gracchusdixit

Donald J. Trump—a convicted felon, sexual abuser, and serial adulterer—has been President of the United States for little more than a month, yet in that time he has inflicted decades worth of damage on American democracy. The first time he occupied the White House, his presidency was so chaotic, incompetent, and unprepared, that four years later he was booted out of office, losing by seven million votes to the already doddering Joe Biden, one of the least inspiring presidential candidates in American history. This time, however, Trump and his henchmen may be no less chaotic and incompetent, but they are infinitely better prepared, and they moving swiftly to impose what can only be described as a revolutionary reign of terror on the nation.

On his first day in office, our new “fearless leader” unleashed a torrent of executive orders that violate the constitution, make a mockery of the law, and upend the fragile social and cultural balance that has held our fissiparous and centrifugal nation together for generations. In the days since, he has taken steps to impose his absolute control on the military and law enforcement, to wrest the power of the purse from Congress, and to cow the media into subservient silence. All but one of his cabinet nominees —most of whom are utterly unqualified, ethically questionable, or both—have been confirmed. And finally, Trump’s unelected doppelgänger, Elon Musk, has been let loose on the federal government, with the explicit purpose of destroying as much of it as he can.

If Trump is the sociopath that he so obviously is, then Musk qualifies as a psychopath, whose monstrous ego feeds on delusions of grandeur, is blind to his own failings, and takes pleasure in the pain and suffering of his fellow human beings. Because this latter-day Rumpelstiltskin is the world’s richest man—thanks in large part to the largess of the federal government—money-worshipping Republicans have decided that Musk is to Trump what St. Peter was to Christ, the rock on which his church was built.

As horrific as all this is, worse—much worse—is sure to come. To anyone who once dismissed Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric as mere bluster or pooh-poohed the deadly seriousness of his vengeful agenda in the vain hope that he didn’t really mean it, the only thing I can say is this: It is time to wake up and shed your illusions about both the man and his malignant mission.

It is also time to shed another illusion, i.e., the always preposterous fiction that the United States of America is a morally exceptional nation and that Americans are a uniquely decent people in a world otherwise filled with sin and woe. If Americans had even a shred of decency, they would be recoiling in horror, disbelief, and outrage in the face of Trump’s cruelty. And some of them are. Most, however, seem to like what they see. Indeed, Donald Trump’s approval ratings are higher than they have ever been, and one recent poll found that, if the 2024 election were rerun today, he would win, not by the slim plurality of last November, but by a decisive majority.

Just days after that November election, the Governor of Michigan, who is, or was, frequently touted as one of the Democratic Party’s rising stars, said this:

As we move forward, let’s remember that we are a nation of good, kind people that have more in common with each other than not. Finally, let’s root for the success of the new administration and keep working together to get things done.

I have no idea whether these sentiments were sincerely meant or merely a political calculation. What I do know is that they are fatuous, false, and morally repugnant.

A “nation of good, kind people” would not allow 30 percent of its population to own more guns than automobiles, with the result that 20 percent of all the murders in the world occur in the United States and more American children are killed by guns than by any plague or disease.

A “nation of good, kind people” would not tolerate, let alone applaud, the prospect of millions of hapless immigrants being rounded up, locked away in concentration camps, and deported to God-knows-where, simply for committing the spurious “crime” of seeking a better life for themselves and their families.

A “nation of good, kind people” would not abide the denial of critical medical care to desperate women, whose only wish is to end pregnancies they never asked for, let alone stand by as all too many of them die for want of that care.

A “nation of good, kind people” would not turn a blind eye to the persecution, and soon perhaps the prosecution, of gay and transgender Americans, whose only “sin” is a desire to be the people they believe themselves to be.

The assertion that we are a “nation of good, kind people” is a travesty. The exhortation to “root for the success of the new administration” in the name of “getting things done” is far worse. This sort of cheerleading nonsense is more than naive, it is a grotesque failure of moral and historical imagination. Most of all, it is a failure to see the “American people” for what they are and always have been: insular and ignorant, bigoted and backward, self-centered and all too frequently cruel. Rooting for the success of the Trump administration is tantamount to cheering on Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate the Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, and other “inferior” beings of Europe.

H. L. Mencken, the most acerbic observer of the American scene who ever put pen to paper, once wrote:

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Little did even the quintessentially cynical Mencken imagine that the White House would someday be adorned, not merely by a “downright moron,” but by a convicted criminal and a psychological freak. Say what you will about the man, Donald Trump has always made his freakish and criminal intentions clear. That 77 million Americans voted for him nonetheless is a stain upon this country and its people that can never be erased.