David Frum is in the latest Atlantic magazine warning us about Trump, AGAIN. I'm not complaining. In fact, I salute him. God knows people need warning. Mr. Frum has the patience of a saint, because by now it's obvious that warning people about Trump is like beating your head against a heavily reinforced ferroconcrete wall eight or ten inches thick. That thing ain't going nowhere. People get it or they don't. Carve that right into America's tombstone.
Whatever you may hear, there remain tens of millions of people who love that stupid comb-over, who quiver with excitement when he waves those tiny, flaccid fists in front of his fat, marshmallow chest, who long to hear him once again proclaim his burning hatred for the people, places, and things that they also passionately hate. Will there be enough of them to win another election? We'll find out soon enough.
I'm getting tired of reading about how Trump's poll numbers are tanking, and how whole demographics are abandoning him like the rats that they resembled when they voted for him in the first place. Doesn't it feel a bit like the campaign of 2016? The thought of Trump winning was by equal measures horrible and ridiculous. He can't win, can he? God, that would be a rough ride. Could the country survive? We now know the answer to those questions. Yes, he could win, and no, the country could not survive. The whole house of cards has already surrendered to gravity, and people are still hoping for the best for the simple reason that the cards are still in the air, falling. No one will believe it until all of the cards are laying flat on the table, dead as door nails. It won't be long now.
American media is full to overflow with similar warnings. Everyone from simple bloggers like myself to more erudite journalists like Chris Hedges, and more astute observers like Charles Pierce, to genuine academics like Paul Krugman, have chimed in regarding this problem on a regular basis since it began. Ha! For all the good that it has done! We stand on the edge of losing our democracy, our freedom, and our way of life. Our only consolation is that the entire world seems to have lost its collective mind. We are not alone in our folly.
Mr. Frum alludes to only four of the torments inflicted on us by Trump. That sounds a bit light, but to be fair, even Charles Dickens being paid by the word would have a hard time compiling a complete list of Trumps transgressions. Mr. Frum lists abuse of the pardon power, which is certainly true, but perhaps the least of our worries. Abuse of government resources for personal gain, also certainly true, but Trump is such a small-timer that the damage is manageable. Directing public funds to himself and his companies, visible day to day, but it has amounted to less than Jeff Bezos earns in a matter of hours. And inciting political violence, which to me is the most telling and dangerous of the four. This indicates that Trump seeks to install himself permanently at the head of American affairs. To hell with constitutional freedoms and independent courts. There is your tyranny, all of you militia assholes.
Our venal Republican “representatives” remind me of of the German industrialists who backed Hitler's rise to power because they thought there was money in it for them, and they felt that they were safe, because, after all, Germany was a civilized country. That's what they thought. This time around, our Republicans, and their truly rich friends, backed Trump because they believed that they could control him. They figured Trump would lower their taxes and get rid of all of that pesky regulation, and he has delivered those benefits. Those Germans thought that Hitler would get the economy humming again and spend a lot of money with the big arms manufacturers. It wasn't too long before Hitler was firmly in charge, and the Nazis started taking stuff that they liked from the rightful owners, whoever they were. Hitler's flunkies helped themselves to the property of the rich Germans. Perhaps the Republicans will have better luck, but a second term might put them at a similar risk. It might put us all at risk of losing everything.
Mr. Frum mentions that Alexander Hamilton clearly foresaw this danger and wrote about it in the Federalist Papers. The danger of a Caesar overturning our republic, or a Cromwell seizing power to fill a vacuum of some kind. Gaius Julius Caesar was a great Roman general and statesman, a fine writer and historian, and a popular leader of men. His personal urge to power put an end to the Roman republic during the first century BCE. Caesar was ultimately murdered for his hubris. Oliver Cromwell became the self-appointed “Lord Protector” of England after the chaotic civil war and regicide of the Seventeenth Century. Cromwell died of natural causes, after raising considerable hell not only in England and Scotland, but also in Ireland, where he is remembered, not fondly but well. Those were men of charisma and substance. For us, it seems, an insignificant Clarabell was all that was needed. A honking, clownish, cartoon billionaire, and a broke-ass billionaire at that. A reality TV show simulacrum of a billionaire. A billionaire in debt only.
Oh, blah, blah, blah. One grows tired of this game. Trump is only part of a larger problem. A very limited number of individuals, over a period of almost one hundred years now, has been engaged in a mighty struggle to oppress working people and oppose, delay, or minimize every slight benefit that more enlightened government officials sought to extend to the powerless. Any piece of social justice legislation that has snuck through and become law has been added to the list of targets to be destroyed. The New Deal; the weekend; Social Security; the vacation; civil rights; overtime pay; the Great Society; all of it. Their memories are long, and their blood is hot. Their enemies list still includes hippies and college professors. They see all of this as threats to their mastery of society and to what they consider to be “their money.” That would be all of the money.
If Trump is re-elected, we'd better hope that the Republicans can do a better job of reeling him in than the German elites did with Hitler. Maybe they can. After all, Trump is no Hitler. Hitler was many things, but “an idiot” was not one of them. Then again, Hitler did not have an Internet to supercharge his propaganda, so who knows?
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