I’ve never liked stereotyping groups or individuals, despite the wonderland of opportunities nowadays, especially in politics, but the time comes when, if I don’t let go of some of this angst, my brain will undergo a serious hemorrhage The past few years of our political civil war between Democrats and Republicans have released verbal harpoons from both sides on a daily basis, as though we were kids in a cutthroat playground competition to prove who doesn’t have cooties.
Most of our rancor has come from opposite views of the same man, Donald Trump. I know people whose faces either light up with that “Welcome to Fantasy Island” look or deflate like a tire losing air when Trump’s name is mentioned. It’s truly extraordinary. The Trumpsters believe everything he says, despite his history in piles of broken lie detectors that simply exploded when he even went near them. Others, who are sceptics like me, whose eyes wince when even his name is uttered, have only tiny expectations based upon past behavior of this walking symbol of untruth. Trump seems to believe he is exempt from obeying any laws, which he believes are meant only for peons like the rest of us. His egomania takes all the oxygen from any room he occupies, but his loyal, clueless flocks of followers seem to accept or even enjoy groveling before someone for whom law, manners, compassion, empathy and basic respect are simply unnecessary, except for other megalomaniacs like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jon Un, since Trump sees other people in general as mere servants to do his bidding without question. His lecherous moral bankruptcy seems only to elevate him in a world he believes is actually his alone and where humility and compassion are weaknesses not to be practiced by those who are worshiped. The wonder of it is that his followers see him as a tower of strength instead of the sniveling crybaby he really is. Liz Cheney is a much stronger and more rational person than he. So is his niece, Mary. Trump sees everyone around him as his personal servant, expected to mind him each time he barks.
The comedy, however, of this egomaniac is unintentional on his part. The most terrifying thing is that his worshipers believe everything he says, despite his actual history as a compulsive liar. Those same people can become another mob like the one he inspired on that fateful day January 6, 2021. All his gullible worshipers need is for him to embrace an American flag or hold up a Bible (even if it’s upside down) to intoxicate them with his holy presence. He is, in their eyes, higher even than their Jehovah instead of the huckster the rest of us know he is. My great fear now is that those same people, bewitched by Trump, will become that mob they were before if law and order attempt to make him pay for his crimes against the nation of which the mobs evidently no longer feel a part. The January 6th Committee has yet to reveal the information it has collected, so the facts will show themselves soon, though those truths may not be what his starry-eyed mobs of unquestioning zombies wish to hear. God help us all. JB
