Welcome to Deadspin’s 2020 IDIOT OF THE YEAR awards! If you have made it this far, then congratulations, brave traveler.
“WHAT?” you’re probably saying to yourself right now. “How can Trump be number TWO when it comes to the biggest idiots of the year?” A just query, Reader.
Although malevolence is a factor in ranking our idiots, it’s not an overriding one. These rankings are based on idiocy. Foolishness, imbecility, insipidity. This is a man who has looked directly at an eclipse. And anyway, we kind of like the idea of Trump finishing second to a woman.
Donald Trump is a horrible person and a malignant president. He’s also a transcendently dumb human being. You might think that in a year dominated by an election and a global pandemic, there would be no time for such idiocy. You would be wrong.
Trump started off the year with a bang, hiring a bunch of college seniors into important administrative roles, because loyalty! From there, he went on to suggesting that his coronavirus task team, headed up by the guy responsible for an AIDS epidemic in his home state of Indiana, look into injecting disinfectant into peopleto combat the disease, leading to one of the greatest Tik Toks ever created and prompting Lysol to put out a warning that people should not inject themselves with disinfectant, even to own the libs. Of course, all this was amidst insisting that America was only leading the world in COVID cases because of the number of tests that were being given, showing a complete and total lack of understanding of the words “per capita.”
We had a short respite during the summer of 2020, when COVID seemed to be on the decline. That gave Trump plenty of time to insist he only hurried to the underground White House bunker to perform an inspection and not because of the throngs of righteous Black Lives Matter protesters across the street. Not even Asskisser in Chief Bill Barr could go along with that whopper.
Trump also tried to hold a political rally in Tulsa on Juneteenth, which he was forced to move after a public backlash. American teens, and K-pop stans in particular, RSVPed for huge swaths of tickets online, leaving Trump “furious” about the underwhelming crowd size. He also spent the night proving to America that he could drink water from a glass and walk down a ramp unassisted. Who says we don’t put the best people in office in this country?
In July, the President bragged to us all about how well he did on a cognitive test at Walter Reed, not realizing the test he was given is commonly used to screen for dementia, nor understanding that Americans would rightly have some concerns about the Commander in Chief being tested for dementia while remaining in the Oval Office.
The next day, Trump lied about being asked to throw out the first pitch at the Yankees’ home opener, because he was jealous that Dr. Anthony Fauci was doing the honors at the Nationals game. Once everyone found out that Trump made up the invitation, he said he was too busy to attend the game, anyway, then spent the day golfing with Jay Feely.
Late summer and fall of 2020 saw Trump pushing for his face to be included on Mount Rushmore, as well as catching COVID and giving it to just about everyone around him, including his wife and son. While hospitalized at Walter Reed, Trump staged a photo op to show how hard he was working . . . signing blank pieces of paper. Trump emerged from Walter Reed a few days later, looking and acting like he just left the bathroom at Studio 54. Upon returning to the White House, Trump triumphantly ripped off his mask and stomped inside. In the next 10 days, at least 3 dozen White House staffers also tested positive.
On October 16, Trump did the only good thing he’s done in four years on the job, repeatedly calling aggressive sycophant and Trump worshipper Matt Gaetz “Rick Gates” during a Florida rally. Rick Gates was a former Trump staffer convicted of interference in the 2016 Election on behalf of Russia. Of course, the rally was mostly maskless.
All of this, of course, brings us to the 2020 presidential election. On November 4, Trump demanded a recount of votes in the State of Wisconsin. When it became clear that Biden’s lead over Trump in Wisconsin was growing, Trump tweeted out “STOP THE COUNT!”
Presumably, someone had explained to Trump that he wasn’t allowed to count only the pro-Trump votes. Even so, stopping the count at that point would have handed the election to Joe Biden, as well. Math is hard.
On November 7th, we get the chef’s kiss of idiocy from the President, and we’ll just leave it here in all its glory:
It’s probably more idiotic to put Rudy Giuliani in charge of anything, but we really liked the tweet.
Since Trump’s hopes of overturning the election dissolved like Rudy’s hair dye, he’s spent a lot of time on Twitter, trying to convince people that he’s the real winner and that he’s responsible for the only good thing that happened in 2020, the COVID vaccine:
At this point, it’s all pretty much background noise. America sighs and rolls its collective eyes while waiting for Trump to vacate the Oval Office like we wait for our craziest relatives to leave after the holidays. Only, surprise — he says he might not go!
Of course, we’ve barely scratched the surface of Trump’s most idiotic hits. Cataloguing them all could take months, even years. But if you take one thing away from this piece, let it be these three things: 1) All fascists are evil; 2) Not all evil fascists are also mind-numbingly stupid; and 3) never has the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme song been so well-used so often.
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