Getting Donald Trump Out of My System
And maybe yours, too
Being the 51 edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
You may be tired of hearing about Donald Trump and politics in general. What I write might be so blatantly obvious that you’ll wonder why I’m bothering. That’s okay. Feel free to give this one a pass. The truth is, I just need to get my thoughts down about this guy. Get it out of my system.
Maybe then I’ll stop dreaming about him.
I don’t know when I first heard the name Trump. Recently I watched every season of one of my favourite television shows, Northern Exposure. I did this as a balm to the soul, a way of dealing with the madness of the world these days, of which Trump is such a large part. Doing so, I was dismayed to hear Trump’s name invoked three times. It was jarring, but suggested that I first heard his name sometime in the early nineties. Like everyone else, I knew of him as a businessman specializing in real estate, allegedly very successful. Naively, I thought this suggested a canny, level-headed individual that you could count on to make smart decisions. When someone suggested he might make a decent President, I thought, well, maybe. If he can build a successful, multi-billion dollar real estate company, maybe he can run a country just as effectively. That was then, this is now. Now I know that business is not politics, a company is not a country, and Trump is, well, batshit crazy, vindictive, not to be trusted, and capable of doing great harm to a lot of people. That’s just my personal opinion. An opinion, I suspect, shared by many others.
As we know, some people can appear quite attractive until we get to know them. I worked closely for a short time with a famous broadcaster. I was always struck by the disparity between how the public perceived him versus how those of us who worked with him perceived him. People loved this guy… from a distance. I remember seeing his cover on magazines in the supermarket. Articles in newspapers. The media loved him. He was photogenic, projected progressive values, women swooned over him. But up close he came off as moody and temperamental. He could not be counted on to arrive at the studio on time. He wasn’t a complete disaster: he was a brilliant broadcaster, and we were an excellent team in the studio. Professional and effective while live on air. Long after I left the show his personal life imploded, which placed him under a microscope, and others got to see him even more closely than those of us who’d worked with him had.
It was the same phenomenon with Trump, for me. Seemed fine in the beginning. But the more I learned about him, the less I liked him. For a while I mused that maybe he represented some kind of mythic force. Chaos, maybe. There was no rhyme or reason to him; it was impossible to make sense of him, he was like Loki, the God of mischief and trickery, or in native American folklore, Coyote, a trickster who creates chaos but imparts useful lessons. But as time went on I realized that this comparison is probably an insult to the legends of Loki and Coyote.
I understand that there’s likely no convincing people who support Trump. It’s a perplexing reality gap. He lies, they believe him, or they don’t care that he’s lying. Or he professes to support something that they support so they’re willing to ignore other, less palatable qualities about him. Or they like that he’s an agent of chaos, or sticking it to the “woke.” Or it gives them license to indulge their own dark side.
Why people in power have supported him is rather more sinister. (I’m looking at you, Mitch McConnell. Too little too late, pal!) Some have suggested that these people are being bribed or extorted. Others claim to have supported him out of fear of reprisal, either from Trump directly (trashing their re-election bids), or actual violence at the hands of his supporters.
I just plain don’t like him now, and would never support him, and here’s why, in no particular order:
He refers to the press as “the enemy of the people.”
He incited an insurrection.
He wants to introduce tariffs that will hurt this country and probably his own.
He obnoxiously wants to make Canada the 51st state and appears to be serious about it.
He built a $15 billion wall to deter immigrants (pointless; they have other means of getting into the US)
He appears to support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, having said about it, “This is genius.”
He supports Netanyahu’s excessive brutality.
He denies climate change.
He appears to be using the Presidency to enrich himself, his family and his friends.
He wants to forcibly deport more than 10 million people from the country.
He has rolled back environmental protections, including Obama’s Clean Power Plan even though his administration’s own analysis found that it would cause 1,400 more deaths per year.
He’s transphobic.
He’s a convicted felon.
He’s responsible for rolling back Roe VS Wade.
He orchestrated presidential immunity, a bad idea
He appears to support fascism
He may be trying to transform the United States into an authoritarian state
A major study found that 40% of Covid deaths in the US could have been prevented were it not for his mishandling of the crisis.
“Dozens of women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct dating back to the 1970s, and he has been found liable in court for sexual abuse.”
And he appears to be homophobic.
I could go on. You may not agree with me about every point. Maybe you think some of them are fabricated, or exaggerations. But I would think that even a small subset of these qualities or actions would be enough to disqualify him for the office of President of the United States.
My main beef with Trump, though, is that with him in charge (or nominally in charge; who knows who’s actually running the show) people will get hurt. Maybe a lot of people. They’ll get hurt economically, emotionally, and physically. We should not be hurting one another on this planet, in this life. We should be helping one another. If you don’t agree with that basic premise, then, as John Goodman’s character says in the film Trumbo, “I don’t think we’re gonna be pals.”
It’s an open question how bad things will get under Trump. Maybe it’ll just prove to be your basic corrupt, inept administration. A clown show. But history has shown that it can get much worse. Conservatives tend to blow off charges that Trump and his cronies are bent on creating a fascist state. That those who suggest that are just being alarmist. But look what Putin did to Russia. Hitler did to Germany. Mussolini did to Italy. Or if not a fascist state per se, look what a mess Hugo Chávez made of Venezuela. They’ll be years digging themselves out of that hole, if ever.
Incompetent people can really make a mess of things. Evil people can make a mess of things. Evil idiots are a bad combination. The good news is I don’t think we’re looking at competent evil here, arguably the worst possible combination. Of course, that could be waiting in the wings. All told, it’s a strong argument to deal with the problem as soon as possible, before it’s too late. Before too much damage is done. Before too many people get hurt.
But how? You’ve got people who are inclined by temperament and disposition to play by the rules up against someone who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the rules. To Trump, people who play by the rules are chumps. So it’s not likely that Americans are going to be able to get rid of Trump by breaking the rules. Nor should they, necessarily. It is possible that one day he will piss off the wrong person at the wrong time in the wrong way, and that person could put an end to this sorry chapter in American history. Not necessarily via violence, which, to be clear, I’m not advocating; it could be a political end. But I don’t think that’s likely.
Time might take care of the problem. History is littered with bogeymen no longer with us. Trump isn’t young, and he doesn’t appear that healthy. It wasn’t long ago that Rob Ford was the bogeyman of Toronto politics; he is no longer with us. I thought Lucien Bouchard would be the end of Canada as we know it. Gone. Hitler lasted about twelve years. Mussolini twenty. Caligula’s long gone. Nero. Idi Amin.
And so on. But (with the exception of Rob Ford and Lucien Bouchard, who, whatever their issues, do not belong in the same company as the rest of the nutbars I’ve listed here) sure did a lot of damage in the time they had. So it behooves us to deal with the problem as soon as possible, before Trump and his henchman do too much damage, and before it becomes in any way institutionalized.
The best and simplest way to do that, I think, is via those same rules and laws that he appears to scorn:
Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another’s harm; and whosoever in authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and makes use of the force he has under his command, to compass that upon the subject, which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate; and, acting without authority, may be opposed, as any other man, who by force invades the right of another.
Trump and his cronies have to abide by the law of the land. If they do, great. If they don’t, then they must be held to account. This won’t necessarily be easy or even safe. It will require courage and conviction. But it has to be done. Like lancing a boil or pulling a teeth or chemotherapy or amputation… or worse. It might be painful or dangerous or risky or require great sacrifice, but guaranteed it will be better to do it sooner rather than later.
The Gates of Polished Horn
Mark A. Rayner’s The Gates of Polished Horn is coming out this coming Saturday, March 1st!
(And may already be available in select locations…)
What happens when you’re face-to-face with a truth that shakes you?
Do you accept it, or pretend it was never there?
Award-winning author Mark A. Rayner smudges the lines between realist and fabulist, literary and speculative in this collection of stories that examines this question—what Homer called passing through The Gates of Polished Horn.
We discover the cruelty of creating synthetic consciousness. A woman is worried that her husband is having an affair but discovers it's much, much worse. A time traveler uncovers a reality-bending fact while observing the death of Socrates. Waldo, of Where's Waldo fame, has an existential crisis. A traveling salesperson is killed on the highway, and this is just the start of his journey through the gates.
Infused with comic insight and tragic vision, this collection invites readers into new realities that touch on our shared humanity.
“Mark A. Rayner’s formidable storytelling is on full display in this thoughtful and diverse collection. He’s a fine and creative writer whose characters and storylines are quirky, inventive, and often very funny. Bravo!”
~Terry Fallis, two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour
Thanks for reading!
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This has been the 51st edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
I don’t think you can really comment on his opinions and beliefs because I don’t think he has any: he’s a narcissist who’s all about attention, power, and feeding the cult, and that’s what drives his words and actions. For instance, does he sincerely believe that life begins at conception and that abortion is murder and he personally wants nothing to do it? Of course not, it’s purely catering to this part of humanity that was ripe for the grifting.
They have a minimum age requirement for being elected President. There should be a maximum one...