One of the tricks of Trumpism is making many of us forget who we are as a nation.
A rhetorical sleight of hand designed to prey on vulnerable psyches and bisect our very nature as Americans.
The intent is to cut followers off from their fellow countrymen by presenting ‘others’ as somehow less worthy of the rights they themselves enjoy.
It is the oldest trick in the authoritarian’s playbook (and one that the greasy orange hustler from Queens, inherited from his avowed white supremacist tax-cheat father and his brothel-owning, cowardly grandfather).
Our strength has always been built on unity (whether or not equality is fully part of the equation, our obvious original sin as a republic for which we have yet to fully atone).
Even those on the other side of our historical oppression understood that our strength rested in our aspirational unity and wholeness rather than separation and division.
At least that was the lesson of the leaders who urged us again and again to aim for our better angels.
Not to mention all the brave men and women who fought for ideals and rights they themselves were being denied and would not be afforded in their lifetimes.
They fought on behalf of the future and the belief that we could in fact one day live up to our promise.
To become that shining city on a hill where men and women would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin, to paraphrase our country’s greatest orator and civil rights leader.
A man who was assassinated by the same type of citizen the GOP now actively courts as a voter - a racist white man with a gun who has been bred through decade upon decade of ignorance, much of it centered in the South, that proclaims a minority’s freedom and ability to vote is a threat to their way of life as a backwoods, culturally ignorant and uneducated so-called Christians.
The problem now is the American south that Neil Young sang about and excoriated exists and festers in places like upstate New York, Pennsylvania and Michigan, nearly as much as it does in traditionally racist enclaves like Alabama and Mississippi.
The worst aspects of rural white American life have gone national - thanks to the branding and pestilence pipeline of the modern conservative movement by organizations like CPAC and jack-bootlicker politicians like Ron DeSanits who ran a (albeit laughable incompetent) campaign on the slogan ‘Make America Florida’.
No man in modern American history has sought to exploit our differences and tear at the seams of the fabric of this once great country - and send us spiraling into a dark chasm from which democracy may not return - more than Donald J. Trump.
A more unforgivable crime does not exist in our civic life.
Trump is the guy you hire when you want to break things.
It is why Vladimir Putin courted and used him, through Russian mob associates like Felix Sater (the man behind Trump Tower Moscow), during the 2016 campaign.
All of Trump’s business fail by design but not before laundering enormous piles of cash for everyone from international drug cartels (and a few local ones) to his former partners in the notorious ‘Five Families’.
Then, upon the ascent of his political career, Trump got into the big leagues so to speak.
His partners became KSA and Koch Brothers-backed interests. MBAs and MBS have nothing on a few thugs hauling concrete and garbage in NYC.
Trump became the candidate of choice for the global petrochemical industry and most notoriously, for men like Charles Koch, whose over-arching goal is to destroy American progress in sustainable energy and kill any and all environmental and financial regulations that a functioning democracy demands.
These men make their fortunes exploiting public lands and resources and rely upon the acquiescence of both the Republican party and the cult-like dogma of the burgeoning Christofascist movement.
Their goal is to destroy liberalism and any hint of progressive politics on behalf of the almighty dollar - as long as those dollars are going into their own pockets.
They do this in myriad ways like destroying public education, healthcare, Social Security and public safety nets; their influence so far has already lowered the life-expectancy rate in the United States.
They prey on the culturally uneducated and generationally xenophobic that has come to define so much of “red state” American citizenry.
Tens of millions of Americans have been dumbed-down, lied to and told they were the ‘good guys’ and actual patriots, by Fox News, Facebook groups spreading Russian propaganda talking points, and a bevy of execrable online conservative commentators.
Think of the years we have lost (eight and counting) fighting climate change, poverty, famine and global fascist upheaval due to the freak show that Trump and his MAGA army has inflicted the USA and you will understand the strategy of the men who pull Trump’s strings.
Like the puppet his is and has always been.
From ‘Fat Tony’ Salerno to the Federalist Society, there has always been someone in the shadows playing off of Trump’s narcissism, avarice, lust and ego to achieve their own goals.
That is NOT to say Donald isn’t completely complicit in his own criminality.
He is and always has been fully aware that he is, in fact, breaking the law, whether in Jeffrey Epstein’s upper east side brothel or while attempting to overturn a free and fair election.
But his immediate needs, whether lust, ego reinforcement or exacting revenge on his perceived enemies are being manipulated by psychological Judo-masters behind the scenes who have much larger designs on shaping the big picture narrative of the course of our country and the state of our democracy.
Trump is motivated mainly by defect of character and in-the-moment carnal and broken-ego desires; he generally plays to the room he’s in at any given point while his handlers play to the whole globe - and are more than willing to use him to set it on fire.
Trump and his extremist MAGA minions have become the perfect beast for those who wish to untether us from our better angels and dismantle the progress of the American experiment.
They would have us turn our back on the loftier principles and bedrock tenets that we have attempted to aim our collective purpose towards.
Things we hope to stand for - like equality, pluralism and a spirit of coming together for the common good.
The shared sacrifice so many in this nation displayed during World War II is all but a distant memory now in our public life.
The GOP under the aegis of Trumpism would turn the greatest generation into the greediest one.
Willing to throw away a few centuries of progress to appease the desires of a man whose every utterance in public life puts him on the civil safety level of a rabid dog in the town square.
Donald Trump belongs in a cage and hopefully in the coming year one of his myriad criminal cases will put him there.
In the meantime we must do all we can to protect and promote the issues at stake that are vital to the American experiment.
We can and will come together in 2024 to reelect President Biden, a man who understands the gravity of the moment and will serve the people, not himself.
Wishing you all peace, resilience and renewed clarity in the coming year.
It's actually amazing to me that he's still alive... just sayin....
I contend that dynamic was in full employ by Ronnie Rayguns.