I’ve been putting off writing this entry because it makes me
sick to think of Donald Trump as President of the United States. The image of him sitting in the oval office
conducting America’s business is more suited to a miserable, fever-induced dream
than reality. Then to wake up and have to face that it isn’t a dream after all and
the day ahead will be another day of living during the Trump administration is
living in a nightmare that refuses to go away with waking. Another day of knowing that they actually did
it. They voted for Donald Trump for President.
I was hoping they wouldn’t do it. I was
afraid they would, even halfway expected they would, but deep inside, I held
out some small hope they wouldn’t. I should have known better. You see, I know them: the Trumpsters. I’ve socialized with them, worked with them,
I’m related to many of them. So, knowing them as well as I do, I’m not
surprised that sixty-three million of them would vote to destroy the country
they so loudly and constantly profess to love by voting for a man so
unqualified and so unworthy, so venal and loathsome, so corrupt, ignorant and immoral,
that he will sell this country to the highest bidder, pocket the proceeds, and
watch his supporters sicken and die without one pang of guilt.
Why would they do that? Why would so many people who rely on
government spending and government programs for jobs, healthcare, childcare and
education, vote against their own self-interest, but what’s even worse, vote
against what’s best for their own children, to elect a self-centered,
self-serving representative of whomever
will pay him the most? That is the big question, isn’t it, and I don’t pretend
to have the answer. To try to provide some context, if not to actually
understand it, I look at the behavior of cult members.
A cult is governed by a leader who allows no dissenting
opinion. A leader who creates the
reality in which the members live. He (it’s
always a he) identifies the powerful and evil external forces that threaten the
lives and the souls of the cult members, and he offers the only path to salvation,
which always involves complete and unquestioning allegiance to him.
Those of us born without the cult gene can’t understand how cult
members would willingly hand over their identities, their freedoms, their
fortunes, their lives, even their children, in order to be accepted as members
in good standing. But it’s vital for the
rest of us to understand the reality of the phenomenon. Trump didn’t create his
cult members; they’ve always been here, waiting in limbo for a cult leader to
come along and claim them. They waited until Trump came along to tell them what
they wanted to hear: that nothing wrong in their lives is their fault, that
everything that is wrong is the fault of immigrants, and minorities, and gays,
and liberals. And he told them that if
they trusted him, if they were loyal to him, he would fix it all, never mind
the details of how. And that was what
they had been waiting for.
It’s vital to understand the relationship between Trump and
his supporters, for once it’s understood, we can stop the useless exercises of
analyzing the election loss and figuring out how to win them back next time. The only way to win them is to offer them a leader
more Trump-like than Trump. That is, more right wing, more simplistic, more
dishonest, even more willing than Trump to tell them what they want to hear,
knowing that it’s all a lie.
But we can’t do that, can we, because we’re decent people. So we have to accept that Trump supporters are
lost to us. There will be another Trump
eager to take his place once his indulgent lifestyle claims him. So we have to
go on without them. We have to go on trying to save our country and the planet
in the face of their active opposition. Not an easy task, probably an impossible
one, but what else is there but to try, and to mourn what has been lost.
There are no morals more relative than conservative morals,
and no hypocrisy quite like conservative hypocrisy.
