The story of the rise and fall of President Donald Trump

From: Staffan lindberg

Published: 08 November 2020 kl. 23.35

He was ridiculed by the celebrity elite, but shocked everyone by coming back and becoming president.

Now Donald Trump is about to disappear in the same way that he came.

In a tidal wave of lies

Washington DC, den April 30, 2011.

The atmosphere at the White House Reporters’ Annual Gala Dinner at the Washington Hilton was even more fun than usual. Celebrities, politicians, journalists and businessmen in long dresses and tuxedos sat staring at the stage, where current President Barack Obama would speak.

Businessman Donald Trump had long been spreading conspiracy theories that the president was not actually born in the United States. Now it was Obama’s turn to give again.

Barack Obama joked that he would show the film from birth, which turned out to be a clip from The Lion King. He then turned directly to Trump, then 64, who was in the hall. Said no one could be happier tonight than Donald.

– Now you can finally refocus on the important issues. Like: do we fake landing on the moon?

The applause spread. Obama continued to denounce Trump for his gruesome interior design style. And he compared him to a cheap showman who was lousy on TV.

The celebrity elite shuddered with laughter. Donald Trump’s smile solidified into a strange grin.

***

Donald John Trump was born in 1946 to the son of real estate mogul Fred Trump and his Scottish-born wife Mary.

In the 1980s, Donald Trump became known for his stormy private life. The next thing in the gossip press culminated in the Aspen ski resort, when the mistress almost literally bumped into the businessman’s then-wife.

After the turn of the millennium, Trump began a new career, as a reality star on the series “The Apprentice.” He became known for piercing the career dreams of contestants with the ultimately iconic phrase “You’re fired!” You have been fired.

The celebrity gained new strength. Still, it was the most sensational chapter in history.

***

It was a long time for journalists to believe the rumors that began to emerge during Obama’s last year in power that Donald Trump was considering trying to become president. This despite the fact that the businessman conveyed the idea as early as 1987 in a television interview with Oprah Winfrey.

When the news was finally confirmed, one day in June 2015, it was difficult to shake off the idea that it was actually a public relations ploy.

Few of us had any idea what was going through Trump’s head. The strong will to be taken seriously of which he himself would later testify. The dire need for revenge that some sources claim has accelerated after Barack Obama ridiculed him in his dinner speech.

***

Trump’s presidential campaign always seemed to be on the brink of failure. We doubt if he would weather the storm after his insulting statements about Muslims and Mexicans, in a country where only the Latin American electorate can number in the tens of millions.

And we were convinced that he had crossed a line when he condemned war hero and party veteran John McCain as a “loser.”

When the Washington Post in October 2015 published a video in which Trump talked about how he, as a celebrity, could do anything with women – “grab them by the pussy” – we predicted the real ending.

Like celebrities on the gala night, we had not understood the power of the wave that was now rising. That millions and millions of voters liked both the person of the businessman and his cattle to put America and Americans first.

For them, politician Donald Trump was not a joke. For them, everything was very serious.

On November 8, 2016, the businessman defeated the establishment favorite, Hillary Clinton.

***

Trump’s victory on election night seemed unexpectedly unconvincing compared to the campaign rallies of the election campaign, when it constantly stoked the sentiments of the audience. Journalists speculate that newly elected President Donald Trump would tone down his rhetoric for a more refined appearance.

Even when he swore, it was clear how wrong we were. Although the images clearly spoke another language, Trump maintained his obvious lie: He had assembled a larger audience at his inauguration than any American president in history.

***

Trying to protect the first time Donald Trump was in power was like circling in a tidal wave, constantly looking for a fixed point to focus on. Workdays were marked by waiting for Trump to wake up and make his first statement on Twitter.

The new president seemed capable of repealing the natural laws of politics. Unwritten conventions and rules were thrown out the White House window, with no visible consequences. Nothing seemed to stick.

We wrote about the twenty-two second handshake with the Japanese prime minister and the way his wife Melania dismissed his attempted contact. The way Trump dismissed the poor part of the world as “shitty countries” and the mysterious Twitter word “covfefe.”

One day, the president claimed that violent right-wing extremists were “very nice people.” The other wanted to buy Greenland.

An entire world seemed to be lost in the rift. In the shocking, rude or just plain weird. In nature he turns to everything and everyone.

The problems ended in the shadows. The free trade agreements that were broken. Withdrawn from the international climate agreement at a time when the rainforests were burning, the land was in record heat and the ice of the Arctic and Antarctic was being pushed towards irreversible collapse.

***

The cold against the friends of NATO faced the scourge of “strong leader” Vladimir Putin and the tenderness of the “friend” North Korean dictator, Kim Jung-Un.

The tumult of the war against Iran scared the world.

Trump agitated and created uncertainty. But when the time came, he was more reluctant than his predecessors to start armed conflict. The lack of interest in Syria created a void that countries like Russia and Turkey had to fill. But even his harshest critics were forced to admit the success of the two landmark Middle East peace agreements that he helped mediate.

***

In the end, it was external events that shook the Trump presidency to its foundations. The police beat George Floyd to death.

And the corona pandemic, which broke the economic boom that until now has marked his presidency.

A groping Trump seemed incapable of responding to the new storms. The criticism hardened at the same time that the power base, which was often described as angry white villagers but was in fact always significantly broader than that, was behind him.

***

In the end, the lies seemed so many and so blatant that her entire narcissistic persona appeared on some kind of honest days, fully exposed for anyone to see and judge her.

And after four years, the American people decided that was enough.

***

The first reports after the electoral defeat of November 3, 2020 spoke of a confused man who tried angrily to persuade employees to start legal proceedings to stop the vote counting while himself versaltwittrade his supposed victory.

We still don’t know how Trump intends to use his last days in power. If he finally admits defeat and voluntarily leaves the White House, or if he will be swept up in the same wave of lies that got him there four years earlier.

Only one thing is clear. It will be a while before the businessman, scandal-maker, reality star and former President Donald J. Trump is once again invited to the celebrity elite dinners, or the subject of his jokes.

–

Sources: The Atlantic, Politico, Fox News, The New York Times, The New Yorker, the White House website, The Hill, Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight, Youtube, Wikipedia and Donald Trump’s social networks.

Published: 08 November 2020 kl. 23.35