I’m not a politician or a journalist or a spy. I’m just an ordinary, self-employed citizen who pays attention to what happens politically because it impacts me, my family, friends, the people I love. And if there’s a message in this, it’s simple.
A decade ago when trump came down that garish gold staircase with Melania, I didn’t know much about him. I’d never watched The Apprentice. Never read The Art of the Deal. The only facts I had about him were that he was a New York zillionaire married to a pretty immigrant who never said much, and that he’d been close friends with pervert and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. But when I saw him on that staircase and knew it was the prelude to his announcement that he would be running for president, my body revolted. I nearly puked.
And I started paying closer attention. His Florida home, after all, is just 15 miles to the east of us on the beach of Palm Beach. JFK also had a home in Palm Beach and I’d driven past it a number of times in all my years in South Florida. Since Mar a Lago is on A-1-A – the road along the beach – I’d driven past it, too, an historical spot because it had belonged to Marjorie Marriweather post.
From that moment when I watched him & Melania descend on that staircase, my visceral reaction and feelings about trump have deepened. I can’t stand seeing his orange face, hearing his usually nonsensical, boastful voice. Just his visual presence on a TV screen revolts me. Some people say that trump has charisma. I don’t see it, never have. He’s a pathological liar, selfish grifter, & narcissist who believes he’s handsome and brilliant, all gag worthy. He’s every bit a cult leader, just like Jim Jones was, and I suppose if he told his faithful base to drink Kool-Aid laced with poison they would do it. And he wouldn’t be held accountable because he’d given the order as president.
The way Carl Jung described Hitler certainly fits trump. Jung saw Hitler as a vessel for the unspoken desires, fears, and frustrations present within the collective psyche of the German people. In the same way, trump is a product of the very darkest aspects of the collective American psyche, that part that hungers for the dominance of white males, that refuses to recognize cruelty when it’s staring them in the collective face.
The people with whom he has surrounded himself are reflections of the ugly darkness – Noem, who bragged about shooting her dog; Gov DeSantis who is so proud of the travesty he approved called Alligator Alcatraz; Vance who believes women should stay home and have more babies; the monstrosity in charge of border control. You get the idea. Then there’s ICE, the most grotesque manifestation of this darkness.
Even if this is trump’s last stint as president, something has been permanently broken in the soul of this country.
He has broken the Constitution, numerous times, and got away with it, because he and his cronies have installed a corrupt Supreme Court and a Corrupt Congress. I do not assume that we have a democracy any longer: we have an authoritarian dictatorship now, and everything that is being done demonstrates that. Sorry to sound so grim, but that’s how I view it. Of course, I hope things will change, but I wonder if it will take another revolution.
I agree with you, Lauren. I feel like I don’t live in the U.S. anymore.
Well I grew up in New York. My first apartment was in Trump Village built by his father Fred. What I mainly knew about this guy was from the local newspapers and TV. He was simply a rich worthless (character wise)playboy. Daddy got him out of the military. He married Ivana, divorced Ivana after cheating on her with Marla Maples. Married Marla. Divorced Marla after cheating on her. Bought a big casino in Atlantic City that he bankrupted , started a fake college , and so on. He was rich so always articles in the paper about him. (Fred Trump was a bad person also so no wonder). The people in NY all couldn’t stand him. He was just an obnoxious person who didn’t care about anyone but himself and so it goes on. I can’t believe this awful person could become president. It’s like a nightmare that just won’t end. I am so sorry for the people that believe all the lies because he doesn’t know how to tell the truth.
Wow, Caren! I didn’t realize you lived in the trump village fred built.He’s a pathological liar through and through.
Sorry to be getting to this so late. It was blazing hot today and it seemed to take hours to get home. I agree with everything you have to say. Something is permanently broken in the soul of this country. There are people backing him that we don’t see. The ones we do see replicate his corruption, greed, aggression and headblindness. It is taking a long time to see manifest any kind of resistance to his policies and/or illegal acts. No one, especially the head of state, is above the law in a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Yes, we seem to be in a darkness.
no one is above the law except, apparently, trump
He is not. And this is how he is dismantling the structure of our government. The constitution has been violated, the supreme court corrupted. The system of checks and balances that was created to safeguard us against tyranny has now been discarded to serve the tyranny of an elite few. Some version of this is happening in every country with a system of government that has a hierarchy similar to ours. So, world change. Trump is a symbol in the way Hitler was a symbol. He doesn’t have enough money to do this on his own. He. didn’t actually win either of his elections. Each time he was a front for an agenda created by a cabal of sorts, people with the money and unlimited resources all over the world. They have their own network. He is a puppet who survives on the props and unlimited funds they bribe him with. He is not that bright — was chosen for that reason — and they feed his enormous ego. He is as evil as they are but old and ailing and won’t live much longer. Pence and Vance were their picks from the beginning.
So far, he has proven that laws don’t apply to him. Ugh to vance and pence. Most of the republicans are spineless sycophants.