Dear America,
There's one thing Donald Trump has working for him that no other candidate for any office can match: Trump fatigue. Those of us who--and let me set vitriol and pejoratives aside for now--those of us who oppose Trump are so sick of hearing about him and from him that we are becoming inured to his odious qualities. What frightens me about that is that it could result in ennui, and more particularly, such dismay that some of us won't even leave the house on election day. There was a mock Latinism that we used to use in such circumstances when exhorting others to persevere: illigetimi non carborundum, or, don't let the bastards wear you down. But in fact, he has.
I have family members who voted for this particular member of the class of illigetimi...the king illigetimatum, if you will...and I don't see any change in their thinking, if what they do could be called that. As I lie in bed at night sometimes, I imagine a conversation with them in which they say that they like what Trump has done, and I ask them to name one thing. "He cut taxes," they might say, to which I would reply, "It saved me about $1,000 last year and it saved him millions, and it is going to cost our children trillions. How much did it save you?" Or they might say, "Well, he cut unnecessary regulations." To which I might reply, "Name one, and then tell me who's life it improved...and I mean a person, not a corporation." Or they might say, he stopped all those Mexican rapists from coming in, and he's building a wall to keep them out." To which I might say, "Well, he promised that Mexico would pay for his wall, but it isn't, and in the bargain, American agriculture is complaining that there isn't anyone to pick their crops. Add to that the fact that born Americans commit more crimes per capita than illegal immigrants. Maybe he'll build a wall to keep us out of Palm Beach."
But after I go through a few more of these calls back to reality for my family members, I find myself grinding my teeth and getting a headache. Then I recognize that it doesn't matter what I say to them. Even if I could prevail upon them to educate themselves by checking Trump's brags against a reliable source...I mean everyone has access to the internet these days, so as long as you check your sources for reliability, you can learn anything there....even if I could do that, they wouldn't change their minds. One of them is as much a braggart as Trump is. I think that's why he likes Trump. And the other is educated, but...well let me put it this way. It hasn't helped him. So why should I even think about undertaking such a project. That's Trump fatigue. I've stopped even contemplating talking about Trump and the election. After all, the statistics go something like this: 31% of registered voters are Democrats and 25% are Republicans according to a Gallup Poll. If the independents don't vote, or they break 50/50, we rational people have the equivalent of about a ten or eleven point electoral lead, so why fight the battle with the Republicans, which both of those family members are. But here's the rub. The other 44%, the independents, are a wild card. So, excluding the Republicans, who do we have to talk to to get this guy out of the White House? All of 'em.
Which brings me to rub number two. Recently I have heard news accounts of politicians expressing fears that even if Trump loses, he won't leave the White House or give up power. You may recall that I expressed the same fear recently, but I thought that I was alone in that fear--that it was just a bad day-dream. But now some other people--some people in positions to express educated fears about such things--are doing so. It isn't far fetched. The lies he tells convince the kind of people who carry long guns to stated capitals insisting that the government doesn't have the right to make them wear masks or stay home, in other words, wackos...armed wackos, and all we have is ideas and words with which to defend ourselves and our free country. The wackos think that doing what you want regardless of whom you harm, or with regard to the pandemic, whom you infect and kill, is tantamount to democratic freedom. They think that all that counts is that they are free to act irresponsibly and it never occurs to them that they are arrogating our freedom not to be harmed by them. I can see a wall of heavily armed people, calling themselves the national posse comitatus, encircling the White House and insisting that they are protecting their freedom by taking ours and abandoning democracy in favor of the dictator of their choice. I can hear them saying that it is in all of our best interests because democracy has run amok. Oh God. Now I have another horrific day-dream to try to go to sleep in spite of: carnage on Pennsylvania Avenue and chaos everywhere else; Trump and Putin holding a summit to decide who gets what in the world, and we know who would dominate that discussion. It'll be poison on every opposition doorknob and a Russian oligarch in every town.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute. That's crazy...isn't it? Tell me it's crazy...please!
Your friend,
Mike
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