Trump Is Officially Running For President A Third Time, Claiming That America Was Doing Great In Late 2020 (Reminder: It Really, Really Wasn’t)

On Tuesday night, Trump ignored pleas from his own party — and a plane carrying a banner calling him a loser — and did what he’s been threatening to do for months: He announced his third campaign for president of the United States. Even considering the GOP’s failed “red wave” during last week’s midterms (which many blamed on him), this wasn’t surprising. What was a little shocking was one of the tacks he took: He’s claiming America was doing really hot in the fall of 2020.

“Two years ago when I left office, the United States stood ready for its Golden Age,” a low-energy Trump told a not terribly enthusiastic crowd as he offered an alternate history of one of the nation’s worst periods:

“It was at the pinnacle of power, prosperity, and prestige, towering above all rivals, vanquishing all enemies, and striding into the future, confident and so strong. In four short years, men, women, African-Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, everybody was thriving like never before.”

All together now: What? A should-be-pointless recap: In the fall of 2020, there was an out-of-control pandemic that was poorly handled by the president in power (Donald Trump). Unemployment had skyrocketed. (It’s since gone down, thanks in part to Trump’s predecessor.) There was a massive pushback against institutionalized racism in the form of protests, but that effort was aggressively opposed by Trump and his party. The nation was a laughing stock, admired only by places like Russia and North Korea, whose autocratic leaders were Trump’s good buds. Everyone was miserable, happy only when he got the boot.

In the past, Trump has claimed the country was doing great until the pandemic began. Now he appears to be moving the goal posts way too forward, making the absurd claim that the country was doing great when it was decidedly not. He’s half-right about one thing: The nation was on the cusp not of greatness, but of something at least better: It was about to get Joe Biden.

Trump’s announcement went on for over an hour — so long most news networks, even Fox News, bailed on him prematurely. Maybe the bleakest part found him prophesizing that things in the nation are only going to get worse over the last two years, and then, and only then, will American voters want him back.

Or maybe they won’t, and he’ll be up s*it’s creek. By then he may already be in the clink. Then again, he’s already not doing all that well: