Editor,
It has become a convenient sport to display one’s democratic colors by hurling the strongest condemnations at America’s most iconic target: Donald Trump.
The man himself not only invites, but calls for the criticism. His public posture consists, in a shameless transparency, of an unashamed mindset that digs deep into the muck of America’s bigoted history of racism, slavery, sexist misogyny, chauvinistic nationalism, militarism, burnt-earth capitalism and blood-drenched imperialism. Violence of hatred breeds more hatred of violence. Entrenched in the vicious cycle, Trump is one of few public figures who refuse to mince words. He exhibits his narcissism with an inadvertent honesty that pulls him into the spotlight of utter impertinence.
His brute honesty trumps politeness in almost all public appearances. Since he considers the direct insult a personal victory, his blunt speech abstains from mendacious euphemisms, the traditional trademark of American Republicanism. Although this puts him at odds with the Republican Party, Trump continues to drag it toward the abyss. He speaks his mind openly, changes opinions instantly, and repeatedly, if he sees the need to do so. This self-destructive tendency is key to his national success — and inevitable downfall.
The unpredictability of his erratic personality captured the nation as a new sensation. The media loved him for his outrageous audacity to inflict injury wherever possible as much as his party opponents feared him for the same reasons. Puppets, like Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz, beholden to their puppeteers, were defenseless against the untamed, uncultured and unrestrained liberty of fallow speech. In his white rage Trump would even speak some unpleasant truths, condemning the Iraq war and job-killing international trade deals. The media went for the bait of his abusive temper and created a political Frankenstein they now no longer know how to contain. It is the deadly legacy of the Republican Party to have legitimized the morally corrupt and politically illegitimate by adopting the candidacy of Donald Trump. The narcissism of his self-addiction is indeed toxic.
Has “America” fallen now too low in its happy decadence? Yes, it has. But unfortunately, it’s not the first time. The semi-deliberately amnesic Ronald Reagan & the infantile hypocrite George W. Bush are his most notable predecessors. The country still suffers from the Latin American carnage of Reagan’s megalomania and the illegitimate neo-conservative reign of (t)error of Bush’s pseudo-Christian fundamentalism. To Trump’s credit, he has not murdered and displaced tens of thousands of unknown victims as Reagan has in Latin America. He has not mocked and murdered 153 defenseless prisoners as Governor-executioner Bush has in Texas to advance himself into the White House, where he became the killer of a million people in Iraq and the destroyer of nations. Although Trump shows himself readily capable of similar and perhaps even worse atrocities (if that is possible), with the promise to reinstitute Bush’s torture program and other atrocities.
As long as this country continues to relish the unwillingness of its patriotic cowardice that chronically fails to muscle up the courage to divorce itself from its own terrorism, as long as it remains addicted to the denial of its unpleasant past, it will continue to breed its own political monsters.
The list of culprits led by Reagan, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld etc. seems endless. The fact that Donald Trump, despite his numerous and repeated self-disqualifications, has remained a viable candidate throughout the campaign speaks against the system that produced and advanced him into the White House. Not unless the “evilution” of Donald Trump is seen in the context of the self-destructive impotence of the system and the atrocities with which it litters America’s history, can it be halted and turned to a promising future. The past is never gone. It will continue to possess and haunt us like a curse, unless we own up to it, contain it and finally in turn, possess it.
For that to happen the miracle of political repentance would have to happen. If religion has a place in politics at all, it would first have to take root here. The likelihood of such a prospect seems minuscule. Hence, it is as the British journalist Robert Fisk once famously said in a different, but related context: we must indeed “pity the nation.”
Joachim L. Oberst
UNM Faculty
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