One Nation, Indivisible

Our US Pledge of Allegiance has those three words as descriptors of how we would like to think about our republic. The intent is unity within a democratic society. No two individuals will ever agree on everything in life and the same holds true for our nation. We will always strive for the unity of common purpose but that will necessarily consist of some level of compromise. We are generally thought of as a two-party system of government even though there is rarely complete consensus within each of those parties. Democrats and Republicans have in their ranks people who would further define their ideology with more finite descriptors. We use terms of left, right, center, far-left, far-right, libertarian, tea party, etc.

All of this is to say we have opinions and we are free to voice those opinions in order to define the direction and priorities of our nation. We have regularly done this in an organized fashion where some form of compromise ends up steering us on our course. It is this organized common direction that has kept this nation-ship moving forward.

We have, over the last several decades, sadly diverged from a path of thoughtful compromise to one that might be best described as “my way or the highway.” An unbending might is seen as the singular mindset that decries compromise as weakness.  We see only one path forward and we will fight to the death, as long as that death is someone else's, to make our way a reality.

Your choice, but not much of one

With this as a backdrop, we now find ourselves in a dilemma. We have elected a president who has taken that new national my-way/highway mantra to the extreme. He is an unyielding individual who is neither Democrat nor Republican. We don’t yet have a name for his party as his opinions are often spun in more directions than The Mevlevis. No, that’s not some new type of blue jean but part of a Turkish religious sect who may be better known as whirling dervishes.  President Donald has whirled opinions in all directions; some are his own and some he just picks out of the airspace somewhere between his spray-tanned face and the giant flat-screen television that is tuned to Fox News.  Some are just BS he makes up on the spot.  He is a dervish at heart with opinions that flail and flip like his hair in a strong wind.

Whirling dervishes

Donald J. Trump has spent the first three years of his presidency in self-adulation and pandering to various fringe groups with similar but sometimes destructive intent. Within these groups, there are occasional overlaps of common purpose. Here you will find 2nd Amendment gun-rights extremists, racists, xenophobes, anti-vaxxers, religious extremists, evangelicals, Nazi-sympathizers, militia groups, conspiracy theorists, Neo-Confederates, Proud Boys, and White Supremacists. The president supports these groups because they share his sense of extreme ideals. This president seems to hold these outrageous ideas because they get people to look in his direction. No position is too outlandish as long as it gets people to talk about him. It is his disease of extreme narcissism that requires that all things must be about him. All publicity is good publicity.  No position is too outlandish.  No lie is too big.  No denial will bring shame, even with video proof to the contrary.  No act of cruelty will bring an apology. No mistake will ever be acknowledged.

Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes with some MAGA-hatters; not to be confused with Mad Hatters of Alice in Wonderland fame.

The first three years were peppered with outlandish statements and actions. Build a 2,000-mile wall at our border and have Mexico pay for it. Outlandish yes, but it didn’t happen. It wasted money and effort but DJT got some attention. Family separations and kids in cages got him negative publicity, but again, it is all good. All these things and many more were serious and brought about some human suffering but, in his eyes, it was getting him his desired attention.

Now we come to the dangerous part. Not that many of these things up to now weren’t bad, but now Americans were dying by the tens of thousands and our president is coming unhinged. He babbles more than usual and makes statements that are even more outlandish.  Some of these statements are well beyond Fox News’ anchors' ability to explain or support. When he turned to his medical team for affirmation for his claims that bleach or disinfectants might be used internally to cleanse the body of COVID-19, they were forced to look away. He even opined that perhaps we could get UV radiation or cleansing sunlight into our bodies for protection.

Lysol injectable: Don't try this at home.

Donald Trump is like a wounded animal and right now, he is very dangerous. He sees his dreams of a two-term presidency evaporate over his inability to deal with this crisis. Trump is not a problem solver; he is a shapeshifter. Not in the terms of some mythological or speculative-fiction character’s ability to physically transform, but it is his ability to delegate or shift the blame to anyone but himself. He would wholly blame the Chinese for this crisis if he weren’t still hopeful of some super trade deal with China. He will now pick on the WHO for not sounding the alarm sooner. Outside of conspiracy theorists, nobody blames Trump for the virus. Where we may be deservedly critical, however, is for his handling of the response. He could even be forgiven for early delays in isolating us from outside infection. But now, we know what to do, we just don’t have the ability as individuals, local businesses, local governments, or even state governments, to respond as well as our federal government could and should, but doesn’t.

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"... our federal government could and should, but doesn’t."

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The acquisition of testing supplies and reagents as well as PPE for the testers will be critical for our recovery process. Every day that goes by that we fail to have a unified federal plan in place to make wide-scale testing possible, will add more time in isolation for the American public. More time for businesses to fail. More time for our economy to fall deeper into the abyss.

Trump’s frailty as a leader is now out there for everyone to see, warts and all. No amount of hairspray and comb-over can hide what is obvious to even Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, and Helen Keller; and two of them are dead. This is what makes our wounded sociopathic-president so dangerous. He has hinted at anarchy and violence as a way out. Already, his minions are protesting the lockdowns, attempting to block medical facilities, and forcing weary medical staff to take their time off to stand in defiance of his rabble. They have stormed and even occupied government buildings carrying their semi-automatic phallic symbols. He drops the hints and then, with their pent-up wrath, of a group of semi-literate Neanderthals jump in their pickups and head out to show their support.  Guns and heated speech, nothing could go wrong here.

Armed protesters occupy Kentucky State Capitol

Armed insurrection and anarchy are not beyond the tools this president would consider using if he thought it would get him four more years in the White House. He has tasted supreme power and that aphrodisiac has stimulated his narcissistic brain to euphoric highs he will never again experience. He is desperate to have this psychedelic trip last through 2024.

Remember in November, 

Renewed Hope in January 

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Photo by Jack Dallas, Jazzfest New Orleans, 2015