your neighbor’s leaf blower after he finally shuts it off. It’s true that the eerie calm over the country is a bit like what Kurt Vonnegut must have felt when he came up out of the meat locker after the Dresden air raids. But it’s still a beautiful silence. I’ve started to listen to music again. I began to make plans for the future. I shut off Instagram and blocked out the nattering chatter of Twitter and talk radio.
Yes, there are signs of withdrawal. I find myself checking CNN compulsively to see if anything new has happened. I open Twitter to watch videos of anti-maskers. But after four years of outrage, instability, bombast and conflict — not to mention a year of plague — we all deserve a break. No joke, that rallying cry to Make Politics Boring Again is worth a year of yoga classes. Joe Biden’s grandfatherly charm may get old but we can thank him for lowering our blood pressure.
But don’t be surprised if some tiny part of you doesn’t miss Donald Trump. Don’t hate yourself. It’s not your fault, it’s the relentless drumbeat of the new calling. Put down your phone. Pay no attention to the clown honking his horn on Hannity. Shut off Facebook. Curl up with a good book. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that in times like these you can still rely on the old verities. So spend some time playing Monopoly with the family or do a jigsaw puzzle. There’s nothing new about that — and that’s the point.
