Donald Trump doesn't even want to be around anymore

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The first thing you notice is that she’s been crying.

Caitlin Covington is in an all-white room. Her skin is an algorithmically acceptable level of dewy. Her slouchy sweatshirt and slight tan convey a summer spent on various Capes and in other people’s Instagram stories. But she’s clearly upset.

“Hey guys,” the face of Christian Girl Autumn snuffles out, wiping her eyes. “I just really need a break this year.”

@cmcoving

This is the hardest post I’ve ever had to make 💔 will post another update soon…

Covington’s been an influencer for many years, but her claim to fame came in that semi-accidental way the internet has. An elaborately themed fall photoshoot that she shared in 2016 spawned a meme in 2019. Covington, for her part, saw which way the crisp breeze was blowing.

She’s spent the last several years ushering in the season of ciders with ever-more-complex shoots that featured chunky sweaters, suede boots and coffee cups clasped with both hands. Each year, the calendar crept toward the end of September and Covngton felt the eyes of over a million followers turn her way with expectations newer, better and bigger. Eventually, she had to call it, cancelling the autumnal tradition like a pumpkin-spiced Stacker Pentecost.

Covington is far from the first online content creator to find that their bit is consuming their lives. Comedian and screenwriter Demi Adejuyigbe had a similarly equinoctial tradition, a new over-the-top music video for the Earth, Wind & Fire song “September” that he shared every September 21 for six years.

In the final version, posted in 2021, he realizes the date only to have an entire bar turn to him with uncanny, expectant grins on their faces. He dances, unsmiling, through the bar, and uses a “Bye Bye Bye”-style spinning room to dance on the walls and ceiling of a ‘70s chic bathroom he finds himself trapped in. After escaping through a hole in the wall, he flees a choreographed dance number at a pool party, jumps into Greased Lightning and flies off into space.

President Donald Trump’s fame predates the algorithmic pressures that weigh on Covington and Adejuyigbe, and he’s never once cared to try and create something so elaborate, but he’s still found himself in a similar predicament.

The need to always go bigger led Trump to parrot QAnon talking points about exposing a cabal of pedophilic elites. When the time came to make good with one big scheduled post of DOJ documents, the president had to welch on his promises. The eternal feed-trained true believers in Trump’s movement reacted like an iPad-addled toddler who just lost access to Cocomelon.

Given his predicament, it’s almost endearing when Trump lets the veil drop every few months and shares that he’s not enjoying being the president. Trump’s Eeyore moments have happened often enough that we can’t attribute them to his dissembling manner of speaking; he’s straight up not having a good time.

“You think I could hop into one of [those trucks] and drive it away?” he asked the crowd at a Pennsylvania rally in 2020. “I’d love to just drive the hell out of here. Just get the hell out of this. I had such a good life. My life was great."

Last week, he was spotted roaming the roof of the White House in a slump following the latest round of Epstein backlash. Earlier this week, the 79-year-old president openly wondered about the afterlife while talking to Fox News.

"I want to try and get to heaven, if possible. I hear I'm not doing well,” he said. “I hear I'm really at the bottom of the totem pole."

Of course, this is all voluntary. If Trump were truly worried about his eternal soul, or ever felt like he couldn’t do the shifts behind the Resolute Desk, he could always step aside. Covington and Adejuyigbe both stepped off the “bigger, better, forever” treadmill and found that life went on.

Trump could do the same. He doesn’t even have a partnership with Uggs to worry about.

What do you think? Are we entering an era of MAGA moping? Would Trump calling it a day be better or worse for the future of this whole American project? Click the speech bubble icon at the top of this email to comment.

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