There comes a time, in many entertainer's careers,

Last edited Sun Nov 3, 2024, 04:30 AM - Edit history (1)

where they realize that nobody is coming to the club anymore to see them, no one is going to a movie starring them, they find themselves getting fewer and fewer engagements, until eventually they've had to sell everything they had at the height of their career and are facing ruin and bankruptcy. The smart ones are self-aware enough to bow out gracefully, to find that magic moment where they can go with their reputation intact, with fond memories by their fans. For others, the realization comes far too late. This is the fate of Trump.

For him the tipping point came in November 2020. Had he conceded the election, it's likely that he would have been considered a poor president by the historians, but still idolized by millions. That was the point he could have gone out on a high note, and his post-presidential career would likely have been filled with ample rewards.

However, he didn't. He kept the same schtick going, hoping to regain the crowds, the adulation, the power. Trump has always been a weak man, prey to his own vices, but the single biggest one of those was pride, in his case which metastesized as hubris. After he was defeated, he could not accept that he was no longer considered good enough to lead the country, that he deserved to lead the country, not having learned anything from the last four years.

We have long had a convention in this country, after a president is defeated, that he must meet with his successor in a collegial manner, for them to both clear the air after frequently bruising campaigns and to impart knowledge and wisdom gained from four years in one of the hardest jobs in the world. It's a good custom, because in any election, there can be only one winner, and we hope that the people that we elect our mature enough to recognize that.

It was obvious to me after Trump refused to meet with Biden after he lost that Trump was too immature to ever be president again (It was obvious long before that, but this moment I think defined Trump indelibly). It was also the moment that he could have walked away with his dignity, and likely moved onto the next phases of his life, older but wiser. But he couldn't move on. His hubris had become so dominant that it could not accept that he wasn't perfect. People who believe they are perfect are incapable of learning - they have evolved as far as they ever will, and they would only devolve from there.

For the last four years, we have watched the devolution of Donald J. Trump. We have watched as he became more thuggish, more demeaning, more abrasive and threatening. Gone was the apparent charm and good lucks, in its place was an increasingly decrepit old man who used every artifice possible to appear like he was ageless. No doubt the presidential portrait, tucked away in a spare storage area in the White House, has been becoming more cracked and festering, to the point where even it could not hide his moral degeneration and burst into greasy flames smelling vaguely of McDonald's fries and unchanged depends.

I don't know who will win on Tuesday, though my gut feeling is that Kamala Harris will become our first female president. However, what I can say about Trump is that while he will not go gently into that good night, he will, nonetheless, go.