Yes, I’ve written about it before (and before that, too), but it still strikes me whenever… oh, sorry, this almost 82-year-old just nodded off (like “our” President Donald Trump in the middle of a thought)… I was going to say, whenever I read about him closing his eyes and dozing off during some meeting or at some other moment of significance.
I mean, what can you expect from the man who, if he truly lasts until January 2029, will indeed be the oldest president in American history (although give Joe Biden full credit, he at least came close)? On the first day of Biden’s presidency, in fact, he was 78 years and 61 days old. On Donald Trump’s first day (the second time around), he was 78 years and 220 days old. And to put that in perspective, only two other presidents in our history came even faintly (and I want to emphasize that “faintly”!) close to either of them: Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. Eisenhower was 70 years and 98 days old on the last day or his presidency, and Reagan was 77 years and 349 days old on his final day. And don’t think it means nothing that the leadership of what, in this century (and much of the last one), was the greatest power on the face of the Earth (and probably in all of human history), is now aging presidentially in quite such a striking fashion. Sometimes, believe it or not, the most ridiculously symbolic things turn out to have meaning.
And of course, don’t think it was a mistake or purely happenstantial either. The American people had a choice and still went for the oldest person in the room (three times in a row). So, at some deep level, our voters must know (or at least sense) something about what’s happening to this country of ours, especially older voters who (unlike me) significantly favored a Trump presidency. As a great power on this planet of… well, I was going to say “ours,” but these days whether it’s really ours or not couldn’t be more up for grabs.
Nonetheless, it, too, seems to be growing older by the second. Or, thought of another way, while electing essentially the oldest president imaginable a second time, Americans have also supported a man who seems distinctly intent on turning this planet into… well, an old fart of a place that will be hotter than hell and possibly ready for the garbage heap of history.
And let me tell you, when you get into your very late seventies and early eighties, even when your brain is still more or less working, it’s distinctly not the same as it once was. It is indeed easier to get confused and tired out.
But perhaps we Americans — those of us, at least, who voted for Donald Trump the second time around (and, of course, I wasn’t one of them) — are indeed ready for this country to go down, down, down and, thanks to Donald J., ever more weirdly so. I mean, how many of us would celebrate turning 80 with an Ultimate Fighting Championship match on the White House lawn in “an eight-sided cage wrapped in cryptocurrency advertisements”? Not me, I’ll tell you that!
Can there be any question that the 47th president of the United States is a genuinely weird old man? I doubt it. Once upon a time, if you had written a piece about the future presidency of Donald J. Trump, it would have seemed like the most ridiculous satire of all time. Abraham Lincoln and Donald J. Trump? John F. Kennedy and Donald J. Trump? Okay, I won’t go on, but you get the idea, right?
In short, we are now distinctly in an all-too-weird world. And although it’s a term he complains about and blames on other people, we are indeed in a world where “Trump derangement syndrome” seems ever less like a fantasy term. In fact, by now, as Aaron Blake of CNN recently reported, 61% of Americans and even 30% of Republicans believe that President Trump has indeed become “more erratic with age.” And that’s mighty polite of them, don’t you think?
And imagine that this is the very man who now runs (walks, limps, staggers?) the United States of America and, barring a surprise, will do so for the next two and a half years. As far as I’m concerned, that gives the phrase “what a world!” new meaning.
Yes, his version of fighting was recently on the White House lawn, but let’s be clear, he’s also been boxing (okay, in a different sense than on that lawn) in this country and the world in an all too literally striking fashion, including by launching another war against Iran essentially out of the blue, ensuring that the Strait of Hormuz would be closed for weeks, if not months, and that the global economy would be pushed to the very edge of recession, if not — to use a term he brought up recently — a “worldwide depression,” before, in true Trumpian fashion, changing his mind in the face of Iranian opposition and signing a 14-point agreement with that country to (at least theoretically) reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while claiming a “major win” for the United States (not that anyone in this country filling their car with gas or buying groceries would have thought so).
Phew! That was one long sentence, but let’s face it, Donald J. Trump is proving to be a genuinely long haul of a president.
And it doesn’t matter where you look, things are just getting grimmer and stranger by the month. Why, only the other day, the Trump crew redirected $352 million of your tax dollars, previously designated for the Secret Service, to fund the building of Trump’s fantasy White House ballroom. (But of course, what else could they possibly have done when Congress refused to put the necessary money into that crucial building project, which Trump had previously been claiming would be financed by private funders?)
And imagine this: all of that (and undoubtedly so much more to come in this ever-stranger world of ours) has been happening due to the whims of just one old man — Donald J. Trump, who distinctly has our world by the throat. So, yes, let me wish you (just a little late) a truly happy 80th birthday, Donnie! For all we know, in this ever-stranger world of yours (and, ever so sadly, ours, too), you may even have the urge to be president a distinctly unconstitutional third time, so that some distant day, you can dance (and even doze off) in that ballroom of yours. (God save us!)
This piece first appeared on Tom’s Substack.
