Fast path to a criminal state: Elect an unrepentant felon who then rounds up cohorts out for blood
Only wackos find outlandish, self-centered outlaws morally admirable, let alone models of heroic leadership. Yes, principled protesters choose to break the law, like Thoreau defying war taxes, or Gandhi against the British Empire. Or Martin Luther King committed to civil and human rights. But they acted not from self-serving motivation, nor material gains, invoking higher principles and the very best angels of human nature. Opposite to Trump, noble, courageous insurgents exposed oppression, unjust laws and inhumane conditions.
99% of the time, repeat criminals are either psychologically/genetically maimed, (addicted to busting rules), blindly self-serving (however dim, misguided or crisis junkies), or locked into self-destruction (and the notoriety of being caught). No doubt brainy, financial criminals operate (think shifty billionaires), but on point is my father’s matter-of-fact disdain for crooks: “only stupid or lazy people violate clear laws, wanting something for nothing without being caught. It’s much smarter and harder to master the rules, apply imagination and skills to succeed (without fears of midnight door banging). His view was less moralistic than empirical: crooks depend on guile, subterfuge and force, offending victims, prosecutors and braver folks who achieve via brains, hard work, judgment, and education. In short, honest success can be its own reward, confirming self-esteem and reputation. Any doofus can run amuck, pick up a gun and rob a 7-11—or worse.
Trump is the exception that proves the rule, the stand-out criminal who continues to escape accountability—if anything, buoyed by the peculiar American fantasy that upgrades nasty law-breakers into heroes. That deviance echoes an equally perverse notion that “rugged individualists” must act alone and flaunt commonplace morality. Rules here are made to be broken, and shrewd criminals escape confinement or conviction. This myth is juvenile wishful thinking, as with the deluded Ayn Rand, that one’s true self only emerges when standing alone, defiant and scornful of mundane thresholds. Thus the vain Trumpist worship of entitled selfishness, whatever the downside to partners, neighbors, family, communities or country.
So now we endure a second-rate TV celebrity, his “true self” exposed as a multiply-convicted, forever-lying sleazy hustler reborn as a “unity” president? Can a corrupt, doddering leader, too unprincipled to recall his own slew of dishonest (wholly unfulfilled) 2016 promises, finally get that campaigning is all about gaining votes? Can an undeniable loser, whacked by the oldest Dem war horse and the courts, really seize our justice system and ruin elections? Want to know the opposite of a “unity” candidate? A malicious, wholly self-serving outlaw who panders to the aggrieved by scoffing at judges, juries, witnesses, dead soldiers, “disloyal” party traitors, and a legally-elected president who whooped his incumbent ass four years ago.
Cultism, narcissism and solipsism
November comes down to whether enough key adult voters back law, elections, the Constitutional, and reality itself—vs. doom and gloom fantasy, magical thinking and vengeful retribution. Will the USA at least give lip service to the best Yankee values or let fly Trump’s war against democracy driven by his unholy concoction of cultism, narcissism and solipsism . Criminals (and tyrants) hear only their own internal B.S. so no “external” check functions—always deaf to whatever impedes selfish appetites. Hard choice, huh?
Nearly all religions and justice systems agree the ultimate driver of sin or immorality are selfish passions that hurt others. In political terms, the inevitable outcome of partisan tunnel vision leverages narcissism with solipsism. What else is this election about if not choosing between the glorification of a deified, selfish cult (already a dictatorship) vs. accepting the rational balance between individual demands or needs with the “outside world,” that is, rational adults brought up to respect evidence, science, logic, reason, expertise, experience, common sense and our foundational national mission statements?
Look at Wikipedia’s Solipsism syndrome, infecting a person whose “reality is not external to their mind . . . the idea that only one’s mind is sure to exist.” Without trustworthy “outside” inputs, the marooned self falls back on itself alone, all other viewpoints be damned. Augmented by malice and malignant narcissism, Trump’s crude amalgam is the foundation for his endless lawlessness. What other options does this defective immoralist have? With wealth, celebrity and stand-up media slickness, this demagogue mesmerizes the vulnerable while sustaining his own paramount throne as a petty god. Just find enough bright, shiny objects to wave around, even if they may well become MAGA kryptonite.
The ultimate soap opera
Thus does 2024 invite drastically different futures—the greatest of moral forks in the road. Look at what Trump and Trumpists condemn: party opposition (without rights, inviting retribution), laws (outdated, “elitist,” obstructive),elections (unless, excuse the blatant contradiction, MAGA wins!), and majority rule (dumped by a fanatic minority never wrong). Ditto, the Constitution, a discardable antique bypassed whenever inconveniencing the MAGA agenda. Plus laws against stealing top secrets, then recklessly sharing them, or the infamy of sending a murderous mob to the Capitol (only later to be perversely glorified). Really, something wrong with blackmailing a foreign president, withholding war funding with dirty politics? Or the horrendous gall of fabricating phony electors to overturn a legitimate election? Thus the bold triumph of selfish partisanship that defies stability, reality and once sacred means of accountability.
Indeed, in this world of Trump ego uber alles, scorning justice becomes a badge of the messianic champion who “deserves” to rule. The more awful, the merrier? The worst problem with empowering fanaticism is the inevitable finale: dictatorship by the deified. Only arrogant tunnel vision grants a minority veto over the established governance format, statutes, laws and centuries-old precedents. Must we not now redefine what theft or insurrection or endless business and sex crimes mean? Or what “winning” an election means when key voting laws are eviscerated? Trumpism is not a slippery slope but a mountain avalanche on steroids.
Defy the rules, kill the game
Well, playmates, that’s way beyond “it’s the economy, stupid” (even how taxation divides the spoils) to “it’s about verifying reality, stupid”—dramatized by the corrosive battle between fanatic fundamentalism and tolerant, rule-based democratic secularism). That elevates today’s political dynamic that pits a fixated, tribal absolutism vs. the open, inventive (if messy) diversity of a melting pot by which reason, justice, equality, evidence, testing and expertise rule, all leavened with a healthy dose of skepticism.
What unites the right-wing mayhem isn’t philosophy, values, specified goals or principles: it’s that Trumpists are convinced that what they believe, geared to magical inner compasses, make them not just right but incapable of error, with self-entitled permission to dominate. That cultist absolutism is what allows them to force their unpopular biases on everyone else—law, tradition and the Constitution be damned. No democracy survives when enough in bad faith agree to, say, play baseball, then bolt halfway through because they can’t bat twice in a row—or suddenly three outs per half inning is a tyrannical imposition by some covert, nefarious, invisible cabal. Either confirmed, tested majority rules reign politics—or chaos and instability loom.
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