The Irrelevant President
Why Biden’s election merely slows the USA’s collapse
Personally, I am delighted that although more than seventy million US citizens were stupid and evil enough to vote for the most incompetent and repugnant president in US history, an even greater number of US citizens cast their votes against him. I forecast a Trump victory and I am extremely pleased to have been wrong by estimating correctly the massive turnout in support of Trump but under-estimating the degree to which Biden would ultimately benefit from anti-Trump sentiment.
Unless the US Supreme Court finds a way to over-rule the Biden victory, or members of the Electoral College decide (as they are perfectly entitled to do and have done in the past) that they’ll cast their votes for Trump rather than following the wishes of the electorate, Biden will become the 46th president of the United States.
Excitable journalists and other commentators will now jump up and down for the next few days squealing loudly about how this proves democracy works and no doubt the tooth fairy will also leave us all a dollar under our pillows tonight.
In reality however, Biden’s victory is profoundly hollow. Lost amid the understandable euphoria are three simple facts that render his forthcoming term utterly irrelevant.
Firstly the Supreme Court is now packed six-three with right-wing judges who will certainly erode most of the progress made over the last fifty years in terms of human rights. Roe versus Wade hangs in the balance and frankly I wouldn’t bet on it surviving. As for LGBT rights…
Secondly the Senate is still ruled by Republicans who will continue to urinate all over the Constitution in order to gain whatever advantages they can regardless of the cost to society and the rule of law. They have zero reason to change their behavior and every reason to continue it. So they will. If you think Biden will get a majority of his nominations through the confirmation hearings, think again.
Thirdly, the House now has far more Republicans in it than before, diminishing even further the Democratic Party’s limited range of options.
In short, the next four years will see Republicans block every Democratic attempt to legislate, and the result will be merely a slowing-down of the erosion of civil liberties we’ve seen over the last four years.
Police forces across the nation will still be staffed with right-wingers and racists and neo-fascists, the right-wing propaganda outlets will continue to spew their lies and hatred into the ears of the simple-minded and totally ignorant, and on the Republican side candidates will seek to out-do each other in playing the Trump card in order to appeal to the seventy-plus million US voters who clearly will support any tyrannical oaf provided he’s sufficient disgusting, untruthful, and base.
Those seventy million-plus Trump voters aren’t going anywhere. They will believe that the election was “stolen” and they will be filled with anger and hatred. Their stunted little minds will soak up every lie fed to them, which will increase their anger and hatred. Republican politicians and media shock-jocks will shamelessly encourage them to ever-greater displays of hatred and violence in order to keep the fires burning.
Meanwhile Biden will accomplish nothing, the transient euphoria of victory will fade, and by 2022 he will be seen as weak, ineffectual, and bumbling.
In 2024 the seventy million morons who voted for Trump this time round will cast their votes to elect a much more focused, destructive, and effective president who will complete the job of turning the USA into a de facto dictatorship. This will be a man who has watched and learned the true lesson of Trump: that nearly half the population is so stupid and so impregnably ignorant they can be manipulated with ease. All one has to do is press the right buttons and these brainless citizens will dance to whatever tune is required.
I’m pleased the rot will now proceed more slowly than it would have done under a second Trump term but the final destination is still inescapable. The USA did not repudiate the toxic behavior of the Republican Party; it merely narrowly failed to re-elect a brainless whining sack of orange pus.
For now, let us eat ice-cream and pretend that all is well. Let us watch the earnest but empty-headed journalists babbling about how the USA has “turned the page.” Let us pretend unicorns are real and that the tooth fairy really will deliver a dollar under our pillows tonight.
Let us all play Pretend for a while, because the inexorable future will arrive soon enough.
