INSURRECTION - My Political Self

As I write this the morning after the first insurrection in my recorded history, I think back to the July, 2016 afternoon when D(onald J. Tr)ump (hereinafter “Dump”) spoke from a Florida golf course on live television and invited Russia, in so many words, to hack into US e-mail servers to look for Hillary Clinton’s “missing e-mails.” That was the day that I actively started keeping track of his activities and telling people that he should be arrested and charged with treason, and should by no means be permitted to run for office. I was also – and still am – of the opinion that the media should watch him from afar, but not report on him. A man (I use the term generically, not intending to imply in any way that he is a man or a mensch of any sort) of that mentality needs constant publicity to flourish, and denial of same would pretty much make him crawl back under the rock – or, more accurately, into the hellmouth – from whence he emerged.

As cavalier as it might have seemed to some, to me it was an indication of: 1. lack of knowledge of the law; 2. lack of knowledge of the Constitution; 3. lack of loyalty to the United States; 4. lack of discretion; 5. lack of connection to reality; 6. a complete inability to connect actions and consequences. As it turned out, I was especially correct about number 6, as there were no consequences to him for that treasonous act. Nor were there any consequences to him for his various rapes and sexual assaults, even after the Access Hollywood video was widely played for people to see and hear. Nor have there been any consequences to him for his various financial misdealings and tax evasion. Notwithstanding any other of his various psychological issues – and there are MANY – actions without consequences breed in that particular brand of psychopathy a total lack of connection to the real world, to real people, to societal norms of behavior. In Dump, there is absolutely nothing to connect him with other people. His needs are food, sex, money, power, and the constant stroking of his ego, and all these are easily obtained from his sycophants, who hope, if nothing else, that they will be rewarded by him with money – only that never pans out for them. Personally, I believe most of them are masochists because they keep coming back for more, but that’s for another article.

I am a Freudian by nature and inclination, and I have also read the DSM IV from cover to cover. As I have observed him over time, it has become apparent not only that my initial observations were correct, but that this has been going on throughout his life. I can imagine him kicking one of his siblings and blaming it on another, so that he never got punished even though the innocent sibling did, while protesting loudly that “Donnie did it!” How his parents were so taken in during his entire childhood is a mystery to me, unless he really is a demon who held supernatural sway over them that was only broken upon their deaths.

From what I have gleaned, he attended quite a variety of primary and secondary schools, and managed to cheat his way into college. And from Michael Cohen’s testimony, we know that after Dump’s “election,” he sent threatening letters to each of his almae matres, advising them not to release his transcripts upon pain of lawsuits (his favorite way to solve any issue). A man who is proud of his grades, who is the “stable genius” Dump claims to be, would be more than happy to flaunt his As, but Dump most likely had not a one and does not want the public to see the failure behind the curtain – in other words, the chronically naughty little bully with reading and reading comprehension problems, who barely squeaked through school, most likely by bribing and/or bullying the other students to do his work for him and permit him to cheat off their exams. His was a cringe-worthy childhood that any psychologist, psychiatrist or experienced educator can readily visualize. And it resulted in a larger, but just as childlike, version: a bully who doesn’t read, doesn’t comprehend, doesn’t do his homework, doesn’t follow the rules, threatens his wives, children, employees and/or co-workers, has no respect for anyone or anything except his own personal self.

Somehow, this bully was introduced to the notion of the “big con,” the scamming of millions of people, the kind of game played by the Bernie Madoffs, the Elmer Gantrys and the Vladimir Putins of this world. I don’t know whether he had actual lessons from the KGB or it was inculcated into him through subconscious means, but he has, even despite his massive stupidity, managed to master this technique of deceiving people to a degree unheard of in most places. Even the Chinese and North Koreans know that they must keep a close watch on their respective citizens for fear the spell may wear off, but Dump somehow hypnotizes or mesmerizes his gullible followers into actually believing the things he says, and there is very little chance that those particular “true believers” will suddenly achieve consciousness and repudiate him. This is something that psychologists and psychiatrists will be studying for decades to come.

So, Dump has this core group of followers who believe everything he says – whether it makes sense or not, whether it is logical or not, whether it is true or not – and acts on these things with the same reckless disregard for consequences as their con artist leader. Hence Wednesday’s attempted coup. He told them he won an election that he clearly lost, and they believed – and still believe – it. He told them to march to the Capitol – and that he would march with them (although he did not) – and they did it. He did not explicitly tell them to break into the Capitol, but seeing as how he had egged them on, and that there would be little effect to their being there but doing nothing, they took it upon themselves to take that extra step and storm the barriers and break in. And they broke in, destroyed things, urinated in the building, broke into offices, rifled desks and personal effects, took selfies, posted to social media and generally created havoc. And Dump is ultimately responsible for this because he told them to go there. And all of this because the bully with the fragile ego cannot accept the results of a free and fair election, in a 230-year-old democracy, that he lost unequivocally.

There are calls now in the House and Senate for Dump to be removed from office. There are only thirteen days before the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and there is every possibility that Dump will use those remaining days as would any bully having a temper tantrum after not getting something he wants: he will use them to wreak as much political havoc as possible. He has now been banned by his favorite social media outlets, so he is seriously considering starting his own, but until then, I hear, he has switched from @realdjt to @potus, which is the actual POTUS Twitter handle. Neither Twitter nor the “administration” wants to shut this down because it is meant to be used by successive presidents, but they may have to do it temporarily until Dump is out. Technicalities aside, this is meant to prevent him from rallying his diehard supporters to engage in further acts of mayhem.

But all these are current events which were precipitated by the act of permitting Dump to run for office in the first place. As I noted earlier, he should have been arrested for that treasonous act in July, 2016, but although he was not, I want to know why the GOP, the party of “patriots” and “law and order,” the party that persecuted so many during the McCarthy hearings, did not come to a screeching halt at that moment and say, “wait a gosh darn minute…” I know many of them – the law-and-order party members – are engaged in their own sexual peccadillos and financial mismanagement, and are terrified of being “outed,” but many fewer are engaged in actual treason, and this should have sent some kind of signal. Of all the crimes and misdemeanors one could possibly commit in this country, treason is probably the least likely to pop up, so why was this not a huge red flag (pi) for the GOP?

Perhaps because someone’s reading of Dump said “dumb, money hungry, easily manipulated,” and they got what they paid for. He was easily enough manipulated by Putin, so he’d be a shoo-in in the US. And because of his love of an audience, notwithstanding anything of substance he might or might not say, he could stand up and champion GOP causes – or not – and enjoy being the showman, discoursing on nothing of substance or consequence, seeing what would go down well, what would rile the ranks, and he could be molded to take whatever political shape they wanted. So this Dump, who early on advocated for his daughter, Tiffany, to be aborted, could now, with the appropriate puppet-master’s hand up his rectum, be taught to say the words “pro-life.” Not that he believes any of it, one way or another, but he has a talent for speaking without conviction on almost any subject, so he could run with Mike Pence as his VP candidate one minute, and the next say that if he, Pence, didn’t engage in illegal vote-tampering by tossing out all the Electoral College ballots, that he would like him less, and that was a signal, after Pence refused, for Dump’s crazed followers to erect a gallows outside the Capitol, and to enter the Capitol building chanting, “Hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence.” Essentially, Dump knew nothing about putting together an administration, but learned everything about using someone with some street creds in government as a foothold, and Pence served that purpose well – until he regained consciousness somewhere during the extra innings and refused to do Dump’s bidding. He will mourn the loss of his political career, but his autobiography can at least reflect that at the last moment, he refused the captain’s orders to blow up the ship.

All in all, I’d say we’ve had a rough four years. By no means unexpected – at least on my part – but that it should culminate in an attempted coup is just the sort of worm in the apple that is always a possibility, yet unanticipated in one’s own apple. Be that as it may, it is up to us, up to the citizens of the United States, to see to it that this kind of thing NEVER happens again. And to do that, we need for Dump to be removed from office, by the 25th Amendment, by a second impeachment, by dragging him kicking and screaming from the Oval Office at 11:59 am on 20 January, and by charging him with sedition, with insurrection and with treason once he has passed through the White House gates for the final time. Without punishment, Dump and his ilk will not only be free to try this again, but will feel free to do so with impunity. The “law-and-order” party fails to recognize this, but the Democrats and all the psychologists and psychiatrists in this country and the rest of the world know it to be true. Dump is shameless, so he can’t be shamed, but he is a criminal and he can – and must – be imprisoned. And he can be prevented from holding office in the future – and when I say holding office, I mean everything from president to town dog-catcher.

This is the United States of America. We have the longest running democratic republic in history, and we would like it to remain so. But in order to accomplish this, we need just laws, we need rational policies and people, we need to exercise restraint, we need to be civil, we need TRUTH in all its glory, we need people who are fair, who understand that the winner of an election – provided that election was free of interference – won the election and the only challenge to that election is during the next election cycle. We need to realize that politics is cyclical and swings like a pendulum, and that we go with the flow, ease into moderate positions and work for the common good. We’ve had our civil war, and although slavery ended as a result of it, it nearly destroyed this nation. We may not be able to tolerate another (un)civil war without permanently tearing apart the fabric of our society. We have already been torn into factions: black and white, Christian and “other,” Democratic and Republican, right wing and left wing, fascist and liberal. We have families that can no longer sit together at the Thanksgiving table because of political differences. Is this the legacy we want to leave our children? Or would we like to leave them a civil society of people who can negotiate their differences and meet in the middle; a society that bases its decisions on truth and the common good; a society of people who can walk around freely without fear of being assaulted because of the color of their skin or where they choose to worship or whom they voted for?

Honestly, I never wanted Dump to run, I never wanted Dump to win, and I am truly happy that the Dump era is drawing to a close, but in keeping with my policy of making lemonade from whatever lemons we have acquired, let’s try to take away something positive from this wreck of an experience: he has taught us, if nothing else, to evaluate carefully what we want our future to look like and to work toward that end with knowledge, with intelligence, with compassion and with diplomacy. We have already seen what will happen if we don’t. The choice now is up to us.