A Liberal in Trumpistan: How Dumb Was I? I Thought Biden Would Win with Ease

11/4/20: Well, don’t I feel dumb. Leading up to this election, I pored over voter opinion polls every day. In mid-October, I was thrilled to see Joe Biden had built a sizeable lead. In the last week before the election, I noticed it start to shrink.

Still, I understand how numbers work. Pollsters said the former vice president had a 6.5-point lead.

I assumed the pollsters were right.

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I feel so dumb! I thought Biden would win the election with ease. I also assumed most Americans were smart enough to figure out the president’s many scams.

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I also assumed most Americans were smart enough to figure out the president’s many scams.

I looked for any pertinent fact I could find. I thought, “Yes, Biden should win.” I had good reasons to believe, too.

Did I mention? I understand how numbers work. I had looked at all the facts the Bureau of Labor Statistics posts every month. And how dumb do I feel now! As it stands, I knew President Trump had “created the greatest economy in U.S. history” by not adding a single job to the economy in four years.

I considered the facts. How dumb is that! If you take the jobs added in Trump’s first 37 months in office, and the jobs regained since the pandemic began, and subtract jobs lost once the virus exploded—which he swore it wasn’t going to do—you find he’s 3,903,000 jobs in the hole.

Yes, yes. I know. No president could have dealt with this pandemic without there being pain.

Still, why did I ever believe in math? If the unemployment rate was 4.7 percent in January 2017, when Trump took over, and the rate now is 7.9 percent, I thought that meant the economy wasn’t doing so great.

I also feel dumb, because I thought even Trump fans could see how patently absurd Trump Math always is. He said, when Obama left office, that the real unemployment rate was something like 18% or 35% or even 42%. I couldn’t help but notice his imprecision. But egg on my face! When the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in February 2017, that the rate had dropped to 4.6%, I puzzled it out. How stupid was I, to think that not even people in MAGA hats could believe the rate fell so far, so fast!

I believed they’d see through the scam. I was wrong.

Don’t I feel dumb!

But now I feel even dumber. COVID-19 is going away, just as Donald J. Trump said. We’ve turned the corner he said repeatedly in days leading up to the election. So, we were supposed to vote for him.

Stupid me. I refused.

As far as the coronavirus, I trusted scientists, not the guy we know lied to three wives in a row. I checked out the CDC website to be sure.

D-u-m-b.

I believed it when the experts in infectious diseases said we had 86,190 cases on November 2, and 88,427 on Election Day, itself. and 231,988 Americans, total, were dead. That included more than a thousand dead on November 3. (I hope they had a chance to vote early And for Trump, right?) If the people who study diseases for a living said we had had 604,450 cases in just the last week, I was sure Trump fans would realize their boy was wrong when he said last February that we were headed to zero cases soon.

Ha, ha. I was SOOOOOOOOOO wrong.

I’m a big boy, though. I’ve been wrong before. I thought the Bengals were going to win that playoff game against the Steelers in 2016.

I was a dope.

Trump fans, I’m sorry. I really must be incurably dumb. I thought you’d be concerned about a president who called the free press “the enemies of the people.” I thought you’d hear roar of the Hitler crowds.

I was wrong.

(Then again, a few of you did, and you were secretly thrilled.)

I was positive the vast majority of you were going to realize your hero was a carnival barker, promising you a new and better healthcare plan, but not showing it to anyone except Jared and Ivanka in the past four years.

I thought by now you’d understand how the whole “my taxes are under audit” spiel made no sense.

As a former Marine, I was positive you’d see through Trump’s patriotic charade. The guy doesn’t pay taxes if he can avoid it. I assumed you’d realize that what George Washington said might still pertain: “In modern wars the longest purse must chiefly determine the event.”

I assumed you’d reason it out. You’d realize that if the fat cats avoided paying taxes, maybe we couldn’t afford all the bombs and bullets we’d need in a pinch. I was sure you’d notice that the guy with imaginary bone spurs, talked a good game, but see that his patriotism ended with his lips.

That’s how dumb I was.

Call me fatuous. Call a fool. I thought if scientists around the world said 2020 might end up the hottest year on record that Trump fans down in Texas might notice the sweat dripping from their brows. I really gave your MAGA-hat crew the benefit of the doubt. I never thought you’d put your faith in some orange-tinted clown who once ran a scam university and warned—while serving as president—that windmills cause cancer.

I checked the NASA website to be sure. I do like facts. And I saw all kinds of warnings about climate change. I believed the experts at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration when they pointed out that the ten hottest years on record (so far) were: 2016, 2019, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2014, 2010, 2013 and 2005 (tied), and 1998. What a numbskull I am!

I believed the people at NASA.

I’m almost ashamed of myself.

I thought if Trump said in the summer of 2018, that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat (and bragged about winning the Nobel Peace Prize), that you’d notice by now that North Korea is still a nuclear threat.

And Mexico was going to pay for the wall! I couldn’t believe anyone would fall for that. But you did.

I thought you might actually read the Mueller Report and find out that it says, specifically, that the evidence investigators compiled in no way exonerates the President of the United States.

I would see stories about people who worked in the first Trump campaign, and got accused of lying to investigators about contacts with Russians—not to mention racking up felonies of other kinds, including child sex trafficking—and then went to court and got convicted. I thought you’d be keeping track, just like any good American who truly cherished the rule of law.

I figured you couldn’t be blind! You’d have to see Michael Cohen and Roger Stone and Paul Manafort get hauled into court and convicted by a jury or watch them plead guilty and cop a plea. I believed you’d add 2 + 2 and not get 7. You’d see Flynn and Gates, Patten and Zuberi, van der Zwaan, Papadopoulos and Nader all slapped with felonies of some variety. You’d know—because you’d be informed—that Sater was a felon when he first went to work for Donald J. Trump. Then you’d notice that Bannon got indicted for wire fraud. And Broidy plead guilty for influence peddling. You’d even read about Rudy Giuliani and his shady pals. Two have been indicted—Parnas and Fruman—and a third—Corriea—decided to take a plea and cooperate with investigators.

I was rash to imagine you’d sniff out a criminal trend.

I thought Trump fans—such as the Tea Party crew—would be upset about the massive deficit spending that has occurred under this president’s orange hand.

I thought if a guy called other Americans “scum,” and “animals,” and “pigs,” and “psychos,” and “sick” and even “treasonous,” you’d notice the dehumanizing language. I thought you’d be appalled.

I was sure you’d scratch your heads and stop chanting, “Lock her up!” And “Lock him up!” And “Lock them up!” I thought you’d come to your senses and realize: Hey, have we gathered evidence that would stand up in court? Have we actually indicted these people we want to lock up? Are we going to pretend the IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and XIV amendments no longer matter? Stupid me. I thought you loved the U.S. Constitution and all the amendments, not just the one about guns.

I thought you’d catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty once in a while and remember our proud heritage of welcoming all kinds of immigrants over the years. I thought, if your family had Irish or Cuban or Slovenia roots, you’d have more sympathy for people still “yearning to breathe free.”

I thought you’d care when Trump cut the number of refugees allowed to enter this country to 15,000 per year.

I thought you’d notice, when not listening to him howl about the fearful dangers of “chain migration,” that the First Lady, her sister, her mother, and her father all managed to enter the United States in a family chain. Good for them, by the way. I’m a fan of immigration under most circumstances.

But I was positive you’d notice the president’s hypocrisy on this issue at some point, and you’d get wise.

If we kept seeing reports, and those reports were proven, if nothing else by Eric Trump’s own words, that the Trump Organization had employed undocumented workers for many years, I thought you’d pay attention, at least.

So stupid on my part!

I absolutely thought you’d hear what Trump said just last week. When asked by the hosts at Fox & Friends, which country had been the hardest for him to deal with during his first term, this was his response. He said friends would ask:

“They’ll go, ‘Mr. President, tell me, who’s the country that’s most difficult to deal with? Is it Russia? Is it China? Is it North Korea? Sir, is it North Korea?’”

“And I go, ‘No. Well, by far, the most difficult country to deal with is the U.S. It’s not even close,’” he continued. “And they all say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ And I say, ‘No, I’m actually probably not kidding.’ We have very, very deceptive people.”

That’s right.

The President of the United States told the Fox & Friends fools that the hardest country in the world to deal with was…the country he was chosen to lead. And that country was chock full of “mean” and “horrible people.”

And I said, “John,” speaking to myself because I’m a good listener, “This is going to be a disqualifying statement, even for Trump fans.”

I thought if Trump said he was having a harder time dealing with Rep. Adam Schiff and called him “sick,” your eyes would bug out. You’d wonder why Trump never calls the murderous Kim Jong-un a “sick” person. You’d ponder the fact that he failed to mention Putin and Russia as a serious threat. You’d realize Trump never condemns the Saudis for slicing up a journalist with a bone saw. You’d wonder what kind of president would label other Americans the biggest problem he had to face of all.

I’m dumb for sure, with the election still hanging in the balance. I was dumb to believe the polls.

Okay, true. The polls did show Biden winning a majority of the popular vote.

I was an idiot. A moron. A “loser,” to use a favorite, dehumanizing Trump word. Because, when I rubbed my eyes a moment ago (updating here on November 5), I saw Biden had 72,187,249 votes. I saw Trump had 68,691,756.

I trusted math. I didn’t believe—if Biden had moved ahead of Trump in both Michigan and Wisconsin—that the election was rigged.

I thought, well, we always take our time and count the votes, even when it’s close. You know. Like 2016!

I was positive Trump fans would remember when their hero won those same two “rigged” states four years ago, and by even smaller margins than the ones by which Biden currently leads.

Dimwitted as I am, I thought, if Trump said—before a single vote had been cast—that any outcome other than a victory for him would be proof the election was shot through with fraud and stolen from the start, that his fans might wake up. I thought they’d notice the outlines of authoritarianism in what he had just said.

On Election Night, I admit I went to bed depressed. It looked like Trump had won, although millions of votes remained to count. I knew states allowed people to vote by mail in huge numbers. So, I had a sliver of hope.

Then Trump said early the next morning, around 2 a.m., that he had won and counting should end.

How dumb do I feel now? I believed we lived in a free country and even those who love Trump would say, “Wait. We need to count every vote.”

I really believed that almost all Trump fans were good Americans, just like almost all of us who aren’t fans. I thought the other side would realize before it was too late, how dangerous a second term for Donald J. Trump would be in the end.

In that respect, I suppose, I had more faith in the wisdom, the patriotism and even the innate sense of fairness of Trump fans, than many deserved.

Now I feel like a dolt.

But the polls are at least partly right. It looks like Biden will win.