THAT’S DENTERTAINMENT ! by Dennis Tkach. Why Canadians should pay attention to Donald Trump. Why go to movies, theatre, or sporting events when you can watch CNN or Fox News 24/7 for the ever continuing soap box comedic drama that is the 2016 Presidential Election? Outside of the U.S.A. the rise and fall of ‘The Donald’ is providing Canada and the rest of the free world with some of the greatest entertainment ever witnessed. But believe this: our good neighbors to the south, most certainly, do not feel entertained.
We can all agree it is the ultimate theatre of the absurd. Democrats see the promise of Hurricane Trump ripping a swath of social destruction from sea to shining sea while Republicans are shaking to the core with elephantine sized fear as they watch the doomsday clock tick down to November the 8th…. the time they perceive Hurricane Clinton making landfall. For us the American Presidential Election of 2016 can be viewed as either the grandest example of slapstick humor… or the darkest of Shakespearean tragedies. However this should also be a time for the free world to heed the ominous warning carried on the winds of this perfect storm. If such a social and political 9 point Richter upheaval can happen to the most powerful nation on Earth, can it not happen to us? In the grand scheme of things my comments may seem like a bum burp in a windstorm and of inconsequential matter to you. But they should. When it comes to history being the greatest teacher, someone once remarked, mankind is a very poor student. We seldom learn from our mistakes.
This should be a sobering time for all of us to ingest, analyze, ponder and hopefully come to understand and recognize the ingredients that went into the recipe that created America’s current witch’s brew.
In 1952 Isaac Asimov, one of the immortal giants of science fiction, published a novel entitled “The Man Who Upset The Universe.” The story line is briefly as follows: In the far future a brilliant historian, one Hari Seldon, after a lifetime of analyzing the history of mankind with all its myriad complexities, was able to devise a formula of unerring predictability. It was a blueprint of how the future would unfold and ‘The Seldon Plan’ was dutifully welcomed and followed by all. UNTIL an unforeseen variable entered the landscape, threatening to throw all of civilization out of balance. This unexpected element took the form of one man, a mutant (known simply as “The Mule”) who arose with great power and ability, bent on subverting and destroying civilization. And, who almost succeeded.
Paul Brandus, founder and White House bureau chief of West Wing Reports, in a recent scathing condemnation of “The Donald”, compared the Republican demagogue to other infamous fictional characters of the same ilk. Big Brother from 1984, and Napoleon from Animal Farm. Brandus goes on to say that Trump succeeds because he commands a powerful cult of personality. “He can say absolutely anything, no matter how nonsensical, devoid of facts, or outrageous, and it is taken as gospel by his followers.” He is the pied piper leading the children away from their parents, never to be seen again; the mesmerizing genetic call beckoning the lemmings of Norway to the cliffs of November 8th.
There are those of us oldsters who remember the Reverend Jim Jones command to his followers to “Drink the grape kool-ade.” And they did. Today, by my approximation, 60% of all Americans and 98% of the free world stand all amazed at the vitriolic venom erupting forth from America’s political Krakatoa. I hear the majority (thankfully) shouting out loud; “What the Hell happened to common sense?”
In recent years the schism between Republicans and Democrats widened to the point where differing ideologies went from tolerant dislike and disapproval to mean intolerant hatred. The recent years where Republicans control the House and the Senate have succeeded in doing their best to destroy and block most of the Democratic efforts led by Barak Obama and their politico ‘brothers’ across the aisle. All they succeeded in doing was creating eight years of trench warfare where compromise became the first victim. This is a prime reason why ‘we the people’ (of both parties) view Washington DC through a glass darkly. It was the reason for the tea party to spring up like a poison mushroom, striking at the cohesiveness of the once proud GOP. It is the reason for fear mongers, and what Spiro Agnew (does anyone remember him?) said caused the ‘nattering nabobs of negativism’ to assault the halls of decency and common sense.
It is not the first time in modern history we have seen the bizarre and the strange seek leadership position. Remember Sarah Palin and the howling mobs of her followers? Exit Sarah Palin and enter Donald Trump. Make no mistake to think that The Donald is stupid or silly. He is diabolically clever. Somewhere in the icy depths of Dante’s Hell, Machiavelli is whooping for joy over his orange haired acolyte. The 9 circles of Hell are limbo, larceny, lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence (advocating revolution by force), fraud and treachery. I think we know one who has trumped them all. This leader of the hatemongers, by his cynical doctrine, has enabled him to manipulate the minds of many millions. How else can one explain how hard core right winged ‘Christian’ evangelicals ignore the fact that Mr. Trump, a moral abyss, has broken so many of the Ten Commandments? And with no regrets. The rabid fervor of the thousands who kneel at his altar are made deaf and blinded by the repetitive mantra of his bilious blither and babble as we here them cry out, “Savior, Savior, take us to a better place!”
On a more somber note, Mr. Trump’s rallies are very scary, made more so because the majority of his followers are not stupid people. They bring to mind the image of Hitler raging against all things ‘non Aryan’. At least, it can be said of Der Fuhrer that before he went nuts he lifted a bankrupt country back to it’s feet, put Germans to work and restored national pride by removing the humiliating weight of WW1’s Treaty of Versailles. Americans want a revolution because they see Washington is broken. But can you really believe, are you really so desperate, so mired in hopelessness, that you would claim a rigged election before the election happened? Justify sending death threats to judges, newspapers, and presidential candidates? Believe that all women who have charged The Donald with sexual and humiliating conduct by hand and mouth… are liars? That he is not a racist, repeatedly condemned by the words of his mouth?
Jon Meacham in a New York Times column laid out the devolution of the Republican Party from the Bush presidencies to the Day Of The Donald. It is a little trumpeted fact but true that “George H. W. Bush privately said that he will be voting for the wife of the man who dispatched him from the White House. This will be his first ever vote for a Democrat.” Doesn’t that say it all?
Donald Trump will lose the election and turn a grand old party from disarray to rubble. It is the women of America that are going to bring him down. Justice will prevail. Alas, do not think it will be over, come November 8th. Like we are seeing in Haiti, the destruction will last for years, possibly decades. Democracy requires an adversarial system of government. Without it we have dictatorship and realization of Satan’s prime goal… the removal of free agency from the people. America needs both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to be strong and healthy. Such government should reflect by action and deeds, not mere hollow rhetoric, a love for all its people. Though it will always be with us, there should be no place in the world for hatred. Compromise, not intolerance. When the positive elements that make democracy great cease to exist we have Russia, Syria and an endless list of states of human misery to remind us where the path to complacency will lead. Canada has a strong and effective three party system. The NDP serve as a counterbalance in the nice polite dissensions that hold court between the Liberals and Conservatives in Ottawa. America could learn well from our system of government.