The Witness Chronicles, May 25, 2024

Smelling the flowers and Trump reality

Photo by Karo K. on Unsplash

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Does Trump Ever Stop and Smell the Flowers?

A loss of the essence of humanity on the right

I wanted to write something about late spring. I was walking in my lovely city neighborhood yesterday and it was very fragrant everywhere I went. And, after a few days off from writing about the political world, talking about a simple moment seemed like a way to remind myself that right now, here, the planet and humanity is not crashing off course.

Maybe stopping to just take it in is lalaland, a form of pretending that things out there are not careening out of control. But a few minutes of surrendering to the color in the world puts everything into perspective. But then I had the disturbing thought in the title of this piece.

It has been a weirdly disjointed week in politics in the US and beyond. And the weather has been so destructive everyday somewhere in the country, that the most terrible news is becoming everyday. Bucolic midwestern small towns destroyed in minutes by tornados. Apocalyptic flooding in Texas. Etc.

Things that should galvanize the country. But no, they cannot exist in the political dialog unless they offer opportunities to sell off out future to big oil for a financial bailout and legal bills

It occurred to me while thinking about this weird dynamic that there might be an explanation for the apparent collective mental illness we are seeing displayed across the Republican/ MAGA Trump universe. They appear to have abandoned reality and it is really a terrible thing to watch.

I seriously wonder if Donald Trump and his kind ever really take pleasure in the small things in life? Or are they consumed, as it appears, caught in a storm of their own making, no longer able to pull back and just enjoy the real world?

Those may not be serious questions to some, but I’d argue they are at the base of the terrible future we may face if a man who seems barely human takes power again, this time supported by an entire political power structure based on fear, hate, paranoia, and existing in a dark world of his own making.

I know, this kind of thinking on an idyllic late spring morning is a little hard to take. But we see a constant stream of stunningly cynical actions like Nikki Haley abandoning principled choices that seemed real to endorse an opponent she recently decried as unhinged.

The examples are everywhere in American politics on the right. The shameful show of kowtowing by those who wish to be his running mate, a perfect willingness to play the fool to stay in his brief attention span. They may not realize it but some of these choices are literally career suicide in any normal world.

They speak of a desperation percolating across the entire party, a desperation that stinks of a lack of ideas or innovation and a reliance on fabricated reality. We saw it in Trump’s cynical rally in the South Bronx, a bastion of minority voters that it is doubtful he ever visited as a native New Yorker.

The claims of tens of thousands cheering when reality, taken from a drone video, shows a crowd of a fraction of that, perhaps 800-1000 at best. Even Trump seemed briefly to acknowledge that fact, but only briefly. And the speech we have heard over and over again, a litany of his victimhood that is getting so tired even Fox pundits have a harder and harder time covering it.

I’m not a believer in panicking about polling because I think the art has devolved into something created to tell a predetermined story. Jonathan Capeheart of the Washington Post pointed out on PBSNews that a recent NYTimes poll showing a dead heat only had 119 responses, hardly an indicator in an enormous nation with over 300 million citizens.

Joe Biden certainly has his own set of problems but living in an alternate reality is not one of them. When your biggest negative issues are the economy and immigration, real issues, you are forced to try and educate voters, a scenario that makes for boring news copy.

Yes, the right once again killed funding for the immigration bill they claimed to want this week. And yes, leading economic indicators like job growth are stellar, but what politician can explain trailing statistics and how they are positive? But at least these issues are real. The problem is the solutions, like most real challenges, are complex and we don’t appear to want to hear about it.

Instead the media offers us ridiculous daily claims, each more preposterous than the last coming from Trump. He will, when elected, free Evan Gersovich, the American journalist held in Russia, by waving his wand. Even Putin stated that was not going to happen.

But little facts like that are trampled by the next claim of omnipotence and left behind by the news. 

Crazier and crazier. It’s enough to say, stop, I’m going outside and chill out in the green world. But I wonder if that is ever an option for those on the right?

It would be a true tragedy if it is not.

~ I write The Grasshopper, a letter for creatives, The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate, and The Remarkable, a recovery letter, about my addiction and reentry experience. All are weekly and free, however this is how I live and I strongly believe all writers and creatives should get paid, if we provide value. Your support with a paid subscription helps make that happen. 

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