The biggest Trump meltdown the world has ever seen is imminent. Be prepared

Even if the Democratic candidate becomes president, the extent of that victory will feel almost anticlimactic after what the incumbent president likely has in store

Of course it’s ended like this. It’s completely unsurprising for the American election to end with Donald Trump shouting: “How dare they count the votes? Stop the counting, counting is for terrorists. We’re going to sue the counters. There are a whole bunch of votes all for the same guy who isn’t me? Coincidence? I don’t think so. A lot of these votes are from California, that’s not part of America, it’s in Brazil, their votes don’t count. I’ve heard all the people in Wisconsin who voted for Biden, a bad bunch. They weren’t people, they were frogs, they’ve counted the votes of FROGS, this is very bad. My votes have been put on the moon. I know an astronaut, he’s a terrific astronaut, he said he saw them, on the moon, he’s got a telescope, we’re going to investigate. And then I want the World Cup. I won it, the French need to give it back, they kept counting the goals after the game had started, I won it but they stole it, bad French!”

Mr Trump’s complaint that votes were counted after the deadline for voting suggests he’s mixed up casting the votes with counting the votes. Maybe Mr Trump’s method for holding elections should be tried, so the moment an election ends, all the votes are tipped in a landfill site before anyone can calculate them. Then we start all over again.

The problem is we’ve tried to counter the madness by being reasonable. When Mr Trump declared victory with the full picture of the election results still yet to come, Joe Biden should have responded by saying “But I’ve discovered a new state, it’s called Witchetywa and we’ve won, it gives us 37 votes.”

Because this is what happens now, we’re in a different dimension. I was one of the idiots who thought Mr Biden would win easily simply because every survey said he would win easily.

But this is 2020, so that wasn’t going to happen.  

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You can’t expect issues to unfold in the way they used to, otherwise you’ll be surprised next year, when Dipsy from the Teletubbies becomes president of the World Bank and Britain is invaded by armed pelicans.

If Mr Trump has lost, as he goes through various phases of meltdown, he could fulfil his dream of boosting the American economy by being streamed on Netflix while locked in a cage on the Mexican border. Billions would pay $5 a month to watch him crawling in circles, screaming: “I know Jesus and he says I won Michigan,” and writing: “Don’t count mail votes, US mail is run by Isis” on the floor in his own dribble.

But even if we assume Mr Biden becomes president, the extent of that victory for the liberal half of the world will feel almost anticlimactic after sneaking a win against a madman who puts babies in cages and thinks you cure a virus by drinking bleach.

It’s a cause of celebration in the same way that if your dog won the “Best Breed” award at Crufts, when the only other entrant was a chicken. But even then, at one point during the counting, it looked as if the chicken would win.

The easiest way to explain this would be to describe Mr Trump’s supporters as idiots and racists. One poll suggested 91 per cent of Biden voters thought racial inequality was the most important issue, against only 8 per cent of Trump voters. And that 8 per cent probably thought it was important because there’s not enough of it.

But it can’t just be that. Mr Trump connects with his supporters, they adore him, they see him as one of them. I doubt that’s true of Mr Biden’s supporters. He didn’t hold rallies, to respect rules of social distancing. But when the pandemic is over, if he tries to hold rallies to make up for the ones he couldn’t have before, he’ll still only get three people, and they’ll ask if they can watch it on Zoom.    

Sometimes he’s so uninspiring he leaves during his own speech. If was asked why, he’d probably say “There was no point in hanging around to listen to that bollocks.”

The rules are different now. To start with, if someone wants to be a candidate for leader in most countries, they should be checked to see if they have any dodgy financial history, or have a string of embarrassing family revelations, and if they haven’t, there’s no point in even standing.

But also, you have to give people a reason to vote FOR you, it’s not enough to assume the other lot is so hated that people will support you whoever you are.

Everyone knows what Mr Trump stands for because he uses plain language. He said he would build a wall, whereas most politicians would have said: “I have always been a supporter of wallness, and would like to see a measured move towards wallacity in those areas in which a wall either will or won’t be a wall.”

Somehow the opposition to the Trumps and Johnsons of the world have to learn to connect with people, including those who don’t already agree with them.

Otherwise, we’ll face even wilder candidates next time. So the next Republican candidate will be Joe Exotic from Netflix’s Tiger King docuseries. And his running mate for vice president will be one of his tigers.

Liberal people everywhere will point out how stupid this is, but half of Florida will say: “Give that tiger its due, when it says it’s going to rip someone’s arm off it goes ahead and does it, it keeps its word.”

And in four years we’ll all be watching CNN, thinking: “Luckily, if the vote narrows in Pennsylvania the tiger might not win.”