Donald Trump

August 27, 2020

Early summer of 2016. I’m listening to internet radio. Donald Trump comes on. A few minutes into his rap I shout out to Catanya, “Hey! Listen to this speech. It’s classic fascist cant.”

Back then, Trump was just another ignorant wannabe flapping his jaws--but that’s not the case now, babies. Far fucking from it.

I offered my assessment of Trump’s pathology soon after he was elected and have alluded to it now and then, but for the most part, I have kept my political views to myself. I’ve avoided that topic for three reasons:

1. I grew up in a political family and know the ins and outs. Having seen the good, the bad, and the ugly, I find conversations about political opinion largely repetitious—the same old ground. It’s easy to take sides and stick to them, and that’s the opposite of what I am about.

2. As a psychologist, I regard my political opinions as an expression of my individuated bodymind, and prefer other ways of self-expression to advocating for them. That is how I view the political opinions of others, too. They have irrational roots, and we don’t choose them. I understand that what makes one person uncomfortable might feel just right to someone else and vice versa.

To wit, numerous studies show that one of the psychological “big five traits" called “conscientiousness”—meaning a tendency toward striving for achievement while resisting impulses, along with the predisposition to follow rules and norms—consistently tests higher among right-wing voters than left-wing voters. There is no bias or judgment in those observations. That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

Since one’s level of conscientiousness is not a choice but a fact of character, attraction to one side of the political spectrum or another cannot be a choice either. I get that. No worries. If you lean right by nature, OK. I can accept that. I preferred Obama, but Romney would have followed the Constitution too, which, political opinions varying as much as they do, is all we can expect of the Chief Executive. That’s the job. They take an oath to preserve and defend the founding document. They are in power for a while, and then they aren’t.

3. For the past ten years on Facebook, I have presented a point of view that is not primarily political but philosophical and psychological. I did not want to muck that up by voicing political opinions in endlessly contentious conversations.

Yesterday, contemplating the latest flagrant murder of an unarmed man, this time shot in the back seven times by a “peace officer,” plus the unending stream of lies from the Republican convention, which is not electoral politics any longer but the depraved ceremonies of a pernicious cult, I found that holding back is no longer working for me. I asked people to defriend me if they held any of the following beliefs:

1. Donald Trump should be reelected.

2. There is no such thing as systemic racism.

3. Covid-19 is a hoax, or masks don't help and violate my "freedom."

Until now, I drew no lines in FB friending. That’s how I ended up with 5000 friends. I received lots of requests and said yes to them all. I assumed--rightly, in most cases--that they’d read something I’d written and wanted to hear more or had seen my photographs and liked them. If a new friend did not work out, I sometimes had to block that person, but never for disagreement with my views, but only if subjected to disrespect.

Yesterday, that changed.

Facebook provides an entertainment factor along with a way to socialize that can be useful, particularly in this time of physical distancing, and that perforce includes being exposed to foolishness, just like at the local pub. I get that. Nevertheless, I have always taken my work on this platform earnestly, like a work of art. For me, this page is a workspace, a play space, a personal confession, and a scrapbook that others can leaf through.

Much of what I have shared here pertains to what I call the hypnotic delusion that eyes-wide-open awareness is something that “masters” have and you need to learn from them, or that intense striving is required to awaken, or some particular belief about consciousness.

To me, it seems indisputable that I am choicelessly conscious, and that hardly needs further elaboration or explanation, but only recognition.

Layman Pang approached a teacher asking to be shown his true self. The teacher said nothing but just sat silently. Finally, tired of waiting, Pang got up and walked towards the door. Just as he opened the door, the teacher called out, “Oh, Layman Pang.”

“Yes?” replied Pang.

“That’s it,” said the teacher.

Beyond that, I don’t know much, and yet, I, an ordinary human with no special powers, find myself awake right now, effortlessly. I have endeavored to say what I mean by “awake.” Most of my communications here and in my books and videos are about that.

But now I must speak about something else. Donald Trump has admitted his intentions, and he is not joking. He lies constantly, but never jokes. There is no sense of humor at all in that man. Trump admires the dictators and “strong men” of this world and aims at joining their ranks by hook, by crook, or by violence if necessary. No brakes on that runaway train.

Systemic racism, no longer hidden but denied anyway (“who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes”), is a major tool in Trump’s striving to forge a total autocracy. Divide and conquer. Demonize and debase. Stoke the fires of fear and paranoia. The empowerment of right-wing thugs and sickos is part of that, too, just as it was in late 1930s Germany.

I understand that many of the people I asked to defriend me are not fascists, nor mentally ill like Trump, but simply have opinions they need to rationalize, but that’s not the point. Such people are not just holding harmless points of view of which I should be “tolerant” either.

I will not tolerate any Trump apologists but will call them out and proclaim that to argue for the three propositions I mentioned is complicity in an authoritarian cult of personality, the very evil that the US Constitutional framers anticipated, feared, and attempted to forestall. Their document has been sufficient up to now, but this November may be the finale of the democratic experiment in the USA. If Trump is reelected, he may never be unelected, nor the son or daughter to follow.

I am a reader of history, and at 75, I’ve even witnessed some, but as a political thinker, I have no importance. Nonetheless, I do have an audience and a bright one. What I want to say to you now is this is serious shit. Serious, serious, serious shit.

If you do nothing more, at least make a plan to vote and carry it to a conclusion as soon as possible. If you can get a mail-in ballot now, please do. Get your friends to vote. If you were thinking of voting for Trump, read Mein Kampf. Perhaps you will recognize the plot. Nineteen Eighty-Four is good on this too. Double-speak, double-think.

If Trump is voted out, and somehow, mirabile dictu, a reasonable transition of leadership takes place, that will be good fortune, but if this madman is reelected, it’s Katy bar the door.