Much as the 2000 election gave us what will soon be several decades of West Asia war, four years of Trumpian misery could be exponentially more catastrophic.
“He is a total narcissist, and what you see here is the way he’s always been,” said a source intimately familiar with Trump’s way of working, who declined to be identified criticising a potential president. “This, between you and me, will be the destruction of the United States.”
Unlike the crony capitalism of post-Reaganism, a 2016 victorious Trumpism could create a crypto-fascism for the ages and his Veeps...well, beyond wanting Oprah...
Jeff Sessions, the fiscally ultra-conservative junior senator for Alabama, born Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, has quietly become one of Trump’s most trusted policy advisers. New Jersey governor Chris Christie waits cap-in-hand in the wings following his widely lampooned vacant sideline gaze during a Trump victory speech. Christie has claimed he has a “hard time believing” he’ll get the nod, while appearing to yearn for it.
Former Arizona governor Jan Brewer could add some south-western weight to Trump’s Yankee-heavy campaign. Former senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Governor Paul LePage of Maine, favorites of the blue-collar north-east, are likely to be angling for jobs in a Trump White House, but a heartbeat away from the presidency. Nonetheless, some Tea Party diehards will be hoping former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, the first big-name conservative to join the Trump train back in January, might be lured back on to the vice-presidential platform eight years after her unforgettable national debut.
If Trump reverses course and selects a fellow outsider, Ben Carson, the ordinarily equanimous retired pediatric brain surgeon whose bursts of temper Trump once compared to an incurable “pathological disease”, may have a look in. Trump has predicted Carson has a “big, big part” in a future administration following his endorsement in March and despite his eccentric outings as a campaign surrogate. Last month, Carson reassured nervous voters that “even if Donald Trump turns out not to be such a great president” the American public is “only looking at four years” of misery.
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