Trump then suddenly realised the world had indeed changed.. the US no longer wanted him and Niven had just binned him on Twitter
Two big social media events this week. Huge affairs that are bound to have Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg quaking in their box-fresh trainers: I got rid of Trump on Twitter and I’m in the process of deleting my Facebook account.
As Trump continued to bellow with rage and denial following his defeat in the US election, I finally thought “enough” and clicked the button marked “UNFOLLOW”. It’s the end of an abusive relationship that went on nine years too long.
The Facebook decision was even easier. As I’ve said here before, I never really got along with the site. It just looked like a way for some lunatic from school to track you down. So the decision to leave was easy but the process is hard. It turns out that it’s easier to leave the Army than Facebook. It takes about a month to fully deactivate your account, during which time they constantly try to lure you back by bombarding you with emails and alerts, like the crazy ex-partner texting you: “HEY! GUESS WHO I SAW?” and praying that you’ll reply.
Why am I doing all this? Well, there were two pieces of news this week that should have been 100 per cent all-singingand-dancing good stuff. The fact that they weren’t universally greeted as such shows you how very far we’ve fallen and should shake any right-thinking person’s faith in humanity.
First, there was the US election. Or rather the aftermath. Now, as a seasoned Trump-watcher, I’d already told you that he will never concede defeat. He’ll never congratulate Biden. Will never attend the inauguration. He’ll never admit he lost fairly and he will go to his grave shouting about it. This much I expected. What I didn’t expect was that most of the Republican Party and tens of millions of Americans would go along with his lunacy.
As Trump’s main defender, and America’s dumbest lawyer, Rudy
Giuliani stood there in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping (a phrase now enshrined in the language as signifier for total idiocy) crying about fraud, I thought to myself, “Surely this is where everyoneeve gets off the train? This is whewhere they finally hit the ‘unfollow’ butbutton themselves?” Not a bit of it. TheyThe doubled down. The election was beinbeing “stolen”, “stop the count”. There is no electoral fraud. It is statisticastatistically insignificant. Trump lost convincinconvincingly in all the key battleground states. WWhy do people believe otherwise? Facebook and Twitter.
Within a few days of the result, videos on Facebook showing “election fraud” had racked up millions and millions of views and shares, despite the fact that often all they were showing was a sack of mail sitting on the floor or some paper on fire. On Twitter, any anti-Trump tweet instantly had dozens of replies from accounts like ‘MAGABOB00011334537’ saying Trump had won the election.
People needed to believe what they needed to believe and would grab any evidence to do so, even if the “evidence” was clearly being sent from a troll factory in St Petersburg.
Meanwhile, news that drug company Pfizer had achieved a 90 per cent success rate with a coronavirus vaccine wasn’t greeted with quite the universal joy you expected. There they were – the anti-vaxxers. Screaming their heads off about how it was Soros and Gates trying to make money by implanting 5G microchips in our blood. They started shouting about “THALIDOMIDE!” as they tried to make the case that “who knows what deformities this untested vaccine will cause?” – despite the fact medical science and testing procedures have evolved beyond all recognition since the horrors caused by Thalidomide in the late 50s and early 60s. It was like watching people screaming about how planes would never fly 60 years after they were invented.
Where were they doing this shouting and screaming? On Facebook and Twitter, where they shared articles and videos from bogus “think tanks” and theories from renowned scientific thinkers like, uh, David Icke.
After a few days, I could only see bleak outcomes for humanity. Right now, millions will refuse to take the vaccine when it becomes available. While part of me is sorely tempted to just enjoy watching this piece of Darwinism-inaction take its course, it will affect all of us as it means we take that much longer to get over Covid-19. Because of the idiots.
And America? Well, again because of the idiots, I now think the country will never get over Trump. Here’s a best-case scenario – he finally concedes (while maintaining he was cheated) and is prosecuted in the many criminal cases waiting for him and goes to jail. Sadly, I think this is very unlikely.
What’s the more likely scenario? Well – assuming his pathetic and ongoing attempt to stage a coup and steal the election fails – I think he might run again in 2024. It would appeal to his nature of doing something that has never been done before. And then we’ll have the next four years with Trump in opposition – a place that suits him much better as he’s by nature a whining, crying moaner.
He’ll hold his rallies and peddle his lies on Fox News and social media.
And, ironically because of him, there will be plenty to moan about.
Biden is inheriting an economy trashed by Trump (who has tripled the national debt), a country wrecked by the pandemic to a greater degree than any other developed nation (thanks to Trump) and a population so divided (again, cheers Donald) that tens of millions of them will go forward believing that the Democrats stole the election.
Either way, four years from now, you can see the twin horrors – people still dying of Covid because they refuse to get vaccinated and Trump walking back into the White House and tweeting something like: “GREAT TO BE HOME. MAGA!”
All of this, in large part, because of that wee blue bird icon which lets you tell short jokes and that website which allows you to keep tabs on what your mad cousin Rab thinks about Brexit and paedophiles.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.