The Worst in Our Past is Today's Monster

Although millions of Trumpists in the USA might not care, it appears a lot of people in the rest of the world think President Donald Trump has failed to make America great again. Next week we expect to all see what voters in this country think of Trump's performance in his pursuit of greatness. 

We also expect to see what the USA collectively thinks about a president selling the notion that it was only in our best interests that he lied continuously about a health crisis, a pandemic that has now killed over a quarter million people in the country and crushed the economy. We expect to see what the nation's voters think about a president who, as part of his low-road effort to win reelection, would sabotage the operation of the United States Postal Service. We expect to see what the voters think about a president who openly encourages hate groups to don military get-ups and carry firearms in the public way to intimidate Americans calling for racial justice.

Of course, the list of Trump's instances of willful malfeasance, while in office goes on ... and on ... but by now I trust most patient readers have gotten my drift.

Yet, it's also fair to say that all of the bad things that have happened since January 20, 2017, supposedly in the name of "conservatism," can't be blamed on Trump alone. So this screed isn't just about the loathsome and dangerous stuff Citizen Trump has done to benefit himself however he pleases. It's also about citing the so-called "conservatives" in Congress, cowed members of the Republican Party who have stooped to carry out Trump's orders, no matter how immoral. 

Oh, and let's not leave out the millions of Americans whose support for Trump apparently hasn't wavered -- people who continue to turn a blind eye on Trump's mountain of malfeasance. At this time I won't try to analyze their motives, but next week we expect to find out how many of them are still blithely swallowing "alternative facts," cooked up in a parallel universe.

Nonetheless, I will say this to today's devoted Trumpists: Like it or not, the rest of the real world is not ignoring what the hell has happened to the USA since Trump took office. So historians probably will not see the practiced patter of the cult's members as a legitimate continuation of the conservative movement's principles, as once espoused by its icons, such as William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan. My prediction is that historians will view what we now call "Trumpism" as an anti-liberal form of populism and a cult of personality.

Moreover, the rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem that the facilitators of the Trump's corrupt agenda have set loose on the landscape has nothing to do with American greatness, now or any other time. Today's slouching monster has been conjured up from the worst in America's past. Trump's time in the White House will surely be remembered as a dark period as long as there are decent people somewhere in the world, good people who care about the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 

In the meantime, six days before the vote-counting in America starts, hope still exists and voting is...

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-- Art and words by F.T. Rea