Cassidy Hutchinson, Enough

 Cassidy Hutchinson, Enough

If you live under a rock, you may have missed interviews with Cassidy Hutchinson. She has been on almost every news talk show promoting her book, Enough. She is a Republican in the finest sense of that word, harkening back to a period when we voted for ideas, morality, integrity, and character and not party affiliation. She is not running for office. She is perhaps in self-preservation mode telling her story of an awakening. She is relating her time at the pinnacle of our government when “stuff happened.”

Miss Hutchinson appears to hold an old-fashioned view of what it means to be a Republican. Her father was/is a Trump supporter and would not help his daughter defy the will of our nation’s first would-be authoritarian leader. She wanted to get her own attorney when she saw that the Trump-sponsored one was giving her bad advice and directing her to lie under oath. For those who would not see telling a person who remembers an event to say they don’t remember that event as lying, you may want to check your moral compass and the law. To advise such a statement is to be advising deceit. Her father was OK with that, she was not.

She follows the examples of Republicans Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Jaime Herrera Beutler, Joe Kent, Heidi St. John, John Katko, Peter Meijer, Dan Newhouse, Loren Culp, Jerrod Sessler, Tom Rice, Barbara Arthur, Ken Richardson, Fred Upton, David Valadao, and even Mike Pence, who have dared to have the audacity to tell the truth about Donald Trump. Most of these people have paid the price for their moral stance.

In Miss Hutchinson’s case, after she testified before the January 6th Committee, she was forced out of her apartment and had to move to Atlanta briefly and has been reclusive for over 15 months. For her courage and tenacity in the face of what must have been daunting decisions, I have the utmost respect for her. For her choice of associations in her career, I will give her the benefit of youthful naivete as an excuse.

There was a time when we could have meaningful political discussions that evaluated options and solutions. These discussions are now filled with avarice and lean toward party loyalty rather than what might be good for our nation.

As a Democrat, I can have respect for anyone who follows their conscience and convictions and is not swayed into promoting lies to achieve some ulterior goal. Such a standard would apply regardless of party affiliation. Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez should resign his seat unless he has a better explanation for the mountain of evidence that points to his corruption. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars, a Mercedes convertible, and mortgage payments are not incidental, they stink of corruption.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans are inherently evil but when they start adopting evil as a means to an end, they are no longer the respected servants of the people, they are but greedy bastards that deserve that thump in the head from the “fickle finger of fate.” Kudos to Miss Hutchinson for taking the moral path and avoiding the lure of the cult.

Make American Democracy Important

Perhaps the sane people in America could use a hat. The MAGA folks as they are called, used an old slogan that dates back to the 1940 Alexander Wiley presidential campaign and was used again by Barry Goldwater in 1964, Ronald Reagan in 1980, Bill Clinton in 1992, and Hillary Clinton in 2008. Yes, Make America Great Again is over 8 decades old, and as 77-year-old Donald Trump is quick to point out, 80 is really old. More appropriate for Trumpettes, it was used as a campaign slogan in the 1998 dystopian novel about a dictator named Andrew Steele Jarret. That novel was called Parable of the Talents.*

My suggestion, Make American Democracy Important, or MADI. We could certainly rally behind the salvation of American democracy before it is usurped by the reality television version of a Vladimir Putin wannabe.

MADI could be used with a catchphrase like, "Were MADI as hell and we aren't going to take it anymore."

*  The novel I mentioned, Parable of Talents, is also of interest. It is set in a futuristic United States that is dominated by a Christian fundamentalist denomination called "Christian America" led by President Andrew Steele Jarret who wants to Make America Great Again. In the novel, the president is working to eradicate non-Christian faiths and a form of slavery has been reintroduced with shock collars to control the slaves. Virtual reality headsets are used to escape the reality of what really is going on. The excuse for slavery is that non-Christians need to be re-educated through forced labor.

We need look no further than Trump's hero, Vladimir Putin, who is kidnapping the children living in occupied Ukrainian territories and taking them for "re-education" in Russia.

The novel tells us that President Jarret serves just one term (there is hope) and leaves office in 2036. He is defeated after voter dissatisfaction with the Alaska-Canada War and his role in the witch burnings that took place. While this is billed as science fiction, the stretch from the reality of today is not a great one.

Our Dystopian Future

The 2024 presidential election is now history. The nightmare process of trying to count, recount, certify, and recertify the results from statewide elections is over. The courts, overwhelmed with challenges and legal filings, declared the machine ballots from all 50 states invalid, and the Supreme Court, after consulting with Leanord Leo of the Federalist Society, decided to allow the 26 Republican state governors and the 24 Democratic governors to each cast a single vote for each of their states. In a surprising 26 to 24 nail-biter, Donald Trump was declared the victor.

Both President Donald Trump Sr. and Vice President Donald Trump Jr. were sworn in by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito at noon on January 20, 2025, at the new “White House” located at the facility formerly known as Mar a Lago. The president immediately decreed that he had been the legal president since the last election and that all actions of his predecessor were invalid. As he was the president for the previous four years, he was also exempt from prosecution for all crimes, past, present, and future. He also immediately pardoned all his coconspirators to be effective after they signed an NDA, swore an allegiance of fealty, and kissed his newly designed presidential ring.

The improbable had become reality as the Trump dynasty had now firmly established itself as the ruling family of the United States. President Donald the Third whose friends call him Donnie Three, delivered his inaugural speech via hologram projection to a stadium filled with the MAGA elite (anyone with a car, gas money, and a red hat). While holographic fireworks exploded in the sky, Trump’s ramblings were virtually incoherent. The one thing that could be heard was the promise of Trump Wall 2.0 which was to be covered in gold leaf and patrolled by orange-haired robots equipped with smartphone cameras to take pictures of any illegals who attempted to cross the border without paying an entry fee and promising to cut the grass on any Trump golf club course for free.

Given the new Florida location of the White House, it was also seen as prudent to relocate Congress and the Capitol Building to Palm Beach. Construction of the new Capitol will begin on Bingham Island, formerly called the Audubon Preserve, once they run off all those pesky birds. The new Capitol Building will be another Trump Tower branded operation that will bear his name. There will of course be a perpetual licensing fee at a rate to be determined by the new president.

Much of the cost of the new construction will be borne from revenue generated by the new theme park that will be built on the old Washington, DC government site. Plans for a Storm the Capitol experience will allow visitors to relive the January 6th Insurrection. The Washington Monument will be a Tower of Terror-type chair drop, and the 676-yard-long Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool will now be a water theme park with a slide that begins in Lincoln’s lap.

The president then created the new position of Secretary of Christianity and appointed Kenneth Copeland as its first leader. Copeland’s prosperity theology that promises his parishioners a hundredfold return on all donations sent to him was something Trump thought was brilliant. Any business that avoids all taxes and generates hundreds of millions of dollars with only the promise of a future return got the president’s attention.

Given that Donald Trump had officially been president since January 20, 2017, he vowed to break Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four-term run at the job. Chief Justice Roberts promised to make the Twenty-Second Amendment unconstitutional. Roberts declared that he had the full support of honorary billionaire justices Leonard Leo, Harlan Crow, Paul Singer, and Robin Arkley II.

In other appointments soon after taking office, Lauren Boebert was made Secretary of Education. Upon hearing of her new title, Ms. Boebert said that, since she couldn’t type, her new title would be president and the department would be called Bored of Education.

One of her first acts would be to revamp school curriculums to include mandatory Trump-branded courses on real estate development, beauty pageant judging, and mandatory reading of The Art of the Deal, the most important literary work of all time. All public schools would be renamed to pay homage to their new president for life with names like Trump Elementary, Trump High, and Trump University. To pass from one grade to the next all students would have to pass the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test just like their school’s namesake did in 2018. They too would have to draw hands on a clock, identify animals, and copy a picture of a cube.

In other reward lollipops for Trump loyalists, Marjorie Taylor Greene was made head of the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice where she will rewrite the Civil Rights Act of 1957 so that it more clearly supports the feelings of those “very fine people on the other side.” This was clearly a reference to the very fine white nationalists who peacefully marched in Charlottesville, NC in August of 2017.

Trump’s much talked about executive order called “Schedule F,” is in its early stages of development. Known as Trump’s Revenge, it is said to allow Trump to fire all government employees regardless of tenure, and replace them with friends, relatives, and cronies of his choosing. First on the chopping block will be the FBI. That agency will be gutted and Enrique Tarrio will be appointed the new FBI director. This will enable the Proud Boys to take over the former bureau.

Rudy Giuliani will be the new Attorney General. Jacob Chansley will be the controversial new UN Ambassador and is expected to don his January 6th horned fur headdress and spear for all official functions. This will clearly define the disdain Trump holds for the UN and NATO. George Santos will be the new head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and will be the first non-military person to hold that title. He will be given the honorary military title of Supreme Commander of All Things that Kill.

The new Trump News Network would be established to replace PBS, and it would feature both current and past Trump speeches and interviews as well as Trump family documentary features that would attempt to convey the greatness that is Trump. Features like The Great Wall of Texas, the Short Wall of New Mexico, the Arizona Minefield, and the California Turnstile would be featured. Viewers could watch the animated steel cage match between Vladimir Putin and Donnie III where the Trumpster defeats The Vlad with his famous “Covfefe Slam.”

In this dystopian future, the Trump dynasty rules with an iron Twitter thumb and the demeanor of a reality TV host yelling "You're Fired." The nation was transformed into a surreal spectacle where reality and satire were often indistinguishable. The phrase, “You can’t make this shit up,” took on a whole new meaning and a nation longed for the days when politics were just bizarre and not utterly absurd.

Political Sorcery

As every magician knows, you need a good distraction. If you are to fool an audience your means of distraction is critical for success. An attractive female assistant will get half your audience looking elsewhere. Add in a loud noise, a fast movement, a flash of light, a puff of smoke and you will have them all distracted so they don’t see what you are really doing.

As every politician knows, when you don’t want people to know what you are up to, it is best if you can keep them occupied with something else. Distraction in politics is a matter of survival. It is used to divert attention to further an ulterior motive. Focus their attention elsewhere and you can get away with almost anything. Inflation, abortion, racial hatred, antisemitism, gun regulations, immigrants, drugs, and crime are all good distractors. Better yet, roll up all the catnip trigger words into a four-letter one and call it WOKE. This can now be the loud noise that gets the villagers to light their torches and storm the castle.

When the natives are restless, they need attention. Ronald Reagan was called the Great Communicator; Donald Trump might be called the Great Bloviator. The term bloviation was once attributed to President Warren G. Harding who had perfected the art of speaking for as long as the occasion warranted without saying anything. Trump who is an insatiable consumer of television news perhaps understands best how to manipulate it. As his detractors get more and more aggravated, the MAGA base becomes more energized. As Trump’s narrative taps into an existing perceived fear, it becomes a proxy for a larger concern. The citizen victim needs a villain.

Original image was of Charlie Chaplin from The Great Dictator

Adolf Hitler was also a master of distraction. With a populous depressed after a crushing defeat in WWI, Hitler created his villains to explain that defeat, the failing economy, high unemployment, and the widening chasm between rich and poor. He was able to divide the Germans and, over time, he was able to indoctrinate them with lies, accusations, and innuendo. He tapped their fears and used antisemitic racism, which had been present for centuries, to provide an outlet for their frustration.

Donald Trump does much of the same. He is the spinning mirrored disco ball above the dance floor of a nation. He catches the spotlight from all directions and reflects it with dazzling effect. None of it makes any sense but it holds our attention. He dominates the media, all media. In one psychological biography, the author states of Trump, “He lives outside of time and narrative, like no other person I have ever encountered. He is the episodic man living forever in the combative moment, striving to win each moment, moment by moment, episode by discrete episode.”

Cue Donna Summer’s Last Dance and spin that disco ball one more time. For Donald Trump, perhaps the song should be Never Can Say Goodbye by Sister Sledge. (Super Freak would have been too on the nose.)

What is a Conservative?

What started as a political philosophy that promoted traditional customs and values has morphed into something few conservatives of the past would recognize.  The idea that the “conservative” we see today is in any way maintaining traditional values, conditions, and institutions, is almost laughable considering current conservative utterances and actions.  To even consider the abandonment of democracy to enforce some new order is by itself a contradiction of the stated values of conservative ideology.

Conservative tradition once avoided showy novelty and promoted the restoration of limited government, societal norms, middle-class values, and individualism.  Conservatives valued law and order and a strong military.  The conservative political ambitions of yore would not condone a Tommy Tuberville weakening our military.  They would not have stood for or supported the events of January 6, 2021.  They would not have made a statement that if Trump does not win in 2024, “…it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets.” [Mike Huckabee]

Tradition to some “Trumpservatives” would entail a return to the latter part of the 19^th century’s Gilded Age and its spoils system and dominant political machines.  This win at all costs and to the victor go the spoils reeks of a bygone era that no one alive today experienced.  Nepotism and cronyism that were once rampant under the spoils system, were at least not proudly practiced as politics as usual until Trump invaded the White House. 

While politics has always paid well, Hunter Biden’s $1M annual salary from a Ukrainian natural gas company while his father was the VP, seems to pale next to Jared Kushner’s $2B “investment” from the Saudi crown prince after Jared left the White House.  Donald Trump Jr., worked during Daddy’s reign to expand their Aberdeen golf resort in Scotland, kick start sales at two Trump-branded luxury resorts in Indonesia, and sell condos in Trump towers in India.  This is all while the Trump International Hotel hosted government officials from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and the People's Republic of China bringing in huge profits for the sitting president.

While Christianity is not exclusive to one political party, the distortion of traditional Christian values as identified by the biblical Jesus, seems to be a dominant trait of the religious right.  Hatred and violence were never values promoted by their proclaimed savior, but a new political Christianity has evolved that justifies an antithetical version of traditional Christian values.  There is an “ends justify the means” excuse prevalent in this political Christianity even while it contradicts the very premise of their religion.  There is a hatred for immigrants, LGBTQ people, and anyone they deem “unchristian” that justifies violence.  Those on the extremes of the Christian right have declared war on Democrats and have labeled them demonic.  Much of this new political Christianity is based on racism and their cloak of religiosity protects them in their search for the Holy Grail of white supremacy.  I doubt the Prince of Peace would have been amused.

Throughout our nation’s history, we have seen our political parties shift ideologies.  Democrats in the South, aka Dixiecrats, were the strongest promoters of segregation and Jim Crow laws.  The Republican Party of the Great Depression era advocated for small business, equal opportunity, and individualism.  It was a coalition of a few conservative Republicans and southern conservative Democrats that supported the New Deal and its liberal reforms.  This New Deal coalition included labor unions, blue-collar workers, and minorities.

During this time, the bulk of the Republican party, which was blamed for the Great Depression that began in 1929, had been big business allies.  They opposed the New Deal and its federal jobs programs like the Civil Works Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the WPA.  The WPA employed over 8 million people during the eight years of its existence that ended with the Second World War.  They built roads, bridges, schools, libraries, hospitals, waterworks, zoos, playgrounds, etc. 

Critics of the WPA were responsible for creating the Hatch Act of 1939, which is so much in the news today as it covered intimidation of voters, restricted political campaign activity by federal employees, and prohibited all persons below the policy-making level of the executive branch from any active part in political campaigns.  Isn’t that timely?  Revisions to the Hatch Act were vetoed by both Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush.  It was subsequently revised in 1993 and again in 2012 when Barack Obama signed the Modernization Act.

There is a saying that politics makes strange bedfellows.  None could be stranger than the GOP goulash of personalities that has slipped beneath the “conservative” covers of this new king-size berth.  One personality trait seems to dominate, the RWA or right-wing authoritarian is described as somebody who is highly submissive to authority figures, acts aggressively in the name of said authorities, and is conformist in thought and behavior.  This 2021 description is from the American Psychological Association and lists political conservatism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, and conventionalism as key predictors of prejudice, racism, and right-wing extremism.

The above RWA description was first used to describe the rise of fascism and explain the Holocaust.  Such individuals will submit to authorities whom they perceive to be legitimate in their society.  I’m guessing here that Donald Trump, the successful real estate mogul, and reality television host, fit their need for a social dominator.  These RWA types will also tend to be aggressive against various individuals or groups who are sanctioned by their authority figures.  Once selected to be their social dominator, that individual may not be criticized and anyone doing so is just a troublemaker.  RWAs will be loyal to authority figures who are dishonest, corrupt, and inept, and will insist that their chosen leader is quite the opposite dismissing any evidence to the contrary as false or inconsequential.  They will accept that rules or laws enforced on others do not apply to their authoritarian leader as they are morally above the law.

The “new conservatives,” that I have labeled Trumpservatives, believe they have the moral high ground, and that justifies putting tough leaders in charge.  Their new authoritarian dominator will silence, through any means necessary, anyone who threatens their lifestyle and religious beliefs.  One conservative Christian leader, Matt Walsh, told a cheering crowd that leftist opponents were satanic goblins and that he was “declaring war on every demonic, demon-possessed Democrat that comes from the gates of Hell.”  Another evangelical pastor, Charlie Kirk proclaimed, “Whiteness is great.  Be proud of who you are.”  These are no longer dog whistles of racism or white supremacy, but megaphone-wielding and outspoken critics of democracy.

One recent article written by a neuroscientist, in trying to describe the conservative acceptance of the numerous felony cases against Trump, and their acceptance of his lies in the glaring light of the truth, attributed it to cognitive laziness.  That would be that it is easier to accept the lies as truth than it would be to dwell on or even consider the facts.  It takes too much effort.  Disbelief is cognitively demanding and requires more mental effort than simply accepting something as true.  He found that Christian fundamentalist children begin to suppress critical thinking at an early age.  This makes it easier to accept Biblical stories as truth and not metaphors for life choices.  Accepting mystical causation for observed phenomena discourages analysis.  He theorized that such atrophied critical thinking made them more susceptible to deceit and manipulative narratives.  This would make them predisposed to accept improbable assertions.

While the radical ideologies I have described above are now wholly accepted by the GOP conservatives of today, they walk hand in hand with the old-guard Republicans.   These traditional conservatives must squirm at the very thought of what they have become but lack the courage to speak out against the new radicals for fear of reprisal.  I would imagine that many are hoping that this will all fade away when Trump exits stage left, or I guess that should be, stage right.

Until that time, however, we must contend with the likes of Donald John Trump and Ronald Dion DeSantis.  It will do no good to point to current authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Xi Jinping and describe what their leadership has meant for the economies, lifestyles, and freedoms of their countries.  No, this new breed of “conservatives” is myopic to both what has gone before and what lies in our future should they be successful in supplanting our democracy for an authoritarian promising salvation.  Our dystopian future awaits, perhaps as early as January 20, 2025.