Yes, It Could Get Worse.

If there is one thing the Trump presidency has actually accomplished so far, it is inspire. Yes, you read that right: just a bit over two months in and this administration has been truly inspiring for huge blocs of people. Maybe not in the same optimistic "Yes we can!" way as his predecessor, or even in a "Feel the Bern" we-want-a-revolution-but-in-a-nice-way way, but still, when your inauguration is immediately followed with the largest single day political demonstration in US history (not to mention the almost countless large-scale rallies opposing your specific policies) it is difficult to say that you haven't inspired the masses. Unfortunately, some people still are not learning the most important lesson to be drawn from Trump's electoral success, the lesson that this is not a joke.

Take, for example, this recent Vanity Fair article in which Graydon Carter astutely points out that although Trump is constantly ridiculed, his presidency is not actually funny. It's tragic. It is already tragic for families preparing to be ripped apart by ICE raids, for innocent people seeking escape from war-ravaged countries, and with the upcoming legislative action aimed at repealing the ACA, it is poised only to create even greater catastrophe. So while it is satisfying to laugh at the utter ridiculousness of our president when he does things like jump into a big rig and honk the horn like a semi-competent toddler it is truly dangerous not to take him seriously. And that's not because he should be taken seriously per se, but because he is taken seriously by a lot of people in this country. Even in the previously cited Vanity Fair article, Carter lamented "That Trump's supporters continue to line up behind him remains a mystery" before elucidating a number of the ways that he and his administration are working actively against their voters' interests. It is obvious to a lot of people that Trump is aiming to screw over the very people who put him in power, but with the recent poll suggesting that only about 3% of Trump voters regret their decision it is apparently not obvious to everyone, and there is little reason to believe that his supporters will suddenly abandon their support for his movement.

That is why statements like this,

from co-founder of the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, Scott Dworkin, need to be re-thought. To say he is already the worst president we have ever had would be one thing (although with how awful some of his competition was that's far from inarguable), but to say he is the "Worst President We'll Ever Have" is astoundingly foolish. The Trump Presidency is a joke. But so was the Trump campaign, and while there are certainly some promising Democratic candidates to potentially tout against him (or whoever ends up running in 2020), plenty of people would have said the first woman running on a major party's ticket, or the cultural powerhouse that is Bernie Sanders, were also promising candidates. At this point the Democratic party's fracturing has even infected last month's race for DNC chair- a post about which, before the embarrassing Debbie Wasserman Schultz revelations, many people were decidedly unconcerned.

So before we decide that the Trump presidency is the worst one we will ever have, let's keep in mind that even a couple of weeks before his election the Democratic party was (according to the Pew Research Center) viewed more favorably than the Republican party, but they still lost.

People like Scott Dworkin, as well as other Dem leaders and just generally concerned citizens, must wake up to the fact that the Trump movement will have a successor- and that could be worse.