Well really, what we need to do is not talk about Donald and deprive him of the air of publicity upon which he thrives. But unfortunately, now that he has one of the largest soapboxes on earth and a highchair at the altar of social media, that’s near on impossible.
And apart from being ubiquitous in social media, tweeting like some enormous dinosaur chick with golden feathers, he’s here today in the country I call home bringing along a friend from across the border, Vladimir I-got-the-pee-tape-tee-hee Putin. And last week, he polluted the airspace in the country I used to call home as well as upsetting a well-respected nonagenarian, the Queen.
Is there no stopping this man?
I asked myself the same question some years ago when he started polluting my newsfeed in Facebook to the extent that I was begging for more pictures of people’s dinners and cats playing the piano. Little did I know that his warty pal Bannon had presciently funded the now infamous and happily defunct Cambridge Analytica and made sure that his boy was everywhere — welcome as a fart in the space suit echo chamber of the internet.
And then, of course he got elected, to every right-thinking human’s horror, hoisted up by a Kentucky fried bargain bucket of deplorables. But there it is: there’s no sure thing in life except death and taxes (and we are still unsure whether Donny pays his, as he should).
So, here we are, one and a half years into mystery and should we be surprised by the course of the world? It’s a sign of the times — the Don is just one of the more unpleasant symptoms. The fact that he is the democratically-elected leader of the free world says just as much about the free world as it does about democracy.
Like all populists, he promised bigly and delivered small-ly to his people. He appealed to a demographic whose only remaining reserve was hope, stranded on the high tide of the industrial age, roadkill on the hard shoulder of the information highway.
And then there’s his wingman Mike ‘Ken’ Pence — clean cut, side-parted, evangelical almost featureless — the All-American white man fashioned by corporate forces and Big Church (but not big dick) money. Presumably he’s the salve to all those God-fearing, upstanding white men and women who knowingly voted in the Devil assured as they left the voting booth that their boy would step in at the rapture (or rather, the impeachment) to lift them all up to heaven.
It’s a marriage made on earth — the same one where we all live, unfortunately. I’m always coming to the same fatalistic conclusion — shit’s getting real and all we can do is assume the brace position and hope for the best.
In my darkest moments, I remind myself that there is something bigger than us, you can call it God, or Nature or whatever, but it’s essentially benevolent. With that in mind, we need to understand that we have agency but also that we are bit players in a bigger drama. Relax and enjoy the ride.
I have no love for politicians — with few exceptions they are all dark triad players -Machiavellian, narcissistic, psychopathic. Some are viewed favourably by history but then again, history is written by the winners, as they say. Trump is no different (although he throws dangerous delusion of grandeur into the mix).
He’d do well to take a leaf out of the great Stoic Emperor and philosopher king, Marcus Aurelius who had a slave permanently installed at his side to remind him constantly: ‘you are nothing but a man’.
The internet has now taken that role but instead, we, the right-thinking are here to remind him ‘you are nothing but an asshole’. Maybe all that Donny really needs is our love and acceptance to learn to do the right thing, while he still can.
In the meantime, I recommend you buckle up, pucker up, tighten up your pantyhose, put your head between your knees and familiarize yourself with your own asshole.
xoxo
