I know a panic is coming, but right now, today, what I am experiencing as I face the barrage of apocalyptic news coming out of Washington is a rather uneasy calm. It's not as if I haven't had moments of rage of the kind that makes an elderly couch potato hope that it's not exceptional, but a milder form of what someone who actually does stuff might be feeling. But maybe thanks to the clean conscience of one of the not nearly enough who actually voted to try to prevent the chaos we're experiencing, I am finding it easy to return to a state of composure about what we're facing. Perhaps it's a parasympathetic response-- the nervous system is shutting off pain to permit my psyche to assimilate and address the trauma. I have no doubt that what we're witnessing is a coup-- the president has essentially greenlit a raid of the Federal government by his largest donor who happens to be the world's wealthiest person and an invasive citizen from South Africa by way of Canada, who also happens to have attracted through his business practices the unwanted attention of several of the Federal Agencies he and his teenaged minions have been given carte-blanche access to. The question is why? Why did the guy who just made a political comeback unleash the forces of his nation's destruction coming right out of the gate? I can think of several possibilities.
First, Donald Trump is not a terribly well-formed individual. He has average intelligence and capabilities but has been the beneficiary of outsized advantages and the sort of egregious parenting that fosters at least the outward appearance of baseless, limitless self-regard. It's an entertaining show that has contributed enormously to his popular appeal. How else do you explain how someone as fatally flawed, proudly uncurious, and intellectually and behaviorally stunted as he could again be entrusted with the reins of the most perilously consequential office on the planet especially after he was roundly rejected after his first term? Even if you believe (as I do) that a good portion of the explanation has to do with corruption, cheating, theft and malfeasance (to say nothing of an electorate under-concerned with the threat of exactly what we're seeing thanks to whatever sleight of hand distracted them on the day their votes were cast), you have to admit that whatever he has going for him has granted him the plausible appearance of legitimate incumbency. I am saying that it would be reasonable to expect a normal person faced with the responsibility bestowed (a second time!) on this motherfucker would have some concern about the appearance of stewardship and care with the institutions of our shared democracy. In short, this is happening because Donald Trump is a freak-- a sociopathic monster of privilege and ego who has no regard for history or for the feelings of others.
Second, and this follows from the first, is the question of what motivates a president who clearly gives not a single fuck about the government or the people he is president of. My sense (and this is not entirely my original idea but I don't recall where I first heard hints of it), is that Donald Trump already got what he wanted. After losing rather handily to Joe Biden in 2020 thanks in large part to his predictably poor handling of the COVID crisis that came out of nowhere and changed everything that election year, Trump got what he wanted in November. He won the election by popular vote. Trump just wanted the title. Miss Universe.
All the more remarkable considering what a disastrous campaign he ran-- not a liability when the competition was the visibly deteriorating and unpopular Joe Biden but a real feat when Biden was replaced at the 11th hour by the eventual runner-up, Kamala Harris. True, to make it work, Trump had to suppress some of the promises he made to the forces that kept his campaign funded. He knew Project 2025 was not a winner with voters and so he feigned ignorance of it. As a gift to Trump, instead of selling herself as a break from the present doldrums of both Biden and Trump, Harris opted to complete Biden's campaign as she found it and assert her intention for her administration to be what the people clearly did not want-- a continuation.
Having sailed past the concerns of the majority of the voters of that day, Trump is now happy to let Elon be president-- make that happy to let Elon do the work. What does he care what happens to the government or the people? He doesn’t have to run again unless he feels like it. He’s perfectly content handing his credentials, access and “responsibilities” to others as long as he gets to keep the crown.
And not go to jail.
And maybe actually be a real billionaire.
How convenient for the agenda of the suddenly blossoming Nazism of the invasive South African and his adoptive party. For the rest of us-- including the electorate that made it possible, absolved though they are for the poor quality of their choice by the political malpractice of the campaign of the opposition-- maybe not so much.
No comments:
Post a Comment