Tag Archives: Trumpers

HOW CAN SO MANY AMERICANS BE SO BLIND?

Cover of a German magazine that saw the threat of Donald J. Trump
long before most of us Americans.

I’ve been thinking about this question since Tuesday. That’s when I first discovered almost half the voters in our country not only accepted all the disturbing things Swamp Creature did to our country, but that they approved of them!

Otherwise, I reasoned, how could they vote to give him four more years of unfettered access to the power and majesty of the American presidency.

Yes, they must have approved of the entire Trumpian circus! Putting children into cages, ignoring the threat of a pandemic, looting the U.S. Treasury, paying chump change in personal taxes, extorting friendly countries for political gain, politicizing the Justice Department, inciting violence and hatred, destroying decades-old global friendships and alliances, calling nasty names, serving his Russian master to our disadvantage, destroying constitutional ethics, putting half his family on the government payroll. And lying. Not just lying like a politician, but lying like the most dishonest snake oil salesman that ever graced a carnival sideshow.

“Seriously,” I had to ask myself, “Are we that fucked up?”

It’s a question that refuses to release me from its grip.

As someone who prefers to give people the benefit of the doubt… And as someone with close friends who have fallen for the Trump malarkey, hook, line and stinker, the only thing I can think of, is to compare Trumpism with a fever in the blood. You can’t blame someone for catching a fever, can you? Nor can you take it personally or resent it when the symptoms run riot.

These people—most of whom appear normal and don’t own guns or hate their black neighbors or attempt to run buses off the highway—are, for the most part, absolutely normal. They work at jobs, love their kids and grandkids; and would never think of joining a militia or kidnapping the governor of any state. Not even the governor of Puerto Rico.

I say they’re normal, but they’re not really.

Better to say they were normal, before they caught the virus. Yes, virus, bug, illness or disease—call it what you will, but there’s no denying they’ve caught Trumpism. And similar to those infected with Covid-19, they find themselves at the mercy of the disease and at risk of eventualities too scary to think about. Their lives are not in danger, but their morals, values and sense of humanity are under the gravest threat.

No, they don’t realize it or see what is happening to them. In fact, not realizing you’re ill is one of the symptoms of the disease.

With all my efforts through my blog and heart-to-heart conversations, I have not been able to cure a single one of them (that I know of). Not one of my Trumper friends has suddenly snapped out of their hypnotic state to confusedly question how they got here in the first place.

That doesn’t leave me hating them, or disgusted with myself. Just like with Covid victims, my options are limited. I’m left to pray for them, to leave a place for them in my heart, and to try not to judge them or project Trump’s failings and petty hatreds onto them. Of course, some Trumpers are racists, bullies and psychos, but not all of them; or even the majority.

Unfortunately, this illness is too new for anyone yet to understand it, or to have developed a cure. And polite society will not allow us to lock them up till a cure is found, or to confine them to a hospital ICU. So we are left with the simple challenge to accept them in all their weirdness and obstinacy the same way we would accept a relative with mental illness, down-syndrome, depression or even criminal tendencies…

With love and distrust.

I would recommend a little of the former and a lot of the latter!

THE SMALLEST MAN IN THE WORLD

How could we elect someone whose very instinct is to
destroy what we’ve created over centuries?

How have we come to this?

How has America, once the world’s leader in extending hope, compassion and critical assistance to a world standing beneath our shadow, undergone such a size-mic shift in empathy and generosity?

How could we, the richest nation in the world—in the history of the world!—suddenly view the pain and suffering of others, whether they be Mexican immigrants, Kurdish allies or American Covid-19 casualties, as of little or no concern?

When did we make such a tragic and perverse turn in direction?

As I suspect you already know, it happened when we gave in to America’s worst impulses, its craven fears and our most selfish values. They were buried beneath the surface of the high-minded ideals that have carried us forward from the days of our founders.

It happened when we elected Donald J. Trump as our 45th president.

And it happened because we unknowingly elected THE SMALLEST MAN IN THE WORLD to captain our ship of state and bring us safely through the sudden storms and dangerous waters we would inevitably face. A man unfit for the job both in temperament and character. A man so driven by his own sense of self-importance and self-indulgence, he is unable to see the needs of others, the true functions of government or the importance of our traditional values.

In fact, Donald Trump is unable to see anything except in relation to his own well-being and his puffed-up narcissistic view of Donald J. Trump. If it increases his wealth, it is good. If it weakens his enemy, it is good. If it redounds to his self-created legend, it is beautiful!

In Donald Trump’s mind, better to kill off tens of thousands of Americans than admit his inaction or inept response to a pandemic was in any way his own fault. If Americans had to die to protect his reputation, then they died in a worthy cause. No reason for regret or tears. Anything Donald J. Trump does, or doesn’t do, must be the right thing. 

Conversely, anything left undone by Donald J. Trump, should never have been done in the first place.

Thus the reasoning of THE SMALLEST MAN IN THE WORLD. The man who would pit the power of the government against anyone who would oppose him. The man who would politicize the workings of government so that his friends’ crimes would be forgiven, and his friends’ taxes decreased and his business interests would be the primary beneficiary of his foreign relations.

As Nancy Pelosi said,
“With Trump, all roads lead to Putin.

Nobody is too small to escape his wrath. Not Alexander Vindman, whose career in the military was squashed after he testified against Trump for an extortionary phone call with the president of Ukraine. Not Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan, who Trump still assails to his followers, even after her thwarted kidnapping. Not the territory of Puerto Rico who, for reasons known only to Trump, has earned his undying enmity. Not Michael Cohen. Not Nancy Pelosi. Not the Democrats. Not Mitt Romney. Not Andrew Cuomo. Not Blue states. Not the United States Post Office.

And not Anthony Fauci whose only real crime was to earn the trust of the American people where Trump could not.

It took us 44 previous presidents to arrive at the man who would tear this nation apart and drag it down, if that’s what it takes to raise himself above the flag. And above us all.

Ironic to think THE SMALLEST MAN IN THE WORLD is so blinded by his narcissism, he believes himself bigger than America.

And by the time he’s done, he just might be right.