I was struck this morning by the first tweet I read. In just 19 words, its author lamented the loss of societal values, of the ideals embodied and cherished in The American Way. He expressed profound dismay and disillusionment at the sight of the ugly underbelly of American society as it rose up like a tidal wave under Trump, swamping all that was good. It altered his perspective because he couldn’t un-know or un-see what had happened to America or how it had affected him.
Here is that tweet.
During a rally, Donald Trump mocked a handicapped journalist and his fans cheered him on. I’ll never forget this.
— Kevin ☕️? (@KevinSixx13) June 3, 2021
I began to answer it and quickly realised it would be a long response because I too needed to work out in my own mind what had happened. I began with the simplest explanation of why Trump’s fans, his MAGA cult, cheered him on. They are like him. That’s why he connected with them. They saw themselves in him.
You, me, most of us didn’t realise how many of these ignorant, bigoted people there were in our world because society had developed mechanisms for keeping them tamped down. These mechanisms were in the forms of societal norms; they were widespread and clearly understood boundaries.
You did not openly discriminate against the disabled, foreigners, immigrants, tourists, skin colour, gender. You did not shout at those with whom you disagreed. You did not make fun of people. You were polite. You helped the vulnerable.
These are not just societal values, they are also fundamental to the survival of our species. And to ensure these values are observed, society ‘polices’ them in a very elemental way. Those who abide by the accepted values gain society’s praise and approval and they’re defined as good people. Those who don’t adhere to the norms elicit society’s disapproval and they’re designated the bad apples.
While this is a sweeping generalisation and very simplistic, basically, this is how it worked. It wasn’t perfect, of course it wasn’t, because human beings aren’t perfect. It was always a work-in-progress. The human race is a work-in-progress; it’s evolution-in-action.
But The American Way was under attack – Republicans had been eroding these norms quietly over a long period of time. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln’s famous “government of the people, by the people, for the people” wove the people into the very fabric of government; government and the people were of one indivisible piece.
In 1986, Ronald Reagan dissolved that relationship with these words, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” Not only did it separate the people from the fabric of government, it also subverted their trust in their government.
Thus began an insidious attack on Americans’ concept of national polity. Republicans invented ‘Big Government’, riffing off the chilling spectre of George Orwell’s Big Brother in the novel 1984. They debased taxation by supplanting its true purpose as payment for services with the propagandised notion of legalised theft. They were quietly, surreptitiously, sewing discord and discontent.
Then along came Trump and he said all the quiet things out loud. At first, Republicans were horrified at Trump exposing their true character so baldly and publicly. But all of society’s bad apples who felt bitter and overlooked and downtrodden suddenly realised they were seeing a champion, their champion. And Trump obliged, not by playing to them but by being himself.
He gave their ignorance and bigotry approval in place of society’s disapproval. He justified their racism, sexism and misogyny. He validated their hatred, anger and violence. He called them his people and he gave them the praise they so desperately craved.
But the last election brought another change in the political wheel of fortune and it was a change for which they were not prepared. They want to believe it’s wrong somehow and that it can be fixed because if Trump really lost and Republicans are in the minority, what happens to them? They don’t want to go back to when good people set the standards for society. They know now what it’s like to be on top, in a place where bullies are emboldened and petty vengeances encouraged. They don’t want to go back.
While there are some who dread this really may be the end of the line for them, there are others who just cannot face that reality, so much so they’re prepared to fight to reclaim what they’ve had for four years. They bring with them their ignorance and bigotry; all the hate, anger and violence that thrived under Trump. Hundreds of them attacked the Capitol Complex on January 6. Hundreds of thousands more are wannabe insurrectionists awaiting their turn.
It won’t be as easy to organise another coup attempt but they will try. Too many of them believe they have nothing left to lose. They were told that if Biden won the presidency, the world as they knew it would be lost. Ironically there’s a lot of truth in that. Biden is a good, decent human being who wants a better world for all Americans. Trump’s MAGA cultists don’t care what others want or need. They want the dystopia that works for them.
For the 81 million who voted for Joe Biden, for everyone in America and around the world who celebrated his victory, the fight for democracy is not over. Bad faith actors and grifters are still plying their trade of deception. We saw with terrifying clarity how Trump led a conspiracy to incite the insurrection on January 6. We see on a daily basis how treachery is perverting the purpose of Congress.
We must follow the advice in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “Don’t Panic!” while heeding Thomas Jefferson’s words: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
Well said, Michelle! We must work hard in every election going forward to overcome all of the damage that is still being inflicted on our democracy.
Thank you, Cheryl. And I agree that we must keep up the work and keep building momentum into 2022.
Good observations, and well written. Thanks.
Well written and spot-on. Thanks
When it comes to Trump and his unleashing of the monster the GOP created and nurtured but (mostly) kept under tight control I can’t help but think to a scene from the movie Gladiator. There was a real Comidus and he wasn’t really the figure depicted in the movie but you know movies and how they take license (sometimes a lot!) with history and historical figures. Anyway, anyone familiar with the movie will remember the scene with a couple of Senators meeting up at the ancient Rome equivalent of a pub. As one joins his companion he throws a flier on the table advertising “games” – gladiator games which had been banned be their new Emperor’s father. He expresses disgust, and questions if the people of Rome will be mollified, will overlook very real problems the masses had to deal with.
The wiser one states their new Emperor is more clever than Senators had thought. I think the line goes the he understands the “mob”, and that the beating heart of Rome isn’t the marble of the Senate but in the sand of the Coliseum. He speaks of Comidus putting on his spectacles while taking things away from the mob and with each new loss of freedom they will roar. He concludes with “He will give them death, and they will love him for it.”
Translate that into Trump and the MAGA mob, and you have a country filled with people, average folks who for decades had been seduced by the folksy Reagan rhetoric of if only government would get out of the way, if only there weren’t all these rules and regulations (FDR’s New Deal and the add-ons of LBJ’s Great Society) our country would take off and fly and they, average working stiffs and even poor people would become not just ok financially but prosperous. Never mind that in during post WWII this country had built the greatest middle class in world history. Not everyone benefited but an incredible number of people did and we were poised to keep things going that way.
Sadly, the combination of Watergate, the social upheaval caused by the war in Vietnam and all the protests and two oil embargos from OPEC that shook our economy badly created an opening, and the hostage crisis in Iran pried open the door for Reagan and his gang to walk right on through. Reagan played his role like the actor he’d been for decades, and as he busted unions, gutted regulations, forced through massive tax changes that re-distributed wealth upwards and the combination of anti-regulation and union busting allowed entire industries to be shipped to other countries. And the process of not just cutting public education funding but denigrating education was put in place.
Reagan was one hell of a salesman and as each one of these things (and more) was going on and life was changing for the more difficult/worse for more and more middle class, working class and poor Americans they blamed “big government” which was actually, thanks to Reagan and conservatives which consolidated into the GOP (“southern” and even conservative northern ones) with so many Democrats switching Party during the 1980s it was the government abandoning the rules and policies that had created all that middle class growth our country had seen that was the problem.
Things ever since the Regan years have teetered on the edge between sometimes sort of ok to borderline cluster fuck ever since. And all the while for everyone but the top ten percent (which well into this century has moved steadily towards being only the top five percent – if that) have been squeezed, and squeezed. Reagan gave us the Savings and Loan crisis were millions lost their life savings and the institutions and their owners & directors got bailed out and the individuals not so much. Thanks to the pressure Clinton was under and his signing banking “reform” repealing Glass-Stegall we got even worse from the financial meltdown in 2008. Again, the people who created the mess came out mostly smelling like roses and again there was virtually no real punishment for those who caused so much economic and related social destruction.
It was clear that for all the good that happened on his watch that the recovery under Obama was slow, and barely reaching the masses. So the level of anger out there was palatable. Trump, being a born con man and with a talent (one of his few) for cons played things to the hilt and this failed businessman turned TV host who is known to have slept with Mein Kampf on his nightstand (maybe the only book he ever read and really thought about?) borrowed a lot of another despicable person’s methods and used fear of the “other” as a weapon of mass distraction AND destruction.
You are so right in your assessment that the only thing keeping the worst in so many people semi under control was societal norms. I again applaud your noting that while the GOP establishment was horrified that Trump wasn’t using the “dog whistles” they had so carefully created and used for decades but blaring out the message in plain language with a bullhorn they have come to terms with it. They have, and with each passing week it becomes more clear decided their only hope is to try and latch on to the out of control monster tight enough that it can’t throw them off its back and crush them under its feet. There simply aren’t enough of them with the courage to jump off and slay the beast, in part because they don’t really want to slay it but ONLY get it back under control again so they rationalize their cowardice based inaction by convincing themselves it will eventually get tired.
In the meantime tens of millions of people have become emboldened, and as we saw with the attack on the Capitol it doesn’t take millions but a much smaller number that can if inspired and directed and with a little support from the inside topple the whole thing. They failed on Jan. 6 because both the planning (we ARE after all talking Trump people) and timing were off but that doesn’t mean they won’t learn from the experience and strike again. Like you I think it’s just a matter of time.
For the moment we face Trump doing a sort of rally blitz this summer and things are going to be bad. All those millions of MAGAt goobers all riled up and running around and red states giving more and more of them unfettered rights to do so brandishing their GUNS. Bullying others with threats of violence and increasingly actual violence. All the while with Trump cheerleading and other Republicans too afraid to speak up or cheerleading with him. Their bigotry, misplaced grievances (against Democrats/liberals instead of Republicans/conservatives) or the combination of the two will be on full display.
That takes me back to that scene in Gladiator – Trump (and associated) rallies are the the Coliseum and instead of death, Trump is giving them license to be bullies, bigots and even worse “avengers” – and they love him for it.
I said Biden’s taking office was the equivalent of our country being taken off life support but that we were still in the ICU with a host of dire conditions, any one of which could quickly get worse and become fatal.
I still believe that’s the case.
He’s also giving them death with COVID and their resistance to masks and vaccines.
Trump emboldened the miscreants of our society—he needs to be imprisoned for his horrible destructive imprint on our nation.
They will try another coup but this one will be their coup de grâce.
We should all now remember when Hillary had the audacity to call all these Trump supporters “deplorables” and how so many on the Left got their collective panties in a bunch and, even though they might secretly agree with the description, they paled at the idea of a Democrat being so “rude” about potential voters.
And of course, most of the deplorables were deeply offended at being called out for what they were. Especially by a Democrat. And “that woman” most especially–the one they’d spent a full quarter century being indoctrinated to hate. Naturally, they completely missed the irony: It was all fine and dandy for them, the “downtrodden, overlooked white people” to spend a quarter century hating Hillary Clinton but how very dare she indulge in 10 seconds describing them to a T.
tRump gave tacit approval for the swamp creatures to emerge from the mire. What will it take to put them back where they belong? I have no hope that they will evolve or better themselves. I saw a bumper sticker recently that read: Make Racists Afraid Again. If only.
Every parent knows if you allow your child to egregiously walk on a behavior they should have received some type of punishment for, they will believe it’s ok, & WILL do it again, or worse.
I was just telling my Sis this today after she had to deal with a mean and loud Trump supporter yesterday. ?
They’re getting restless. I hope it means they’ll be completely inept, a bunch of bumbling fools, when they try it again.
If you’ve been seeing what the right wingers are saying about us Democrats, it sounds like they’ve stolen every word we’ve been saying about trump for the past 5+ years, word for word. They see us exactly as you’ve described them above in the article. They really think we are the evil ones, or that’s what they’re saying in order to soothe their consciences, or a little of both. trump has damaged this country in his 5+ years more than Reagan did in 8 by far. Can it ever be brought back to some semblance of normalcy? Not in my lifetime, I’m afraid.
“Trump’s MAGA cultists don’t care what others want or need. They want the dystopia that works for them.”
I would amend this to say, “They want the dystopia they THINK works for them.” That “dystopia ” would lead straight to anarchy which doesn’t work for ANYBODY!
I think they want the dystopia that has a dictator who lets them act out their anger and violence whenever they want.