1932 — This is only a test…
RORSHACH
It’s fascinating watching the “mainstream” media fold itself into soft little bundles as it works to normalize the tragic and, I think, fatal-to-our-union election results of November 8, 2016.
The DNC has fallen into a darkly comical re-evalution of itself, thus far coming up with either “We need a straight, white “blue collar” male at the head of the table to “win back” all the people who voted for the other guy. OR “we need a black, muslim male at the head of the table to prove we are who we claimed to be and not have our minority base desert us.”
Hysterical. Pathetic. And why we, and I mean the American people when I say “we” — even the nazi Americans and the anti-LGBT and the anti-immigrant and the anti-woman Americans– lose.
Donald Trump’s campaign was, in its essence, a Rorshach test for the nation.
For those who don’t know, that’s the old “ink blot” test where the patient’s responses to a series of abstract ink splashes on white paper are used to determine their mental/emotional equilibrium. Here’s a link for a more comprehensive definition. LINK
Using that analogy, when you look at this, what do you see? :
When you hear these words, what do you hear?:
Setting aside the vagueries of GOP gerrymandering and the mechanics of the Electoral College, the slim majority of those of us who voted saw this when we looked at him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ3N_2r6R-o
We saw and heard that, no matter what he said because we can actually see him. We voted accordingly and, in popular numbers, the Bad Guy lost. Handily.
But the popular numbers DO NOT COUNT.
Let me say that again.
Whatever your fantasy world is telling you, whatever you hope beyond hope, the popular numbers do not count. Only the electoral votes do and, as far as we know today, 60+ days from the inauguration, the electors will be voting Trump in as their next president.
I say, their next President because he has made it clear, for most of his adult life and certainly in the last year that he has no plans to be my President. Indeed, he has no plans to be President at all. Donald Trump is, by his own description, an Oligarch. Look it up, I’ll wait.
Donald Trump has spent his entire life in that rarified universe where the ONLY thing that matters is who has the most money. There are many nations, large and small, whose sham governments exist solely to serve the whims of their hyper-rich citizens. Some have said the USA has been among them but those people, until now, have been fools. They have never spent time in any country in which power of an Oligarchal system is the only power. Picture a nation OPENLY run by the Mafia as depicted in the GODFATHER films. That is an Oligarchy. Americans have never truly lived under that sort of system and under that system, as a nation, America will cease to exist. WILL cease to exist. Not “may.” Will.
This country is nothing more than a set of agreements to which all of us, in theory, adhere. That’s it. You’ve seen pictures of the world from space. Where are the words United States written on this continent? Only in all of our minds. Only if we agree.
If enough of us decide they do not agree, do not wish to adhere, there’s no higher authority to which to appeal, no court to make them hold up their end of the contract. there is, as always, nothing but us. What “America” means is a matter of consensus, not fact.
Donald Trump, as an Oligarch, can only view the Presidency as a synonym for King. He can only view government as one more set of specialized car valets who take a small amount of his money to perform necessary services for him and those like him.
Donald Trump is a racist. There is no lens through which one can veiw his activities and statements and avoid that conclusion. No wiggle room.
Donald Trump has displayed zero knowledge of the workings of government beyond his claims of being able to purchase influence among many of its representatives. He has displayed negative understanding of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and, most importantly, the actual system of Checks and Balances which serves as the framework for our, theoretically, balanced system.
If you don’t really grasp the implications of this, and many of you won’t wish to, I submit this scene from the classic It’s A Wonderful Life to get the point across.
Donald Trump is Mr. Potter for purposes of this discussion.
Like the fictional Mr. Potter, Trump has leveraged the economic desperation, xenophobia and, frankly, short-sighted “common sense” of a large segment of white America to bilk his way into the white house.
Like many foolish people he has, at the very least, equated the running of a government, indeed, one that is a representative democracy, with the running of a corporation. Did you see where I pointed out this is a foolish analogy? I shouldn’t have had to.
The Presidency is not a Kingship and our government isn’t even a parliamentary system, much less an oligarchy. Our representative democracy cannot tolerate a true oligarchy. Which is why, in my first 1932 post, I’ve declared that democracy dead. Suicide by Trump.
LITMUS
Another sort of test is before America now. Well, not all of us. Just White America, really. The Preamble of the Constitution begins with the words “We the People” meaning, of course, the people of the fledgling United States. Some will try to correct this to mean “We, the white male landholders” but, of course, that cannot be true. If only the white male landholders had felt it was time to take a new tack, nation-wise, we’d sill be part of Britain.
“We the people” is us. All of us.
But, due to the way many cynical people have chosen to govern us, massive wedges– ethnic, gender, religious, orientational– have not only been left to fester but have been actively nurtured. Yes, GOP, I’m looking right at you, but you’re not alone.
I have often watched with amusement when other black people talk about the victories of the Civil Rights Era (even that is a misnomer unless you’re extending that era back to the inception of the nation) as if they were faits accomplis, as if the nation’s black population did that all by themselves over the objection and aggression of the majority of whites. That is false. It’s just as false as thinking all the Jim Crow attrocities and attitudes were confined exclusively to the states of the former Confederacy.
In the 1960s a subset of Americans– mostly black– made a moral argument to their mostly white peers that this nation ought to live up to the words in its foundational documents. They went to a lot of trouble, risked (and suffered) a lot of bodily harm to get across the very basic notion that this sort of hypocrisy is, y’know, bad. And, in that time, in that place a SLIM MAJORITY of white Americans agreed.
Had that smaller subset not agreed, nothing would have changed. That’s the truth. The Civil Rights victories are not OWNED by black people; they are owned by ALL Americans who understand what being an American actually means. Or used to mean. E Pluribus Unum, idiots. Figure it out.
Which brings us to the litmus.
That slim subset of white people who voted for human decency in that time and place has shifted its opinions considerably. Many will not admit this because being called a racist these days is infinitely worse for most people than actually being racists. Even racists don’t want to be called racists. Win?
But the activities of racists– forced segregation, environmental degredation in prescribed areas occupied by non-whites, denial of basic services, torture, murder, rape, etc., of non-white people– those are very much on the rise and very much fall into the column of being considered either “not so bad when you really look at the numbers” or simply the cost of doing business with “those people.” Those people being brown, black, red, yellow, immigrant, female or any version of gay.
That slim majority of white Americans who decided the verdict of the legal civil rights struggle have, seemingly, delivered their verdict on what they think of the results of that earlier decision. If the election of Barack Obama was seen by many of these people as the culmination of that journey towards equality (remember how often the ridiculous and meaningless phrase “post-racial” was bandied about) then the election of Donald Trump must be seen as a refutation of that outcome.
If the litmus test shows their stated convictions– belief in equality, justice, fairness and tolerance- are real, this should lead to Trump’s presidency being a bleak affair, empty of anything worth remembering and swept under the rug of history as quickly as we can get him out of office.
If the test reveals, however, their convictions, as stated, are just so much lip-service, expedient speechmaking to get through awkward professional or social situations involving members of a given Out Group, what we have seen with this election is the dissolution of the USA as anything like a recognizable social construct.
The “minority” position is simple to understand. We are in survival mode as we always are and, as a result, cannot afford to see Donald Trump as anything other than he actually is – i.e. something so monstrous, it’s ridiculous that anyone would attempt to talk any of us out of seeing it. (As if that were even possible. We know where we live and we’ve been under the boot here before. Within living memory, kids. Within living memory.)
But white Americans, male or female, rich or poor, straight or gay, immigrant or native born, have the luxury of not having to worry about that boot. No matter how far Trump goes, the changes he makes to the majority of white lives will only worsen them incrementally, if at all.
Not to put too fine a point on it but nearly none of you will be getting murdered or interred over the coming changes. That provides safety. It provides the luxury of distance. It also makes EVERY choice white America makes, going forward, ABSOLUTELY moral in nature.
We will know you by your actions. Your words, going forward, are meaningless. What you do is what will matter. And, frankly, I’m not sanguine that we’re going to see a lot of you lining up to be Americans in anything but name. Too much X Box to be played. Too many lattes to be drunk. These things take time.
Already we are seeing our mainstream media, from our 24 Hour News Networks to the so-called “paper of record” bending themselves into knots to avoid calling racists and sexists racists and sexists. This is either for fear of some backlash or, worse, because they secretly agree that the Trump thing is a good thing and are slowly winding down to this thing, which is ENTIRELY ABERRANT in our society since the 1800s, being something called the new normal. Already we’ve seen a spike in faith and/0r race-related hate crimes since Trump’s election.
The only glimmer of hope, and it is literally a glimmer, tiny in aspect and short in range, is this: What’s not being as widely reported is that we’ve also seen a spike in white or christian or straight people, kids mostly, protecting “minority” peers from attack or harassment. Do more of that, I guess.
So? Which version of White America are we going to end up with? Are you guys George Bailey or Mr. Potter or Potter’s mob? The terrifying thing is, I don’t know. But all of us are going to find out after January 20. That’s when all the masks will really come off and we will see who is really who and what, after all of this, is really, truly true.
I’d like to say we’re counting on you guys but I can’t say that. All I can say is that we are watching. And some of us are making travel plans.
Tick tock.
