We are in the last few months of 2022. Barack Obama left office in January, 2017, almost six years ago. When Obama left, dignity left with him. Style left with him. Grace left with him. Inauguration Day 2017 was not about one family leaving and another one moving into the Peoples’ House. It was more like American values departing and being replaced by P.T. Barnumesque ones.

The circus came to town and we endured every painful spectacle of it for four long years. We were able to get Donald Trump out of the White House — for which I have thanked God and the electorate thousands of times and will continue to do so — but the taint of Trump has remained. His stain upon our culture is still very much present.

The interaction that Obama has here says it all about how public speaking and civil discourse used to be in these United States and how it is right now, today. And we are the poorer for it, as a people and as a culture.

It’s interesting that Obama points out, “You wouldn’t do this in the workplace.” And indeed the heckler wouldn’t. But it’s a terrific point to make because this is the legacy that four years of Trump hath wrought. We were never boorish like this. Trump made being boorish and crass not only acceptable, he made them seem to be desirable qualities. They are not.

Trump’s biggest lie, before the introduced the Big Lie of the purported stolen 2020 election, was that he was a self-made man. No. He is not. He inherited a fortune and proceeded to squander it and then to grift more and then to squander that.

Trump is not a businessman. People in business do not treat others like he does. Even in show business, they do not. Even in Hollywood, it is known that certain people are assholes and yes, they will be tolerated if somebody is able to make money off of them. That is a fact of life in that business.

But those people are not respected. They’re not the ones who endure. They’re not the ones who actually leave a mark on the industry. No, rather they leave a stain. Besides Donald Trump the names Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby come to mind.

And Trump didn’t just stain Hollywood. No, he had to get into politics and at, God forbid, the presidential level. And he really raised some hell there.

When all is said and done, maybe we’ll look back and thank him. We have taken steps to strengthen the January 6 certification process, in case another Trumpesque character appears in our politics again. Forewarned is forearmed.

And maybe we’ll look back and thank him for illuminating the level of mental illness in this country and the level of sheer ignorance, because the mentally ill and the uninformed heeded his call as well.

Today we saw Barack Obama try to reason with a crazy heckler. He never had to do that before. Not in his America. Not in the America that we were when he was in office. And not in the America that we were before he took office. No other American president ever shattered norms and customs and shat upon plain human decency like Donald Trump did, before his followers shat on the Capitol floors. Not even close.

We are now post-Trump, in the recovery phase. Or, maybe this is intermission and we’re about to go into yet another horrible four-year horror movie with him. I don’t think that will happen, but we can’t say it won’t until he doesn’t in fact run in 2024 and then Trump, at least, will truly be behind us.

And as for Trumpism? It’s alive and flourishing. It showed up at this rally and shouted down Obama. It showed up at Nancy Pelosi’s house in the middle of the night, to kill her and attacked her husband instead. It’s not going anywhere — unless we make it clear with our vote that it needs to leave, because it’s not welcome. And then we need to spend money on mental health programs and get our educational system back to where it should be.

We will know a lot more in two weeks and in the days after that when the ballots are counted.

 

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7 COMMENTS

  1. Trump might have (and did) take a megaphone to it but this crap started long before Trump got into politics. I think a watershed moment was Congress Critter Joe Wilson (GOP of course!) shouting out “YOU LIE!” during Obama’s address to Congress and the nation early in his Presidency. In the modern era with televised Presidential address be they SOTU or others no one had ever done anything like that. (Ok, if back in the old days, long before there was even radio much less TV the House could get rowdy at times but again I’m talking about the TV era that started mid 20th century) The fact the GOP didn’t run him right out of Congress itself is why I call it a watershed moment. The whole fucking world saw and heard that, and those old enough to recall numerous addresses to Congress realized they’d seen something new, and dark because NOTHING happened to the asshole who broke protocol. And let’s face it – does anyone believe that if Obama had been a WHITE Democratic President with a regular sounding name that Wilson would have dared do what he did? Or that his own Party wouldn’t be so embarrassed by it they’d drive him out of their caucus and Congress? The door, Pandora’s box or however you want to term it to where we now are got opened right then and there.

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  2. “but this crap started long before Trump got into politics.”

    No, but maybe I’ve lived much longer than you, but never in my 75 years has a president before Trump ever encouraged everyone in his party to act like a bunch of shits. And no president before this has incited an insurrection against the legislative branch. No president before this has egged people on, who wanted to kill his vce president. No president before this has stolen massive amounts of top secret documents.

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    • They practiced shittiness on us in the form of various and sundry laws passed, always by republicans, to either take civil rights away or make sure the wealthy and corporations did not have to pay their fair share. It’s still shitty even if the discourse itself is not.

  3. Trump gave brain-dead Americans permission to be utter assholes, to revel in their ignorance and their hatred. Hilary was too meek: they’re beyond deplorable.

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  4. Just a reminder: violence in Congress didn’t start with Trump. Politicians have been calling each other names since the country was,founded. There have been fistfights on the floor between members of Congress. One man attacked another with fire tongs. Canes have been used as weapons when debate got heated. Thomas Benton, an abolitionist, verbally smacked down Henry Foote on the Senate floor. Foote pulled out a pistol. The Senate adjourned immediately for that day.
    In 1856 Charles Sumner called a relative of Preston Brooks derogatary names and said slave owners were pimps. Brooks responded by severely beating him with a cane. Another Senator prevented anyone else from.intervening at gun point. Brooks was beaten into unconsciousness and required 3 years of recuperation before he could return to.the Senate.
    Violence is nothing new in American politics. I think Crown Jas likely toned it down. If it hadn’t ,I doubt Cruz and MTG would still be drawing breath. What is new is actively encouraging your followers to.physically attack opponents.

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