After Trump, I’m Ready for Four Years of ‘Boring’
By: Jeremy Helligar
Tags: Politics, Culture, Election 2020, Donald Trump, Joe Biden

After Trump, I’m Ready for Four Years of ‘Boring’

Six years ago, shortly after I moved to Australia to take a job in Sydney, I had a conversation with the friend of a friend in Melbourne that opened my eyes to the way the rest of the world saw the United States at the time.

I was certain that day that despite the contributions Blacks had made to US history and culture, from building the White House to keeping the Southern economy afloat for decades to inventing rock & roll, the United States was, to the outside world, a White country.

“When people in foreign countries think of the US,” I reasoned out loud that afternoon in Melbourne, “they think of White people.”

The friend of a friend disagreed. “But what about Barack Obama? You have a Black president,” he said. “And many of your biggest global celebrities are Black. Whenever anyone who isn’t from the US thinks about the US, they probably think about Obama or Beyoncé or Kanye West before they think about any White people. My friends and I definitely do.”

I had to admit he had a point. My experiences abroad over the previous six years may have even proven him right. I’d had myriad people in various far-flung cities — from Buenos Aires to Istanbul — mention Barack Obama in the first sentence they spoke to me. The school kids at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul who started shouting “Barack Obama! Barack Obama!” as soon as they saw me coming wouldn’t have done the same to a White tourist.

Black Americans, circa 2014, were pre-eminent in global consciousness in a way they hadn’t been when George W. Bush was president or at any other time since I first left the United States to travel overseas as an adult in 1993.

Then along came Donald Trump, the former reality TV star who changed everything in so many ways. Sometime between the Republican National Convention of 2016 and the US Presidential Election that November, I noticed a definite shift. I was a couple of years into my stint as entertainment editor for Channel 9’s digital arm in Sydney when the website’s homepage, once a lovely assortment of primary colors, began to become dominated by red, orange, and blue.

Multiple stories were promoted there with photos of Trump’s orange face, his dark blue suits and bright red ties. Many of them didn’t offer much news value and could have been rolled over into another piece. Trump, though, had become a huge asset to the organization, dependable for attracting traffic.

I’m looking forward to less orange when I scroll through my news feeds. I’ve always hated that color, and no one can pull it off.

He was pure clickbait. He didn’t have to be doing anything spectacular. Just a photo of him making one of his comical faces was enough to pique interest. He was a different kind of disaster, and like a train wreck, he was never dull.

That’s when I realized that he had edged out Barack Obama and Beyoncé as the definitive American abroad. To many people outside of my home country, Donald Trump had become the US. The two years I spent traveling around Asia and Europe after leaving Sydney in 2017 — two years in which Trump’s name constantly came up during conversations with locals in the various cities and countries I hit — proved his White supremacy.

I’d be lying if I said the shift didn’t benefit me. Some of my biggest stories over the past four years have been about Trump. Although I find plenty of other things to write about, Trump has always been a guaranteed conversation starter. Half of the people who have commented on my viral pieces about him don’t agree with whatever I write, but everyone seems to have an opinion to share.

I’m hoping, though, that we are on the precipice of change. As alternately comical and infuriating as the Trump years may have been, as much material as they’ve given me and my colleagues, in the words of the 18th US President Ulysses S. Grant, let us have peace.

I’m looking forward to the start of the Age of Joe Biden, the man Trump tagged “Sleepy Joe” and once called “the most boring human being I’ve ever seen.” I’m ready to live in a country, to be from a country, that won’t primarily be seen as a joke for electing a joke to lead it.

I’m looking forward to home pages that cover things other than the President’s latest tone-deaf gaffe and the still-constantly mounting evidence of how spectacularly unqualified he is for the office he still holds in his grip.

I’m looking forward to reading fewer, if any, headlines with the names Melania Trump, Mike Pence, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Kayleigh McEnany, Mark Meadows, Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump Jr., and all of Trump’s other assorted hangers on, like Fox News and Candace Owens. I’m ready for Black lives and other Black celebrities to matter more.

I’m looking forward to no longer having to explain to my friends abroad that Trump doesn’t represent or define all Americans.

I’m looking forward to a having a leader who will restore some semblance of dignity to the White House when Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th US president on January 20.

I’m looking forward to less orange when I scroll through my news feeds. I’ve always hated that color, and no one can pull it off.

I am under no delusion that Biden will bring about peace. Ulysses S. Grant couldn’t do it in 1869, and Biden won’t shut up the Trump brigade. They will continue to huff, puff, and roar. But with their leader out of the White House (and hopefully, headed to the Big House), the mainstream media finally may have the good sense to muffle them, even if Fox News and Twitter continue to give them a voice.

I’m not sure what the next four years will hold for my favorite YouTube political pundits like John Iadarola, Brian Tyler Cohen, and David Pakman without President Trump to drive their views. I, for one, have already returned to my previously scheduled online programming (sorry, guys).

I feel lighter, happier than I have in four years. The sound of silence can be gorgeous. I’ve always known Black is beautiful, but now I’m learning that boring can be, too. Bring it on.