I intend to revise and expand upon this in the next few days.
The spectacle we are enduring is irretrievably changing our society.
This week, Charles Blow told us Trump represents an existential threat to US/THE USA (thanks teacherken for alerting all of us to his essay).
Blow was clearly struggling with how to analyze what he is witnessing.
I simply cannot wrap my head around how others with level heads and sound minds can even consider Trump for president of this country and leader of the free world. The logic simply escapes me.
He knows there is no logic, but as a reasonable man living in an environment which was, at least most of the time, tied to the set of facts and feelings that make up our reality, he cannot cogitate what is happening, at least not rationally.
I feel that I must say again, and until the last minute and with my last breath: America, are you (expletive) kidding?!
I want the title of this essay to howl. But Trump’s crimes defy language. Even though the English language offers us the largest vocabulary in the world, it does not have words to characterize Donald Trump’s peccadillos. Indeed, his violence shrinks the moment we name it: misogynist, abuser, bully, bigot, demagogue. The import evaporates. None of these words are sufficient.
When we speak, or don’t speak as is more often the case, of sexual violence, we have to resort to a pitifully short list of nouns and adjectives which are clearly inadequate to the case at hand. For example, English does not provide us with a word to express an incest aggressor. An incest aggressor is very often a rapist, but s/he is something more horrible, too. An incest aggressor is, by definition, a pedophile, but s/he is more than a pedophile. Trump clearly has incestuous thoughts which he has made obvious to all of us, but also to his daughter herself and his former wife. The range of his behaviors exceeds our language.
Trump’s candidacy has thrown us all into the deep end, an inchoate sewer containing the detritus of both what we hold dear and what we despise.
Many of us are shocked by this spectacle masquerading as a Presidential election. We need to think carefully about the tornadoes ripping through our body politic. It is hard to think when your soul shrinks from even examining the evidence, and oh boy, that evidence goes on and on and on. The evidence includes child rape and sexual trafficking.
We may be experiencing what Naomi Klein calls “the shock doctrine” in the form of an election molded into a ‘slow moving coup,’ but more about that later.
President Obama has realized this moment is special,
You have the chance to shape history, and I want young people to understand, those moments don’t come that often.
You know, there are times where history is movable. Where you can make things better or worse. This is one of those moments. And it’s in your hands.
www.whitehouse.gov/... Obama at Florida Atlantic University in Miami 10/3/16
I think we feel that history is being made right now; we feel the ground shifting under us. That realization leaves us breathless and more than a little shocked. Pundits are discussing how ‘things’ will never by the same.
In a few short weeks, whomever is in the White House will look out onto a radically changing America. A realignment is happening as we live and breathe. It is our sacred duty, as citizens of a democracy, to be present, attentive, thoughtful and take action. If we indulge ourselves in distractions, in useless fits of rage or depression, we will lose the moment.
The rethugs have redefined a number of words critical to the discussion of our body politic. The latest, “Corruption,” is the new battle cry. It is applied to whomever one deems an enemy.
- “Corruption” as defined by Merriam-Webster is the “impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle : depravity.” I can hardly think of a more concise list to describe Donald Trump’s countless character flaws and sins (I don’t often use that word, but it applies in this case). But Trump supporters have no trouble describing Hillary as if this were the only thing she represented. While it is dangerous for me to pull out the ‘sin’ word and apply it to Trump, it helps us to realize that his flaws are globally recognized as major transgressions against a community anywhere while (absent the murder accusations) Hillary’s are technical transgressions of the law, e.g. Comey insisted no intent could be attached to her actions. To use the same word for both is horrendous. Holding the puppy too tight out of excitement or concern is not the same as wringing the puppy’s neck, especially after one “grabs [it] by the pussy.”
For decades, the rethugs have twisted our language, skated up to and over the rule of law and our political traditions, including especially how we discuss volatile matters in the media and the media have almost always allowed the rethugs transgressions. The Ds have been complicit. They do not seem to care that these constant assaults have weakened the fabric of our political discourse to the point that no one of enough note could say: “The emperor has no clothes.”
One of the things we must do is organize our own movement to hold the press accountable. I do not mean demonstrations against the press.
One of the things we must take back is our language. Then we must pull it in our direction, e.g. abuse cannot be swept under the rug as idle talk. If we do not do this, even if Hillary wins, she, and us, will lose. We will lose not just democracy, but our country and the planet.
But how can we hold the press accountable if our own party refuses to learn it has two choices in the discourse war: 1. retaliate with our own turns of phrase 2. stand up with integrity and call a distortion/lie for what it is? 1. is perhaps unwise but 2. is the bottom line.
The moment extends beyond a win for Hillary/us. The moment Obama recognizes will be a long, slow coup or a long, slow turning towards justice for all. Are we ready? Are we committed?