Saturday, February 9, 2019

Defeating the Destroyer


Sometimes, I wish the second shoe would just get it over with and drop, dammit.  I feel constantly like I’m living in some horrible nightmare but I can’t awaken.  And with each new revelation, the feeling deepens. And, the worst part is that, it isn’t only crap about Trump. Every day, some other idiot, generally, but not always a republican, does or says something so outrageously stupid that one has to wonder on which planet they reside.

It seems as though our entire country is falling apart and we are all just standing around watching it collapse, only we can’t do anything to stop it. And meanwhile, I’m supposed to go about my life as though none of this crap is occurring. Oh, I can/do scream about each occurrence on Facebook, but that is a bit like crawling into a little dark cupboard and screaming into the night at the top of my lungs with nobody listening. Oh, people read my screams, and some check “like”. Some even write something to the effect that they “agree” with me.  And then we all go about our business, as though we just did something meaningful. When all we really did is to crawl into that cupboard and scream into the night.

See, Facebook is our new method of making believe we are doing something, when, instead, all we are really doing is entertaining/distracting ourselves. We have a president who is arguably the most corrupt con man on the planet, and we are allowing him to destroy right in front of us, many of the things our nation has spent years/decades building, and we are unable to do anything meaningful to stop him.  He has been appointing people to run our government agencies who are, to a person, fundamentally opposed to the very purposes of those agencies.  Mostly, they are both ignorant and opposed—see Betsy DeVos--, but sometimes they are worse—they are informed and opposed and those are the really dangerous ones.  Jennifer Rubin[1] writes about the catastrophic Trump Cabinet:

A number of historians and political scientists agree that Trump’s Cabinet really is the worst they can recall. American University history professor (and accurate prognosticator of Trump’s win in 2016) Allan Lichtman tells me, “There is no question that this is the most unqualified and inexperienced cabinet in the modern history of the presidency. Several of the cabinet officials not only lack the most basic qualifications for their jobs, but are intent upon undermining the fundamental mission of their departments: DeVos at Education, Carson at HUD, and Zinke at Interior. You can also add in Pruitt at EPA.” He adds in, “More than any other group of cabinet officials the Trump appointees also are using the federal treasury as their personal expense accounts.” With the firing of Tillerson on Tuesday, Lichtman observes that the churn of Cabinet officials “is without precedent in recent presidential history.”

And, so we read about their inane, dangerous behavior daily, and, again, we are unable to do anything. And his republican supporters continue to act as his cheerleaders.

Meanwhile, the Robert Mueller investigation continues to churn on . . . and on . . . and on. People get indicted, never the main character. He is the like The Don, the head man in his own Mafia organization.  I am becoming inured to the daily commentary by or about Trump.  How Trump is going to get indicted, or impeached, or maybe Don Jr. is going to get indicted. But, meanwhile, he goes on and on, and I have begun to wonder . . . is this Mueller investigation simply a charade begun by Trump to keep us entertained while he systematically destroys the country, after which Trump pulls up, gathers his family together into one of his private jets and flies off to some country designated by his patron Vlad the Impaler.  And, then, we awaken and observe the shards of our former country, and then we begin killing one another, because there is so much hate and no one to blame but ourselves.

What amazes me, perhaps more than anything else, is the fact that people exist in America, thousands, even millions of them, who continue to say that he is the best president we have ever had, and he is doling an amazing job as their president.  And I wonder, did the folks conned by Ponzi, or by that old rascal Bernie Madoff, continue to say nice things about them, even after the truth was revealed?

Is this how the last Civil War began? Millions of folks believed that slavery was the last, best hope for mankind and they would go to war and kill or be killed defending slavery? And now, they will do the same thing for Trump and his ragtag band of thugs and crooks, and con men? Are we poised for a second Civil War? What might bring it on—Impeachment proceedings??  If he were impeached and a trial took place, would those heavily armed folks with lots of guns but few active brain cells, begin to gather in the streets and begin shooting randomly?

What could prevent such a thing, I wonder? Will his supporters even obey an actual vote of the American people? We know that, if the 2020 election occurs and Trump is voted out of office, he will begin yelling FRAUD at every opportunity and, using his FOX PR outlets, he will energize his crazed supporters.  We think that he did not expect to win the first time, and was using the election process merely to enrich his coffers. That his win was a complete shock, to him and almost everyone paying attention.  But now, despite the daily drubbing in the “Fake News”, he likely gets off on being President, so he is unlikely to go quiet into the night.

We have been saying, just go out and vote in 2020. Vote him out of office legitimately. And then all will be well again. And I wish that were true. But it all sounds like “thoughts and prayers” to me now.  I am beginning to think that we need to do something to ensure that, when/if an election is actually held in 2020, and if he actually loses and is thus booted out of office, that we will do something to maintain order.  But I think that we cannot limit ourselves to awaiting the arrival of the National Guard. Somehow, we need to begin soothing the savage beast that is the American people. And what could that be, I wonder? What can we do, short of arming everyone? I think we need some kind of systematic airing of grievances to disarm the awful rhetoric of each side in this battle for the soul of America.  Maybe we need national focus groups meeting all over the country, in which people on each side are allowed to speak their piece, but without yelling or calling names. Labeling folks who are opposed would perhaps not be permitted. Everyone gets to talk, but speaking in public is only allowed if people tell us about what they want the country to do, or what they fear the country will do. We need to know what kind of country we now inhabit. And we need to understand whether we still have a nation of laws and honor, and humanity. And whether love for our fellow man is still present.

We need to do something folks, or everything we hold dear might be destroyed. That is how serious this mess is that we and the Donald have created.  Understand, please, The Donald is not and never has been an actual builder. He has destroyed almost everything he created. He intends on destroying America. We cannot allow him to do that, but it is up to us to decide how best to prevent the ending of America.  We need ideas. We need a willing spirit. We need this . . . now.


[1] Rubin, Jennifer, Here’s the case: Trump has the worst Cabinet everThe Washington Post

No comments: