The Unexpected Victories of Donald J. Trump
No, this is not going to be about the 2016 election. This unnecessarily emotional issue — on every side, pro, con, and in between — has been done to death and hasn’t been relevant for years. What I want to discuss is the present, and a dangerous suggestion resulting from his recent failure to collect data on so-called “illegals.” I want you to now imagine the very possible reality of Donald Trump losing the 2020 Presidential election. Who could he blame? Who can he tell his cult is responsible for what they never believed possible? What excuse could the still sitting president give for refusing to leave office?
I see this as a different sort of victory for the Trump faction. Sure he must be angry, and even humiliated, his grandiose ideas dismissed as implausible and even unconstitutional. But this is a man who knows how to take advantage of any situation. Why would he not use this failure as an excuse for a subsequent victory?
Donald Trump’s greatest success as President has been the complete division of the nation — of the whole world. He painted himself as a messianic figure, appealing to a vast minority desperate for an uncertain change. At least half of these people, no doubt, would have aligned behind a similar left-wing messiah offering drastic change. The remainder would have been happy to paint them as Satan taking over the earth.
Such divisions, such a profound love/hate relationship over perceived and promoted political ideologies allows conspiratorial thinking to overtake and define an illegitimacy of reality, offering parallel narratives on the lies partisans always tell themselves. Why wouldn’t Trump tell his followers that whomever might defeat him cheated? Why wouldn’t he cheat himself then offer a justification that he was merely defending Democracy? I cannot say as much as reality about just how insincere and how fundamentally, morally corrupt this empty husk of a creature is.
Donald Trump does not love his family. He does not love the United States of America. He doesn’t love anything. In many ways he is similar to a serial killer staring at themselves in the mirror, putting on faces in order to pass for human. This is the figure who has successfully manipulated angry, paranoid people who want to believe that nothing is truly as it seems. People such as this can be convinced of anything — anything!
Who would believe, if the President told them, that the several million people he lost the election by were those same illegal ‘aliens’ he sought to identify? Suddenly there is a mysterious cabal — a Deep State — no different than the Freemasons, the Illuminati, or one of the many other “secret societies” believed by those for whom this is advantageous are running the world.
Conspiracy beliefs are often the easy way out, a denial of an objectionable truth. This is, of course, not to say that there are no actual conspiracies. I am even willing to admit that, on a much smaller scale, there are professional politicians, jurists, and multi-millionaires seeking to undermine President Trump. But there is every bit as much a conspiracy on the right to undermine the theory of Democracy. Count the number of times those supporting Trump correct you by claiming that we are, in fact, a “Constitutional Republic” without enough knowledge to discern how this is any different (Congress would have a lot more power than they do under Donald Trump if this were the case.)
This is all, finally, the consequence of having a conspiracy theorist in the White House. Conspiracy theorists are defined as those who reject “the official version,” something that is, far more often than not, the actual truth. And so they invent solutions to justify their doubts, their frustrations, and their beliefs. What conspiracy theorists also do, in those rare moments when they are capable of achieving some actual power, is devise their own conspiracies to win back whatever it is they claim they have lost to the shadow people. No one knows conspiratorial thinking better than a conspiracy theorist. Anyone who believes that the whole world is plotting against them will fight back in the best way they can, regardless of reality.
As for Trump, Donald J. Trump, he believes in nothing, absolutely nothing. Such a void of conscience and basic human understanding can stand behind anything before abandoning it for the next personally advantageous moment or belief. This is how he can so seriously promote anything, any triumph or disaster, as the sole property of either himself or his enemies.
Do not think that our president is a patriot. Do not believe that he cares whatsoever about the concept that once was ‘America.’ Do not even believe that he wants any of you to succeed. He simply does not care. We are all beneath his consideration. Donald Trump is not stupid. He is not even incompetent. He is simply a person who has never bothered to try and understand a dilemma, or the world surrounding him, preferring the momentary hedonism of conflict instead. Critics cannot even legitimately call the man a coward because he truly isn’t afraid of anything. He loves nothing, fears nothing, cares for nothing and is only motivated by a bestial instinct for survival. By raw hunger. He is capable of sacrificing anyone if it serves his circumstantial purpose. This of course includes his family, more a group of carnies setting up a show than real living and breathing people. Does anyone doubt that he has instructed his children to do or say something humiliating in order to avoid the blowback himself? Do you really believe that if no one else were available he would not blame one of his children (even Ivanka!) for some crime to avoid whatever punishment he might deserve? Of course you don’t. Even you supporters of the man realize this. Most of you know that he does not care about you, your life, or whether you are happy or successful.. Perhaps the reason so many people follow the man is because they too have become every bit as hollow, as soulless, every bit as indifferent to the fate of reality as the man they rallied around to crown king.
