trump is going to win. again.
Two and a bit years in to his presidency and, following more biographies, exposes, subpoenas, testimonies and affidavits than I care to recall, here’s what we definitively know about the current President of the United States of America (POTUS) and his time in office. Spoiler: At the risk of being labelled as a rude man, a very rude man, this is not fake news, or phoney stuff, and I’m not in cahoots with the liberal media. Or any media for that matter:
- Paid money to cover-up an affair with Stormy Daniels.
- Had advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks dump of hacked Democratic Party emails.
- Lied about doing business with the Ruskies during his election campaign.
- Did not collude with said Ruskies in influencing the subsequent outcome.
- There’s no secret ‘pee-tape’ or love child and he doesn’t knock Melania around.
- Ex-fixer Michael Cohen estimates he issued personal threats to over five hundred people on behalf of Mr Trump.
- Did not invent misogyny, bigotry and racism.
- Is the first President in over one hundred years to not own a dog.
- Referred to women as dogs and pigs, bragged of grabbing them by their p*ssies (more of a ‘cat man’?), tricked friends’ wives into sleeping with him and suggested imprisoning women who underwent abortions.
- Called Mexicans rapists and criminals, described white supremacists as very fine people, attempted to ban trans people from serving in the military and demanded a total outright ban on Muslims entering the US.
- Unemployment is at an all-time low for both Hispanic and African American workers.
- Referred to African nations as sh*thole countries.
- Has two iPhones, one of which he uses solely for calls and is relatively unsecure.
- Loves to tweet but uses disastrous grammar, contradicts himself, often trails into incoherence and seldom sounds presidential.
- Retweeted Britain First’s racist videos.
- Doesn’t read books and believes he has nothing to learn from either history or others’ opinions.
- Possesses a near-legendary attention span. Not in a good sense.
- Delivers speeches that are mesmerising. There is virtually nothing he won’t say and you are powerless to stop watching once you begin.
- Heads under the covers as early as 6.30pm (nothing wrong about that – ed.), munching a cheeseburger and soaking-up several hours of Fox News and CNN.
- Takes incisive decisions and is willing to try novel, unique and unprecedented policies.
- Has called NATO obsolete and stated the US should not defend those who do not pay their fair share of defence costs.
- Initiated and attended two ground-breaking summits with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
- Staunchly adheres to the strict diktat that you’re either with him or against him and there’s no middle ground whatsoever. It’s binary: yes or no.
- Proposed a blanket 45% tariff on Chinese goods and is highly critical of international unions that fail to regard America first.
- It’s not a wig, it’s his own.
All this and, as it turns out, he didn’t even want to be POTUS in the first place, merely “the most famous man in the world”. So, it may come as a surprise that he’s going to win a second term in office. And he’s going to do so because of The Mexican Wall. No, not the wall per se, but how he has managed to manipulate the argument and discussion around the funding and building of his proposed solution to the supposed unprecedented illegal immigration threat to national security is a perfect example of Trump’s ability to control the agenda of a majority of America’s voting populace.
Last month, at a Trump rally in downtown El Paso, Tiny Hands took centre stage, to the tune of ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ and 15,000 supporters waiving “Finish the Wall” placards. Within the throng there were obviously Rednecks and cowboys but also Latino families, African Americans, biracial couples, women, Asians, people of colour, babes in arms and Pacific Islanders. A third of them were under the age of thirty and they chanted, to a man, “finish the wall”. The belief was that the wall did not need to be started, it did not need to be built, it now needed to be finished.
As we’re all aware, on 2016’s campaign trail, Trump hit upon the idea of building a wall between the US and Mexico and force Mexico pay for it. Subsequently, he designed five 6.4m/1.8m examples somewhere in the San Diego desert. However, in the two years of Republican rule, no building has taken place, not one brick has been laid and no construction has begun anywhere along the southern border. Notwithstanding this, the Trump team subtly introduced the notion of finishing a wall they hadn’t yet even started building.
Furthermore, the $1.3bn Nancy Pelosi had recently granted (as opposed to the requested $5.7bn) was done so not to end the recent government impasse but sanctioned the wall’s building and represented more than enough to get the job done. The missing £4.4bn no longer mattered, or that Mexico would not pay for it. Trump’s audience was delighted to now participate in a real-time reappraisal of reality, one in which mere details can be ignored and re-engineered to suit a more personally-palatable version of events. This is how he will secure a second victory.
During the actual speech, he continually mentioned that America was good, that the flag was good, that freedom was good, that guns were good and that the wall was good. The faithful left sated and satisfied. He had given them exactly what they wanted to hear and intentionally blurred the lines between truth and lies. To those who believe, he is a strong man who tells it like it is and makes things happen, a business man not a politician. He’s for them as opposed to against them. It’s America’s way or the highway. He’s making America great again. The Donald is positioning himself as the president for the people.
