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The Victimhood Of Donald Trump
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| It’s getting weird here in
America. Pregnant women are being painted as whores, men are
swaggering about as if they all have harems, and grievance has
been entered into the American canon as the new burning bush of
American democracy. |
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By
Debby Long |
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 “Trump is not the victim of the judicial system; he is or has
been the defendant in 3,500 lawsuits - that's not the mark of a
victim but rather a perpetrator.” - Christine Todd Whitman
It’s getting weird here in America. Pregnant women are being
painted as whores, men are swaggering about as if they all have
harems, and grievance has been entered into the American canon
as the new burning bush of American democracy. And this nebulous
sense of grievance that currently grips the nation sits on the
squared shoulders of inane populism. We no longer know how to
react to the throngs of desperate, impoverished immigrants
waking up stranded on Martha’s Vineyard. Scoundrelly mustache
twirling politicians like Ted Cruz get a pass while en route to
the beaches of the Yucatan. And images of tragically un-adopted
puppies with flies on their eyes make us feel like moral
transgressors. Since virtue signaling has become the new
political activism in America, knowledge of history, geography,
science, mathematics, and social sciences has become nothing
more than excess ballast to be dumped overboard as our ship of
fools arrives in the harbor.
And arrive it has because in our Abrahamic formulation of good
versus evil, we have lost our critical thinking skills amidst
all this voguing. We no longer seem to know what American
democracy is and why it is worth preserving, much less the logic
that led to it in the first place. We have forgotten why the
American Constitution would require a secular government in the
face of a theocratic Supreme Court - and why the terroristic
threats of a demagogue like Donald Trump are to be construed as
criminal and not an exercise of his First Amendment rights. We
now live in a country where logic has given way to the cheesy
rhetoric of a campaign rally. The question is whether a new
American political ideology has been born: group victimhood
parading as empathy. In any case, it’s a repulsive demonstration
of collective narcissism. And who better to lead this cult of
performance art than Donald Trump?
We have forgotten the logic of Thomas Jefferson who said:
“A strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the
high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The
laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country
when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by
a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the
law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are
enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the
means.”
Yes, sacrificing the ends to the means. But who needs a decision
tree when you have a burning bush? When you have the textualism
of the Bible and the originalism of a constitution. We simply
cannot escape the mythology of the Abrahamic religions no matter
how much we learn from social and scientific research. We are
utterly disarmed when Donald Trump sits in the interview chair,
leaning forward as if on a toilet, announcing his plans to be
the first American dictator - then breaking the 4th wall by
turning to the audience and grinning. Is he just kidding, or
does he mean it? And if he wins the 2024 presidential election,
does he have the right to extinguish American democracy because
the majority has spoken and gives him their support? Are we
talking Barabbas here, or is this excruciating 8 years of his
cultural transgressions simply entertainment for a nation
suffering from mass ennui?
Since 2016, Donald Trump has been the monster that just won’t
die. Americans have been consumed by his apparent immunity to
the coercive measures civil society levels at criminals who defy
the law. He’s a tax cheat, a rapist, an organized crime figure,
and an insurrectionist - but in the self-indulgent minds of most
Americans, Donald Trump is a Robin Hood. He is a comic book
anti-hero of sorts, an arriviste who figured out how to game the
system. He is a sympathetic rogue who always manages to slip
through the net. And his super power was to leverage his
father’s money into massive unsecured loans using a charming
form of self-parody. He is Muhammad Ali rope-a-doping an entire
country.
Trump’s juvenile narcissism made him shoot for the sky, and we
have watched as he grabbed at anything to cushion his fall on
his way down. Trump isn’t some sort of political idiot savant or
even a successful hustler. He’s nothing more than a spoiled
teenaged bully who was raised by a wealthy Nazi sympathizer for
a father. And like Nazis of the past, Trump the politician has
been stumping for sadism ever since. And it is this geriatric
punk who today threatens to dissolve our 248-year-old democracy.
Of course, Donald Trump should be removed from the primary
ballots in all 50 states of the US; he conspired, instigated,
and participated in an insurrection to prevent the peaceful
transfer of the American presidency to Joe Biden. That action
dwarfs any First Amendment rights he might claim as a defense.
And, of course, he should be tried and imprisoned for the crimes
he has committed while both in and out of office. Anything less
would stand as an instance of what Thomas Jefferson cited should
America: “sacrifice the ends to the means”. Why would we permit
this treasonous coup plotter to finish the job?
But who needs a decision tree when you have a burning bush?
We need a decision tree because we are long past the era of the
burning bush. We are long past an eye for an eye, and we are
long past governing through grievance. We no longer want or need
a leader who is our retribution, and we no longer need someone
to die for our sins.
And we must not sacrifice our 248-year-old democracy on the
altar of Donald Trump’s reflection.
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| Image: Pepper No. 30, Edward Weston, 193 |
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