I’m really pissed off now
I’m really pissed off now. Polls tell me that Americans believe that Donald Trump is losing to Joe Biden and they have the unbridled effrontery to use the words “losing badly.” And yet, I see that Trump is losing by low double digits, on the order of 10 to 12 points. That’s what pisses me off. That number is too small.
Here in Europe, where I live, it’s a different story. Europeans were asked who they want to win the presidential election in America. In Britain Trump is losing by 48 points. In France and Germany it’s 50 and 60 points respectively. In Denmark Trump is losing by a whopping 74 points. That’s why I’m pissed off. Even those numbers are too low. Trump should be losing everywhere by 99 points. America’s numbers are inexcusable.
I am, as I say, really pissed off. Because I don’t need to be a fly on Mike Pence’s head to know what’s really going on inside Donald Trump’s White House. We have amassed enough outrages in four years to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, let alone a reasonable one, that Donald Trump is an arch criminal — and he is only interested in using the presidency to feed his gluttonous ego and enrich his bank account at the expense of all Americans.
For my part, I’m pissed off because I keep seeing Trump too often given the benefit of the doubt by an overly polite press. For them to still take anything Trump says at face value, including the now obvious lie that he gets tested for coronavirus every day, is tragically naive. How many times does Donald Trump have to lie before the press stops believing anything he says and starts questioning everything?
The press owes us a debt for putting Trump in power in the first place, for giving Trump billions of dollars worth of free publicity, for stooping to lend credibility to the outrageously ludicrous claim that Hillary Clinton’s emails somehow endangered democracy. In a way, the press really has promulgated a lot of fake news, starting with the fake notion that America’s fake president with his fake hair and his fake tan deserves a shred of respect or implied legitimacy.
With Trump you can easily assume the worst about him and be right almost all of the time. There is absolutely no percentage in ever believing anything Trump says, let alone giving him the benefit of the doubt. Speculating about the true number of a serial killer’s victims and getting the number slightly too high is no sane person’s idea of an injustice. And unless you personally know a serial killer, chances are Donald Trump is the worst criminal you know. He’s a rapist, a murderer, a thief, a traitor, a conman, a liar and a malignant narcissist. If occasionally he gets accused of something he didn’t do then I, for one, don’t plan on missing any sleep over it.
Then there’s Fox News. I’m really pissed off with Fox News. It is a federal crime for a news organization to knowingly promulgate false or misleading stories that endanger the public safety during a national crisis. Yet Fox News has repeatedly broadcast stories casting doubt on the efficacy of social distancing and mask-wearing and hand washing during the pandemic, and frequently misrepresents government measures to keep people safe as violations of their Constitutional freedoms.
Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, tasked with ensuring compliance with federal law, has repeatedly refused to hold Fox News to account for these criminal outrages. Fox has, in effect, murdered thousands of its viewers by arrogantly and unapologetically promoting this crap. They know what they are doing and they don’t care who gets hurt.
I am also really pissed off by Trump’s parade of arrogant press secretaries, press secretaries who continuously abuse the podium to snidely tell members of the media — the men and women who represent the American people’s right to know — that the truth is none of our business. Press secretaries who sneer at us and treat us like children. Press secretaries who think they are above us and are better than us, better than who we actually are — their goddamned employers!
I’m really pissed off by the myth, perpetuated by Trump’s apologists, who claim that Trump is a genius yet we can’t see his grades, a billionaire yet we can’t see his taxes, honest yet he refuses to answer subpoenas, COVID-free yet we can’t ask questions of his doctors. We the People have the right to know, and it royally pisses me off that our right is being denied every single goddamned day.
I’m pissed off that we can’t get straight answers to the simplest questions. For example, was Trump infectious when he met Joe Biden at the debate? Did Trump deliberately try to put Biden in mortal danger by intentionally exposing him to a lethal pathogen? Thanks in part to the cult of deception that constantly cloaks this disgusting White House we may never know. A trail of incompetence, chaos and arrogant indifference to the health and well-being of the American people follows Donald Trump everywhere he goes.
If Trump knew he was infectious during the debate then it makes his criticism of Biden’s frequent mask-wearing habits even that much more immoral. In all likelihood Trump knew he was infectious even as he mocked Biden for wearing masks and having small, socially distanced crowds at his own events. This is the toxic consequence of this toxic presidency and it pisses me off that Trump isn’t being held accountable for it daily, by every sane American.
I’m really pissed off that this criminal usurper of the People’s House, this short-fingered vulgarian, this deceitful bastard, continues to spread lies by implying that many other people participate in his disgusting lies. His constant refrain that “a lot of people are saying” whatever lie he’s making up on the spot is a daily threat to American government credibility and an affront to intellectual prudence.
I’m pissed off that Trump’s day and night repeating in tweets and in speeches that the mainstream media is “fake news” is beginning to erode people’s conviction in their ability to discern the truth. Trump is deliberately destroying our confidence in what we see with our own eyes and, as such, poses a clear and present danger to the ultimate fate of knowing, of understanding the difference between what you can know and what you only wish for. He is trying to conflate scientific truth with magical thinking, and it’s working. And I’m really pissed off about that.
I am, as I say, pissed off. I’m pissed off that we have to constantly worry that there really are enough people in America, right now, to give a man like Donald Trump 270 electoral college votes. That kind of thing should happen only in some Soviet-dominated backwater of the 1970s. That should happen in North Korea or Iran. That shouldn’t be possible in the America I know.
If you never read another word about polls and our chances in November read this. It isn’t any longer about polls, it’s about turnout. Biden can beat Trump in all the polls in all the world but if far more Trump people than Biden people actually turn up to vote then Trump can still beat Joe Biden. That’s the scary part about only having a 10 point margin. That and the fact that there simply shouldn’t be enough Trump voters in the United States of America to make our pathetically small margin of victory possible.
The most important election in the history of the United States is just three weeks away. This is the election that will decide whether or not America has the right to continue as the world’s beacon of freedom. I’m pissed off that there’s even a shred of a possibility that we could actually lose to this crass and illiterate and hateful and vindictive fool, and I want you to be pissed off too. So stand up, turn up and vote, and let’s win. Let’s win by a landslide, by a humiliation, by a rout, by a devastating victory so complete and decisive as to fill with the mortal agony of dread anyone who ever dared to support this ignorant, malignant monster. And then let’s put Donald John Trump in prison— for life. 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.