Dear America,
I subscribe to the New York Times, which I have delivered every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Much to my chagrin, the name Trump appears in most of the headlines in every edition's main news section, sometimes referring to nothing more unique than a different aspect of another headline and story that appeared in the same edition. The essence of the stories below them is always negative because...well, everything Trump is doing has negative implications, and though Trump derides such coverage of his acts and deeds as "fake news" or some derivative thereof, everyone has seen everything he does on the evening news, hoisting him by his own petard. The irony of all Trump's blather about the lack of credibility in the news is that he really doesn't care what gets said about him as long as something does get said. He subscribes to the purported Hollywood adage that the only thing worse than people talking bad about you is people not talking about you at all. It is the egomaniacs creed, and if Trump is anything, he certainly is an egomaniac, which means that The Times, and virtually every other purveyor of news is gratifying trump's dastardly appetite. Frankly, I don't care if people gratify his perverse craving for attention as long as his other peccadilloes go un-gratified, but that is not what is happening.
That Trump is psychotically self-absorbed means nothing to me as long as it doesn't affect me other than the way in which billboards along the highway do. He is annoying and disturbing, but so what, as long as he doesn't succeed in the odious things he attempts to do, but whether he will or not remains to be seen. In the interim, we can just ignore him and assume that he eventually will go away, but there is a problem that is not so easily dismissed. He is like "The Joker" in a batman movie. As long as he fails, so what. But that failure is not guaranteed at this point and all this constant palaver about him distracts us all from what is really sinister about him. Most political figures are self-absorbed and conceited. Look at Pete Hegseth, or for that matter any of Trump's appointees. But they are minions. Trump on the other hand is something far more deleterious to our American ethos. He is not just comically, if not pathologically narcissistic, he is a Machiavellian megalomaniac. When he has a grudge against someone, that someone becomes a target of a vengeful spirit armed with the power of a nation at his disposal. And his party is so compromised by the fear of Trump's malevolence should he be quarreled with that he can have his way with the majority in congress with little more than an imperious glare. Trump is malice incarnate, and in that capacity, he has inculcated in the Republican Party, in fact in the conservative constituency he rules effortlessly and irrationally, a new mission expressed in days of olde England as "Honi soit qui mal y pense," translatable for these purposes as "Anyone who disagrees with us is evil by definition." And dauntingly to say the very least, that self-serving malice has become the modality in which our government is now operating. That is what disturbs me most about the incessant coverage of Trump's malfeasance. It is the embodiment of a kind of tyranny that seems to be succeeding in various places--Russia, Hungary, Venezuela, China to name but a few--endowing autocrats with unassailable power that attends absolute control. What can you say to refute a pervasive opinion that you are in the wrong by definition...not by reason, but by definition.
So Trump's picture plastered on every front page and his name emblazoning virtually all accounts of the events of the day is tantamount to reinforcement of the new credo of his captive party politic. Every time he appears, what Richard Nixon used to call the "silent majority" swoons in like-minded deference to the one who incarnates the same sense of aggrievedness and anger that they are possessed by on account of the lack of virtue attributed to Trump's acts, deeds and goals by a nation born to eschew such things. We arose as a nation from the tyranny of dynastic governance, and so we all should know better than to deride opponents of it with words like "woke" and "elite" as epithets for those who fear and resist that kind of dominion that Trump aspires to, and don't kid yourself. Trump was deadly serious when he said over and over again when the subject was brought up that he might not leave the White House when his third term is done.
So to paraphrase Harold Hill of "The Music Man," I say, my friends we got trouble...right here in America City. It starts with "T"...
Your friend,
Mike
I subscribe to the New York Times, which I have delivered every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Much to my chagrin, the name Trump appears in most of the headlines in every edition's main news section, sometimes referring to nothing more unique than a different aspect of another headline and story that appeared in the same edition. The essence of the stories below them is always negative because...well, everything Trump is doing has negative implications, and though Trump derides such coverage of his acts and deeds as "fake news" or some derivative thereof, everyone has seen everything he does on the evening news, hoisting him by his own petard. The irony of all Trump's blather about the lack of credibility in the news is that he really doesn't care what gets said about him as long as something does get said. He subscribes to the purported Hollywood adage that the only thing worse than people talking bad about you is people not talking about you at all. It is the egomaniacs creed, and if Trump is anything, he certainly is an egomaniac, which means that The Times, and virtually every other purveyor of news is gratifying trump's dastardly appetite. Frankly, I don't care if people gratify his perverse craving for attention as long as his other peccadilloes go un-gratified, but that is not what is happening.
That Trump is psychotically self-absorbed means nothing to me as long as it doesn't affect me other than the way in which billboards along the highway do. He is annoying and disturbing, but so what, as long as he doesn't succeed in the odious things he attempts to do, but whether he will or not remains to be seen. In the interim, we can just ignore him and assume that he eventually will go away, but there is a problem that is not so easily dismissed. He is like "The Joker" in a batman movie. As long as he fails, so what. But that failure is not guaranteed at this point and all this constant palaver about him distracts us all from what is really sinister about him. Most political figures are self-absorbed and conceited. Look at Pete Hegseth, or for that matter any of Trump's appointees. But they are minions. Trump on the other hand is something far more deleterious to our American ethos. He is not just comically, if not pathologically narcissistic, he is a Machiavellian megalomaniac. When he has a grudge against someone, that someone becomes a target of a vengeful spirit armed with the power of a nation at his disposal. And his party is so compromised by the fear of Trump's malevolence should he be quarreled with that he can have his way with the majority in congress with little more than an imperious glare. Trump is malice incarnate, and in that capacity, he has inculcated in the Republican Party, in fact in the conservative constituency he rules effortlessly and irrationally, a new mission expressed in days of olde England as "Honi soit qui mal y pense," translatable for these purposes as "Anyone who disagrees with us is evil by definition." And dauntingly to say the very least, that self-serving malice has become the modality in which our government is now operating. That is what disturbs me most about the incessant coverage of Trump's malfeasance. It is the embodiment of a kind of tyranny that seems to be succeeding in various places--Russia, Hungary, Venezuela, China to name but a few--endowing autocrats with unassailable power that attends absolute control. What can you say to refute a pervasive opinion that you are in the wrong by definition...not by reason, but by definition.
So Trump's picture plastered on every front page and his name emblazoning virtually all accounts of the events of the day is tantamount to reinforcement of the new credo of his captive party politic. Every time he appears, what Richard Nixon used to call the "silent majority" swoons in like-minded deference to the one who incarnates the same sense of aggrievedness and anger that they are possessed by on account of the lack of virtue attributed to Trump's acts, deeds and goals by a nation born to eschew such things. We arose as a nation from the tyranny of dynastic governance, and so we all should know better than to deride opponents of it with words like "woke" and "elite" as epithets for those who fear and resist that kind of dominion that Trump aspires to, and don't kid yourself. Trump was deadly serious when he said over and over again when the subject was brought up that he might not leave the White House when his third term is done.
So to paraphrase Harold Hill of "The Music Man," I say, my friends we got trouble...right here in America City. It starts with "T"...
Your friend,
Mike
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