One thousand, four hundred and sixty-one. Come Jan. 20, that’s the number of days the republic will have have toiled under the surreal, abnormal normal of the Trump presidency.
The resulting carnage will be colossal, sorting itself into one of at least three broad categories: trauma that can be undone; truma we must learn to live with and; trauma from which the nation will never recover. And only time will tell which gross malfeasance falls into which category.
As historians begin to autopsy a presidency that should never have happened, few if any previous executives have mastered the art of exploitation as has Trump. He didn’t institute the siloization of American race, economics, politics or religion; he just used the hell out of it.
As with any semi-despotic leader, stealth has been a Trump tool of choice when it comes to taking advantage of these existing divisions. So under-the-radar have some policy changes been, even big-budget mainstream media outlets have relied heavily on insiders and disgruntled former sycophants in an effort to keep up.
Yet, as his juvenile and futile attempts at discrediting the election results have once again made clear, another of Trump’s means for twisting reality to fit his purposes is blind outrage — feigned, real or carried out in the extreme by furious loyalists, such as Steve Bannon, Alex Jones and the omnipresent Rudy Giuliani. On their planet, Trump is forever the besieged savior come to rescue freedom from the baby killers. He must be defended with great fury.
Then there is Trump the Intimidator as groomed early on by Roy Cohn, the unscrupulous legal fixer and 1950s Red Baiter who mentored Trump in strongarming opponents. This is the bullish Trump, devoid of a shred of respect for anyone who calls out his stealth moves or is unfazed by his outrage.
Stealth. Outrage. Intimidation. These are staples of the unprincipled, dangerous orthodoxy that has cost this country dearly. It’s a toxic, but clearly popular worldview that has only made a deeply antagonized people all the more.
Evidence Trump is in his own bunker phase, there is but one more tool at his disposal: martyrdom. Not the kind that precipitates bodily harm; but that which is accorded the triumphant boxer, robbed of a winning decision by a rigged agreement between principalities beyond the fighter’s control. Every bit as megalomaniacal as it appears, there’s a certain inevitably to Trump’s status as fallen fighter for what’s good and right. Even the greatest of them all could not overcome the leftist deep state.
On Day 1,461 of the Trump administration change will come at last. Science will once again matter. Diversity will once again matter. Our allies will once again matter.
But we can bet the old gray mule we won’t have seen the last of Trump. Not a chance. Trump doesn’t lose in public, and there’s nothing more public than losing the presidency of the United States.
Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister living in Hendersonville, N.C. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2021
Blog | Current Issue | Back Issues | Essays | Links
About the Progressive Populist | How to Subscribe | How to Contact Us
PO Box 819, Manchaca TX 78652