The real problem is not Trump, but Trump supporters. Weeks after the election they remain non-astute and adverse to reality, which Trump cons to pitch-perfect perfection.
Trumpism has long been with us.
Of course, some form of Trump-world has always festered in the sad underbelly of American life. It thrived during the Confederacy, slavery, Jim Crow, and the diabolical mantra “Manifest Destiny” (finding a home mostly with Democrats then).
In the modern era, Republicans have succumbed, trashing Brown vs. Board of Education (1954), cheering McCarthyism, resisting integration, undermining Civil Rights (1964) and Voting Rights (1965), to this day contriving voter suppression schemes, championing immoral wars, polluting God’s creation, and excusing not just White House leadership negligence during this COVID-19 pandemic, but leadership malpractice.
For the past four years, Trump has appointed unskilled accomplices from which he demands mobster-like loyalty. Yes, mobster-like. When some of them actually do their job—surprise, surprise—he trashes them on Twitter, in FOX or conservative talk radio interviews, and fires them. Trump-world conservatives have grown accustomed to overlooking his daily and dangerously immature tantrums, and even cheering him on. Imagine turning over the sacred stewardship of a nation, let alone its nuclear codes, to such an I-centered, unstable, power-craving man-child? Inexcusable.
Can moderate and liberal citizens be successful in converting the hearts and minds of Trump-world conservatives? Unlikely. This portion of the U.S. population has fallen under a toxic spirit and spell not unlike the U.S. southern Confederacy and 1930’s Germany. Their behavior since the November election alone should disqualify them from the responsibility of voting for at least the next several election cycles. We have seen shocking waves of dishonesty, low intelligence, frivolous lawsuits, and lack of even a minimal smidgen of wisdom.
Too many Trumpists—senators, cabinet officers, governors, representatives, secretaries of state, the vice president, lawyers—as well media personalities, industry leaders, and ordinary citizens have fallen under this spell. Thankfully, most officials in our judicial branch of government, including even conservative judges, have chosen to honor the U.S. Constitution and their oaths of office rather than join the Trump sinkhole. To this, we can only say—whew!
We probably won’t instill meaningful transformation in these fellow citizens caught up in Trump-world. Like Trump/Pence, they seem incapable of maturing on their own. But we can work ceaselessly to keep such folks out of positions of responsibility and power. Integrity demands this.
We can work diligently to better connect with and register to vote moderate and liberal citizens in every State and territory, those for whom sanity, ecological responsibility, racial and ethnic equality, marriage equality, basic health care for all, scientific knowledge, respect for the U.S. Constitution and rule of law, war-making as an absolute last resort, and decency are values to be cherished.
Yeshia’s comment should probably get deleted, I suspect it was posted in error.
For decades, authoritarian governments have tried to discredit the democratic principles of the United States by pointing out the very real problems we struggle with as a free society, such as racism, disparities in access to health care, wealth inequities, and a host of other ways we could be better. These authoritarian leaders never succeeded. As a country, we recognize our shortcomings but seek to do better by embracing the constitutional ideal that we live in a free society that can improve in offering equal opportunities to all. We have succeeded in peacefully transferring/shifting power from one president and congress to another every two, four, six, eight years without serious incident — until now. For the first time in our history, the ideals of our constitution are being challenged by a president who clearly doesn’t believe in democracy, the rule of law, or our constitution. It is frightening that he has so many people, many of them elected members of the senate and house, who seem willing to trade the ideal of democratic governance for the childish and dangerous tantrum of a defeated one-term president who clearly has tried his hand at authoritarian rule.