First off, how are you enjoying Trump: Season 4 so far?
I have to admit, I was pretty skeptical at first. Seasons 1-3 were all building up to the impeachment, and when the writers threw in the SARS-COV-2 pandemic, I worried that the show was about to jump the shark. I mean come on—a global pandemic? Really? I thought this was 2020, not 1918. But the writers did a really good job of tying the pandemic into everything else: US-China tensions, the trade wars, the Trump economy, the Democrats’ desperate need for another scandal to pin on Trump, etc.
As the season wound on, it was really interesting to see how the pandemic drove the story arc—or rather, how all the systemic rot and political corruption from seasons 1-3 made the pandemic far, far worse than it would have been if the country weren’t so divided and the people were more resilient. Then Black Lives Matter made a huge comeback, Antifa took to the streets, riots and wildfires broke out everywhere, and I thought to myself: “wow, the season is only halfway over and the country is literally on fire. What are the writers going to throw at us next?”
Then Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, and the biggest ticking time bomb from the start of the whole show went off at the worst—and also best—possible moment. The writers deserve an Emmy for that plot twist alone. It was so obvious in retrospect, and foreshadowed so perfectly, but it dropped when we were least expecting it—and yet, at the very moment when it would have the most impact. Very well played.
But we were still several episodes from the season finale, which made me wonder: what are the writers going to throw at us next? The Trump-Biden debate happened, and it was terrible, with Trump debating Chris Wallace more than Biden, and Wallace siding so obviously with Biden that it made you want to tear your eyeballs out. It was, without a doubt, the worst presidential debate in US history. And again, I began to wonder if perhaps the show had finally jumped the shark.
But then Trump himself came down with the covid.
And we’re still at least two episodes from the season finale.
And once again, I have to admit that the writers were absolutely brilliant. Because aside from RBG, Trump actually coming down with the virus was the biggest—and in retrospect, the most obvious—gun on the wall. And yet, it somehow managed to be both surprising and inevitable in all of the best ways. Brilliant.
So now that we’re all psyched up for the season finale, what are your predictions for season 5?
I know, I know—a lot of you are probably expecting the show to end with season 4, with Biden winning the election and Trump either conceding in a peaceful transfer of power or being forcibly removed from office—but come on. Does anyone really think that the writers will end this amazing show with such a boring and anticlimactic ending?
If there’s one theme that has run through every episode of this show from the very beginning, it’s the futility in relying on politics to solve the problems that were caused by politics in the first place. I really like how season 4 hammered that home with the impeachment, and how it all turned out to be utterly meaningless after the pandemic hit. All the people who suffer the most from Trump Derangement Syndrome are the ones who look to the government to solve all of their problems.
So is Biden going to ride in on the wings of a clear election victory that isn’t fraudulent? If he does, it will be even more disappointing than the finale of Game of Thrones.
But what if Trump gets sick enough that the race suddenly turns into a contest between Harris and Pence? If so, then I think Pence will come away in a landslide. Pence is everything that red state America has been yearning for that Trump cannot give them, and Harris is everything that blue state America has been taught to despise—aside from her gender and skin color, of course. But I just can’t see the Bernie bros and communists (but I repeat myself) pulling the lever for Copmala “let’s-enslave-nonviolent-drug-offenders” Harris. Besides, she has all of Clinton’s worst affectations.
Will Trump actually die from the covid? I doubt it. If anything, I expect he’ll be out of commission just long enough for Pence to carry the election for him, and then come back for season 5. But I can see Biden dying of covid during the season 4 finale. After all, Trump tested positive just days after that terrible debate. If he was presymptomatic during that time, there’s a significant chance that Biden could catch it from him—and I don’t think Biden is healthy enough to beat it. Certainly not healthier than Trump.
So if Trump pulls off an election landslide (ironically, by being out sick during the final weeks of the election), and the deep state / intelligence community’s plans to pull off a color revolution fail to launch, what comes next?
At some point, I think the Qanon folks who see Trump as the orange Jesus are going to have a major disappointment. That’s very much in keeping with the ongoing theme that when politics is the problem, you can’t solve it with more politics. I also think that the radical leftists pushing for a full-out communist uprising are going to suffer a major blow. That, or they actually are the blow to the establishment Democrats, and the DNC itself is going to collapse before the series is over.
A couple of episodes ago, I thought that season 5 would start with the civil war, but now I think the writers are going to thread that needle and leave that plot thread deliberately unresolved. Why? Because the other major theme of the show is that Trump isn’t actually the problem: we are. Trump is both a mirror to all the flaws of his many enemies, and an avatar to all the worst impulses of his friends. He’s a symptom of the fact that America has lost her Unum. That happened well before Trump took office, and I expect it will continue long after he leaves, peaceably or otherwise.
Then again, we could rediscover our Unum at the last moment and find a way to pull together again. That would make for a very American story. As Churchill said, “you can always trust the Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve done everything else.” Trump himself is a testament to that.
