The title is taken from a quote attributed to historian Michael Beschloss and refers to the limited arsenal of behaviors that Trump possesses. He shares that legacy with fellow malcontent Richard Nixon, who touted his version of the value of fear and intimidation as an important tool in the presidential arsenal:
“People react to fear, not love; they don’t teach that in Sunday school, but it’s true.”
--Richard Nixon
- As the chaos rises in a crescendo of illness, death, and racism, Donald Trump’s approval and his polling sinks.
- As the virus death toll rises Americans queue in endless lines to get tested.
- As protestors line our streets fighting the injustice of racism, this president adamantly stands for the protection of statues...
...Confederate soldiers and generals astride their bronzed steeds, the tokens of a seditious confederacy, were mounted and displayed in public squares and on public property throughout the South after reconstruction. The intent included instilling fear in emancipated blacks by celebrating the exploits of their defeated oppressors. The monuments helped usher in Jim Crow and the overt racism of imposed segregation. Each a traitor, they sit on pedestals of dishonor erected by equally dishonorable men whose purpose was to preserve the memory of a renegade movement in the defense of slavery at the expense of a nation. A nation whose first traitor, Benedict Arnold, has been forever conjoined with infamy and betrayal and whose visage and form hold no place of honor in the public square.* The Confederacy, an erstwhile “nation of traitors,” and its residual tokens is the cause Donald Trump has chosen to take on after the recent plague of murders of black men and women at the hands of police officers and men pretending to act as agents of the police as in the case of Ahmaud Arbery. Statues, in his world, matter more than Black Lives.
Trump’s decision may be his final ploy to preserve for himself the power and privilege of an office he defiles every day he serves in it. At his core, he is a traitor. His essence is mired in the bigotry and racism that so enthralls a small but worrisome base. In the 2016 alignment of the planets that presaged his rise to power, many otherwise sane Americans fell for a campaign that promised them a white male leader. White men and women chose the fear of losing their majority status in a nation that was built on cultural diversity and a melting pot of cultures. Donald Trump was elected based upon a confluence of naivete and greed—of ignorance and privilege. As our national day of reckoning in November nears, the Trump campaign has pared itself down to the one tool he employs with deft and unprincipled joy. If you can’t love him, he wants you to fear him.
“Real power is — I don’t even want to use the word — fear.”
--Donald Trump
As he again stokes fear of one of us against the other, slowly the spell is being broken. In the last few months, it is becoming more evident that the fear of Donald Trump is misplaced. The existential threat we face is not the cult of Trump, but succumbing to its threats. The fear of what they are capable of. There is a huge difference between this outward enfant terrible his inner bête noire. The real Donald Trump is an avowed coward as evidenced by his gutless excuses to avoid service in the war of his era. A review of his well-publicized public life demonstrates his dimwittedness and reliance on privilege and “Daddy bailouts” to survive his otherwise lackluster business instincts. This paper tiger cowers in the face of any less than formidable foe. What provides him cover for his inner weakling is the curtain he chooses to hide behind. Early in his career, he used his father’s brazenness and money as a shield. Daddy provided the influence and financial wherewithal to bail him out of his screwups. Fred Trump then sacrificed his son’s moral and ethical upbringing to the wiles of his own reprobate fixer, Roy Cohn, who taught Donald his one masterstroke in negotiations---the double down. Together, their scorched earth approach to solving business problems precluded fairness and honesty. Cohn taught Trump skills he would never learn in schools. Lies and bluster were core curriculum, and the student learned to apply them well.
The fear he promotes is the smokescreen for his own ineptitude. Take that way and Trump comes undone. Cohn, having taught him the value of a constant offense, averted the need for a solid defense. I believe we are now witnessing the unraveling of Trump’s grip on the nation and his base due to the failure of his two father-figures to prepare him for the rigors of unprotected by privilege. They were polishing a turd---one whose sole gift was that he was as resilient as a Manhattan cockroach. As a tool, he is blunt and crude with little ability to evolve. He was to be a bully and a blowhard and he learned these lessons well. Convention meant little to him as he proved to be a serial adulterer and faithless spouse. The attributes he holds in abundance are those despised even by most of those who voted for him. He is that rarest of anomalies---the proverbial man whose only friends reside in low places. Their names are all well-known and for the most part infamous—Epstein, Cohn, Manafort, Flynn, and Stone, et.al. A rogues gallery of lowlifes and sycophants.
In the end, bullies are generally undone by their inability to use their superpower judiciously. Once their victims overcome their fear of them they are left with just their bluster. Overreach is their kryptonite. In this case, this president has made a few crucial miscalculations, the first of which is to trust his ever-expanding gut-— as a source he has plumbed one too many times. His hunch to bet on preserving the heritage of slavery and simultaneously defending the cause of rogue police in the face of video evidence of their crimes has exposed him. He has made the misstep of taking up their cause in place of ours, promoting unlawful behavior instead of lawful conduct. The shameful era of the confederacy and the obvious guilt of those who threaten and diminish the value of black lives, lives they are pledged to protect, have narrowed his base and broadened his opposition. He has either forgotten or never learned the distinction between cause and consequence---the powerful whipsaw effect of action and reaction.
The sedition of the South lasted a mere 5 years. Their regressive rebellion was an aberration — not a movement. Its heritage is one of sedition and was averse to what our nation is still attempting to accomplish—the promise of our nation’s founding documents and our founders’ unrealized dream. Police reform is an issue that is difficult to deny in the face of the many examples of black lives being offered up in deference to dubious claims of misjudgment and heat-of-the-moment error. The proliferation of eyewitness reporting demands reform in the hiring and training of those we ask to serve and protect us.
The “in your face” reaction of protestors whose cause is right as well as the increasing acknowledgment of those who side with them is what makes bullies’ knees buckle. Being on the wrong side of history is bad enough, but being blind to the corruption that envelopes him is quite another. It is time for him to fear the reprisals of real patriots and citizens. It is time we move on him and his chiseling crop of cronies. While the threats to our democracy are real, so are the certainties of our resolve.
In November we will vote despite efforts to stop us. Even if we have to stand in lines during the pandemic, even if we have to break down the barriers set up to suppress us. I predict that Russian or any other attempts to interfere with this election will be too little, too late. The die is cast.
In short, Donald Trump needs to fear the one thing he cannot understand, the one tactic his friends in the administration and the Congress cannot control. the righteous anger and resentment of citizens with a real cause. Right now, you can sense his fear. Donald Trump. I am sure, can smell and feel the flop sweat. In November it is up to us to make sure he finally gets what is coming to him, the judgment of a people who own the one thing he should be most afraid of---the vote.
*The Boot Monument is an American Revolutionary War memorial located in Saratoga National Historical Park, New York. It commemorates Major General Benedict Arnold's service at the Battles of Saratoga in the Continental Army, but does not name him.