 “The
Nazis may write like schoolboys, but they're capable of
anything. That's just why they're so dangerous. People laugh at
them, right up to the last moment...” - Christopher Isherwood,
Goodbye to Berlin, 1939
American democracy has been in decline for 50 years, and the
fragility of democracy has been laid bare by Donald Trump and
his reign of idiocy. We have been adrift in what Plato described
as a “Ship of Fools”. The ship is a metaphor for a government
that is run by amateurs - a government that eschews expertise
and mastery in favor of boot-lickers, scavengers, those who
would self-righteously claim the Nuremberg Defense: “I was
obligated to follow the orders of my superior officer”. This
will be the Senate’s Republican Defense, as well. Fifty American
politicians who followed the orders of their Führer. Of course,
William Barr will claim the Nuremberg Defense - as will Mike
Pompeo, Wilbur Ross, Betsy DeVos and the rest of Trump’s cabinet
of venal blockheads. Mitch McConnell will claim the
Machiavellian Defense: 1) The ends justify the means, and 2) I
will crush any opposition. McConnell is an intransigent champion
of the mirthless dogmatism of conservative thought; a man who
regards himself as part savior of the party; part keeper of the
faith; and part executioner. Indeed, he will be remembered by
history as the Grim Reaper of Democracy.
Plato said that democracies like ours will inevitably take the
notion of populism too literally and finally yield to its own
illogic. But we know better. Actors don’t make good presidents -
nor do populist celebrities who are famous for being famous.
Jay-Z is not presidential material, neither is Sarah Palin, and
most conspicuously, neither is Donald J. Trump.
It is unfashionable in America today to be an expert in
anything. Anthony Fauci is an “idiot”, the press is entirely
“fake”, and Melania really does “care”.
As we survey today’s America, the ideal that anyone - even a
haberdasher from Independence, Missouri - can grow up to be
President of the United States now lacks the clause that leavens
it: “…but only if you study, work hard, and acquire sufficient
knowledge, education, and experience to execute the job”. And we
have learned something else from Donald Trump’s Ship of Fools:
Those who declare their piety are the most depraved; while those
who have been outcasts, exude decency. I would not trust Mike
Pence around a little girl any more than I would trust Ivanka
Trump to stop female trafficking or the caging of immigrant
children.
For the last 4 years, one half of America has been devolving
into a pack of rabid dogs, foaming at the mouth, prancing and
drooling their backwardness like feral hounds. Chants of “Jews
will not replace us” and “Lock her up” have debased the very
document that permits their voices to be heard. For half of
America - and all of the Republican Party - the cynicism that
accompanies their greed and ignorance must be broadly condemned,
loudly condemned. They aren’t “depraved on accounta being
deprived” – they are the Rosemary’s Baby of a country that
forgot how it got here and who its heroes were. A country that
cultivates ignorance and boorishness. A country that doesn’t
know that it is stupid, powerful, and dangerous.
Do Republicans see their reflections in mirrors as they stroll
the halls of Congress? Have they ever asked themselves, “Why all
the guns?”; “Why all the Sturm und Drang?”
“Divine decadence, darling”, as Sally Bowles described Berlin in
the 1930s. Divine decadence.
What Donald Trump has left of Washington is T. S. Eliot’s
“Hollow Men”:
“We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw.
…
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow…
…
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.” |
