President Donald Trump is planning on celebrating his 80th birthday on Sunday — and that is bringing out a lot of snark, according to The Guardian.
"Hey Donald, You locked me out for insulting you on Twitter back in 2014 when it was still Twitter," British comedian Dom Joly told the publication, referring to how he had been denied access to the US because of his social media posts. "I was right then and I’m right now: you’re a narcissistic, lying fraud who has somehow convinced a large number of people that you give a flying f---- about them when the only thing you actually care about is yourself. Enjoy your birthday while the world burns."
Author and activist Cory Doctorow echoed those views, writing, "Dear Comrade Trump: On this, the occasion of your 80th birthday, I write to extend my sincere thanks for all the work you have done. After decades of deadlock, you have inspired the world to action! You have done more to de-dollarise the world than any American leader in history. Without you, there would be no way that Ethiopia would be revaluing its national debt in yuan. You have done more to end the global dependence on oil than any leader (except, perhaps, for Comrade Putin). Without you, there would be no way that India would be chucking out its gas hobs and replacing them with induction tops. And, of course, you have done more than any president in history to end American dominance over the internet.”
He added, “Without you, there would be no way the EU would be racing forward with projects such as Eurostack and European Digital Infrastructure Consortium, with whole nations ditching American tech exports like Microsoft Office 365 in favour of free, open, auditable, transparent alternatives running on servers within the EU’s borders. Comrade Trump, you are, at long last, ushering in the post-American world, and a grateful planet salutes you!"
Greta Thunberg, the young climate change activist who Trump insulted for her supposed “anger,” also wished Trump a sarcastic happy birthday.
"My initial thought was to give you a one-way ticket to The Hague as a birthday gift, but that comment would probably go above your head,” Thunberg wrote. "I will instead give you a can of alphabet soup; the sentences you poop out will be more coherent than anything you have ever said. Now you can finally take part in meaningful public discourse."
One Guardian interviewee who unironically praised Trump was British broadcaster Piers Morgan, who replied "Happy 80th, Donald! I think I can be that familiar, Mr President, given we’ve been friends for 20 years.”
Trump chose Morgan as the winner of the 2008 season of his TV show “The Apprentice.”
“The world will doubtless mark your big day in myriad good, bad and ugly ways,” Morgan wrote. “But birthdays are celebratory occasions, so I will focus on the one aspect to your character that surely everyone can agree on: your extraordinary resilience.”
He added, You’ve been shot, prosecuted, impeached (twice), endured two scandalous divorces, survived a financial crisis that took down many of your friends, bounced back from ignominious political oblivion to dramatically win back the White House and been the subject of more mockery, abuse and vilification than any public figure in modern history. Yet here you are, alive, surprisingly well (that’s what never touching alcohol, drugs or cigarettes can do for a man), and still bursting with astounding energy for someone entering their ninth decade.”
Morgan then claimed Trump told him he could not be apprehensive after his first assassination attempt in 2024.
“There aren’t many people who would do that a few days after a bullet bloodied their ear,” Morgan wrote. “You may be the most polarising, divisive, controversial and inflammatory president in US history. But nobody can deny you have the resilient skin of a thousand rhinos."
While Morgan characterized Trump as vigorous, novelist Siri Hustvedt differed.
"You’re aging fast, Mr President, plagued by bruising, memory holes, verbal incoherence and unwelcome fits of sleep,” Hustvedt wrote. “Although plain to many of us who did not vote for you, your age and inevitable death have been invisible in the Magaverse.”
He added, “Maga magic transformed your real, fat, old man’s body into the spectacular body of fascism, American style: bulletproof, muscle-bound, eternal. The many superhero costumes worn by your 6 January terrorists were testament to that pathetic fantasy of invulnerability, no doubt helped along by the very real carnage of a global pandemic.”
He also ticked off Trump’s controversial policies including “ICE murders, immigrant concentration camps, pregnant women bleeding out in parking lots for want of an abortion, measles outbreaks, huge numbers dead after USAID vanished, broken alliances and a war no one wanted are the veritable consequences of delusion. But time is inexorable, the citizens are restless, and your fantasy body is beginning to crack, just as your real body is showing the infirmities that come with 80 years of age."
Trump has raised many alarms about his advancing age, as he is only the second president in US history to become an octogenarian in office.
“There has been a frightening progression of symptoms,” Dr. Henry Abraham, a former psychiatry professor at Tufts University and the chief signatory of a letter to Congress warning about Trump’s perceived cognitive decline, told AlterNet in May. “These include grandiosity without moral safeguards, paranoia, impulsivity, vindictiveness, easy misperception of being harmed, moments of omnipotence, uncontrolled rage, and sole control over the use of nuclear weapons in a time of war. As a psychiatrist reviewing these, I can only say Yikes!”
By contrast, when the first octogenarian president turned 80 in 2022, President Joe Biden went out of his way to keep it low-key. Speaking with this journalist for Salon about Biden’s ageing at the time, Dr. Louise Aronson, a professor at the University of California – San Francisco’s Division of Geriatrics, argued that one should judge a president’s fitness based on their displayed aptitude rather than their age.
“There is a legitimate increase in risk of disease, disability, and death with advancing age and that risk varies tremendously among octogenarians depending on their health, opportunities, and function,” Aronson told Salon at the time. She later added that “to the extent the media focuses on age primarily, they are engaging in ageism. It would be more fair, equitable and ethical to focus more on policy and outcomes, honesty and track record, and so much more.”