The Trump Era Sucks and Needs to Be Over

Matt Taibbi: “Trump blew through the Republican primaries in 2015-2016. His opponents, a slate of mannequins hired by energy companies and weapons contractors to be pretend-patriots and protectors of ‘family values,’ had no answer for his insults and offer-everything-to-everyone tactics. Like most politicians, they’d been protected their whole lives by donors, party hacks, and pundits who’d turned campaigns into a club system designed to insulate paid lackeys from challenges to their phony gravitas. Trump had no institutional loyalty to the club, shat all over it in addition to its silly frontmen, and walked to the nomination.”

“So long as he was never going to win the actual presidency, this was funny. The Republicans deserved it. Watching GOP chair Reince Priebus try to pretend he wasn’t being forced to eat the biggest-in-history shit sandwich by embracing his obese conqueror at the 2016 convention was a delicious scene, similar to what most Americans probably felt watching Bill Belichick squirm at the podium after the Eagles pummeled him in the Super Bowl.”

“The Democrats aren’t much better, though, and the spectacle of ‘inevitable’ Hillary Clinton being too shocked to ascend to the Javits Center podium, instead sending writhing campaign creature John Podesta to announce through a forced smile that the mortified audience shouldn’t worry and should get some sleep instead, was also high comedy, not that I really saw it at the time.”

“They all deserved it, every last politician ruined that year. The country did not, however, which is why the last four years have been a nightmare beyond all recognition. The joke ended up being on us.”