The Isolation/Rebellion Diaries No. 7

“To emphasize the commonality of the 99 percent, to declare an enmity of interest with the 1 percent, is to do exactly what the governments of the United States, and the wealthy elite allied to them -- from the Founding Fathers to now -- have tried their best to prevent.” Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present

After making two dark, end-of-America-as-we-know-it speeches for the 4th of July holiday, it’s clear that Donald J. Trump is going to stay the course of division and fear and ride his smoking chariot all the way to the fiery gates of Hell. Trump is contemptuous of the ongoing pandemic which is responsible for the deaths of nearly 130,000 Americans, but determined to protect monuments to traitors and white supremacists until the end. 

Trump goads his supporters to believe in an America that never existed, a Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best sort of place, where white, heterosexual men ruled and prospered, and women, blacks, and queers knew to stay in their subservient places. In Trump’s mythical America, there was no genocide of the indigineous people, no broken treaties, no Trail of Tears. Slavery existed, but it was benevolent and paternal, and white masters treated their human property with kindness and generosity. The Confederates were not traitors against the United States, they were stalwart defenders of the right of states to regulate their own affairs. Reconstruction was a peaceful period of advancement for formerly enslaved people. The Ku Klux Klan was far less murderous than the “radical left” insists it was. Had the Supreme Court not overreached in 1954, forcing the integration of schools, many lives would have been spared. If only the black minority hadn’t tried to impose its will on the white majority. No wonder white people are so aggrieved. 

Getting an American history lesson from Donald Trump is like taking advice about mercy from Satan. Trump’s speeches were no doubt penned by his malevolent minion, Stephen Miller, but Miller is only putting language to Trump’s twisted thoughts. In Trump’s worldview, the circle of acceptable people is very small, restricted to the white and wealthy, with allowances for certain immigrant women attached to white men. Morality is for suckers and sentimental fools. Any show of compassion or empathy or kindness is a sign of weakness. 

The Trump Gang’s new strategy for the Covid-19 pandemic is to simply ignore it entirely, to declare the virus, as Trump did on July 4th, as “99 percent harmless.” With more infections and more recorded deaths than any nation on the planet, Americans must accept the risks and go about their lives as if nothing is amiss. In other words, we must accept Trump’s terms: when he couldn’t bring the virus to heel with his usual tactics of bullying, gaslighting, lying, or threatening, he threw in the towel, declared victory, and demanded that the nation deal with the consequences of his failure. 

When we finally wake from this Trumpian nightmare, and we will, the work stacked on our collective breakfast table will reach the ceiling. Make no mistake, it will take time to eradicate every last vestige of Trumpism from our body politic. The damage Trump has wrought in less than one term is stunning. Our fabled institutions and “free” press failed to hold this aspiring autocrat to account.

As Masha Gessen writes in her excellent book, Surviving Autocracy, “There will come a time when the Trump era is over. In the best-case scenario, it is ended by the voters at the ballot box. In the worst-case scenario, it lasts more than four years.”

Can you imagine four more years of Donald Trump? The proposition haunts my sleep, perverts my dreams, and weighs heavy on every waking hour. Trump and Trumpism are like a metastasizing cancer that threatens the very heart of America. 

The Isolation/Rebellion Diaries No. 4

“If you’re black you might as well not show up on the street/’less you wanna draw the heat.” Bob Dylan, Hurricane

America is being taught a hard lesson, one I hope we don’t soon forget. The lesson is that competence in our public institutions matters. As Masha Gessen points out in her excellent book, Surviving Autocracy, Donald J. Trump routinely ridiculed the government while a candidate in 2016, and then continued his assault on competence and expertise when he assumed office. Trump’s former advisor, Steve Bannon, boasted about dismantling the administrative state. Trump filled his Cabinet and federal agencies with unqualified hacks like Ben Carson, Rick Perry, Betsy DeVos, Wilbur Ross and Steve Mnuchin. Everyone Trump appointed seemed to share one trait: hostility and disdain for the departments they headed.

Is it any wonder that the Trump Administration response to the pandemic has been so disastrous? Not in the least. Incompetence breeds chaos, and as Masha Gessen notes, “Trump’s incompetence is militant.” I still laugh at people like Van Jones and Fareed Zakaria who opined that Trump would grow into the presidency; others said the office would change Trump, but the fact is that the opposite has happened -- Trump changed the office -- and not for good. I can’t think of an America president who has more thoroughly debased and disgraced the office. 

As his reelection hopes crater, Trump draws from a rancid well of division, hatred, and racism. He speaks about Confederate monuments as if he had been born and raised in Georgia, refers to Covid-19 as the “Kung Flu” even though he praised China’s leader Xi Jinping for his handling of the outbreak, and rambles on about real Americans who believe in real values, all while Covid-19 stages a counterattack and the death toll rises to nearly 125,000. Trump practices a politics of grievance, self-pity and revenge.  Add the scandals, the staggering abuse of power, the self-dealing and blatant disregard for the rule of law and it amounts to a deadly confluence of incompetence and venality. 

I still laugh at people like Van Jones and Fareed Zakaria who opined that Trump would grow into the presidency; others said the office would change Trump, but the fact is that the opposite has happened -- Trump changed the office -- and not for good.

Because the potential for voter suppression or foreign meddling in November is high, I’m in no way counting Trump out -- he’s like a vampire who cannot be considered dead until a stake has been driven through his shriveled heart. November is a long way off and Trump’s capacity for destruction isn’t likely to diminish. Even in the midst of a worsening pandemic, Trump wants the Supreme Court to invalidate the Affordable Care Act, which would cause millions of people to lose their health insurance coverage. Why now, Donald, just because you have some twisted need to act callous and cruel to fulfill your strongman fantasies? 

Cowardly members of Trump’s party play to him, not the constituents they’re sworn to serve. They fear Trump’s Tweets, name-calling, and other retribution. I can’t remember a time when an entire political party has acted with such cowardice. It’s political malpractice. 

The reckoning must and will come. Trump is far too limited a human being to change that which inflicted him upon us in the first place. He knows one dance step, and one only, and he will perform it until the floor collapses beneath his feet. Overcoming Trumpism will not be easy or quick, it will need to be rooted out. The energy and determination on display during the protests and demonstrations against police brutality must continue and expand outwards, to include other forms of social justice, most important among them, health care for all Americans, followed closely by environmental, economic, housing, and electoral justice. These threads cannot be separated; together they form a rope that can hoist millions of people from the basement of precarity.