What if it Happens?

Thoughts on what we're all thinking about.

The fact that you already know exactly what I’m talking about is exactly why we’re here.

To rephrase what I once wrote about another awful president: he is extremely old. Aged 79 years at the time of writing and on track to be 82 by the end of his term, it is hard to fathom the sheer age of the world’s most powerful man even at the beginning of his latest term. He was born closer to Abraham Lincoln’s presidency than the legal end of his second term and was alive at the same time as five Civil War veterans. He began his business career during the Johnson administration and first floated running for president while Ronald Reagan was in office. He is older than the disposable diaper, the microwave oven, and the word “computer” as it is used today. And for as hard as it may be to believe after four years of Joe Biden, he is the oldest person ever elected president. From a purely statistical perspective, it has never been more likely than it will be under this presidential term.

It’s also still hard to contemplate. Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has one person dominated American politics so thoroughly for so long. As of today, we are still right in the heart of his decade-long story—the miserable, never-ending saga that has weighed on our minds and darkened our days since many of us were children. As we have grown older, he has become less of a politician and more of a slasher villain: always lurking, never dying, and returning stronger than ever just when you think he’s finally been done in. And if he has it his way, not even the constitution will be able to stop him from keeping our national waking nightmare from going on, and on, and on, until one day we wake up and it’s all we’ve ever known.

You know how it feels to think about this dreadful story suddenly ending. You also know the sense of unease that comes when you start to think about it for too long—when you start wondering what, exactly, it might mean if it actually happens. Would it actually change anything about the direction this country is going in? Could it make things worse? Is the devil I know better than the devil I don’t? Am I dumb for even thinking about this when so much else is going on in the world?

To answer that final question: you aren’t. He’s nearly 80 and eats McDonalds every day. As for the other questions: read on.

Point One: Don’t Fear JD Vance. He’s Pathetic.