Summarizing what makes Trump so awful is awfully hard. Is he a racist rapist? Yep. A threat to democracy? Mm-hm. The worst human being to ever occupy the White House (including the ones who owned other humans)? Absolutely.
But in trying to capture what makes him such a terrible person, I think we’ve missed out on what makes him such a terrible president, which is not the same thing. And in doing so—in portraying him as a monstrosity—we’ve allowed anything less than armageddon to potentially count as a silver lining, at least in the minds of those rare swing voters and undecideds we need.
I’d like to humbly suggest three words that I’d love to hear every Dem, progressive, and/or Never Trumper repeat every time they’re describing him.
Incompetent. Corrupt. Unstable.
Those three simple adjectives, free of hyperbole, frame the issues where he is most vulnerable:
- “Incompetent” speaks to his decadeslong track record of fucking up even the seemingly unfuckupable. The man ran multiple casinos that declared bankruptcy, for god’s sake. The word also alludes to the many failures (Covid, the economy, natural disaster response, and on and on) of his first term.
- “Corrupt” is especially salient during Trump II, when he’s not even trying to hide the grift. Crypto, the pardons, the gift jet… all of it done in plain sight. And all of it utterly, undeniably corrupt.
- And finally, “Unstable” is increasingly the most painfully obvious, with his brain crumbling before our eyes even as corporate media sanewashes his rambling.
Dems and progressives have long had a framing problem. All too often we’ve drifted off message, tried to get too smart, and generally failed to discuss vital issues in a way that resonates with voters. I believe these three words would represent at least a small step toward remedying that situation.
