Götterdämmerung: Twilight of the Trumps

As Trump 1.0 concludes, I keep coming back to Richard Wagner’s Ring Cycle/Götterdämmerung as cultural symbolism for the USA’s unfolding political drama. The killing of Siegfried by Hagen with a stab in the back, Trump was defeated by a treasonous “stab in the back” from the courts, members of the Republican party, and of course, those crazed socialists called Democrats. This is a high political drama, and the final act in Trump 1.0 will occur on January 6th as his faithful followers in the House and Senate make their last stand. This feels like a Wagner kind of moment. The dramatic overtones of the opera spill out into our current reality, and rather than being swept up by the dramatic music, I feel a sense of dread. Even if America gets past this moment without any mayhem, the foreboding for the future is heavy. Biden inherits a broken country, infected with a lethal virus, and a host of people who hate him. As 2020 ends, I have no great feeling of relief, only dread. The crazies in the USA are in full bloom and seem to be itching for a fight. The crazed nonsense coming from the newly elected QAnon queens, Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia, and Lauren Boebert, from Colorado, signal that the drama is just beginning, and possibly the violence. In the meantime, COVID is having its way with the USA. What people don’t understand is that we are prey. The virus is the predator. All of this is happening as the USA tears itself apart from the inside. Putin thinks about the next move and smiles. Check!