Writing here in February 2016 - ten months before the election - I noted it was possible that America could be on course to send the first fully certifiable fruitcake to the Oval Office.
'When someone like Trump admits he could stand in an American city and open fire on a crowd and lose no votes, then you really have to take him seriously. And he has to be taken seriously because the really scary thing is, that unless he accidentally mowed down his own supporters, it probably wouldn't make a difference to his chances. He's not so much a demagogue as a reality TV star; winner of the latest series of America's Gone Completely Bonkers.'
My expectations were low when he won; really, really low. The sort of low-hurdle expectation you might set for an old, tired, rheumatic aunt in the Easter Sunday egg-and-spoon race. Yet he hasn't even managed to leap that hurdle. In the past four years there isn't a depth he hasn't plumbed, or a press conference statement or response he hasn't mangled. I'm not even sure those wonderful inter-galactic translation devices aboard either the Tardis or the Starship Enterprise could have made sense of most of what he says. To be honest, I've heard more coherent contributions from my cat (and he's not even particularly interested in politics).
Astonishingly, until the CV-19 pandemic there was still a 50-50 chance that Trump had an electoral college route back to the White House, because he was still holding his base in the mid-west and rust-belt states and the Democratic Party's Joe Biden was hardly setting the place alight with his oratory or vision. Also, thanks to a combination of circumstances that had absolutely nothing to do with Trump, the US economy and employment rates were in fairly good shape; and those are usually key factors for voters in presidential elections.
But now, with the economy tanking and unemployment levels at unique highs, it looks like he'll probably join that short-ish list of presidents who won't be rewarded with a second term. Now, while that may be good news from one perspective, it does leave us with Biden as his replacement and, as I've said, that's not a reassuring prospect.
But it does remind me of a comment made by James Bryce in his 1888 book, The American Commonwealth (still a very good read, by the way): 'Europeans often ask, and Americans do not always explain, how it happens that this great office, the greatest in the world, is not more frequently filled by great and striking men. In America, which is beyond all other countries the country of a career open to talents, a country, moreover, in which political life is unusually keen and political ambition widely diffused, it might be expected that the highest place would always be won by a man of brilliant talents.' 132 years later - and substituting man with person - Bryce's observation seems even more striking.
The United States remains the most powerful democracy on earth and yet the occupants of the Oval Office seem increasingly pedestrian party-political players who appear content to prop up a two party system which ensures and promotes structures that fuel division at every level of society. The recent death of George Floyd proved, if proof were even necessary, how big a part race still plays in everyday life across huge swathes of America. Not only how big a part it plays, but how much naked hatred it still fuels. It's almost as if Barack Obama's eight years in office hadn't, in fact, made a button of difference to the race divisions - other than make Trump's electoral chances easier four years ago. And maybe again, in three months.
Can Trump still win? This will be an election like no other and Trump will be prepared to deploy any - and I really do mean any - tactic or campaign strategy to win. As I noted in the 2016 piece, he believes he is the only candidate who can deliver the 'we're-as-mad-as-hell-and-we're-not-taking-it-anymore' vote. There are millions of them and they are as angry as they were in 2016, maybe even angrier: and Trump will fuel and stoke that anger with attacks on China, race rioters, Black Lives Matter, liberals and anything else that will push votes his way.
One thing I do know: never underestimate the determination of a fascist loon to hold onto power.
