Beware
Of Apathy and Hate
Donald John Trump is not a stable personality, much less an intellectual genius. He is not a force of nature or the will of God made manifest. He is not destiny’s child. He is a corrupt businessman with a lucrative side gig as the 47th president of the United States of America. He is a useful tool. He is the right guy for a troubled time. He is the face and voice of a mean and mendacious rolling coup of our democratic republic.
What’s It All About, America?
Mr. Big is dedicated to the proposition of securing and exploiting a position that advantages his ego and purse in every instance. The first six months of his second administration have been a master class in purposeful chaos and callous cruelty. Beyond obvious flaws in his character, questions arise about the fitness for high office of a man who seems to drop into public displays of dementia on a routine basis. His ability to attain and hold a position of unparalleled global power is an uncomfortable mystery.
On 11 July 25, Lori Corbert Mann (Your Time Starts NOW!) posted a discussion of one of her (many) concerns about the current administration.
“While focusing on the lack of media coverage of Trump’s cognitive decline can feel urgent, if we stay fixated there, we risk missing the much larger picture.
“This isn’t about whether one man is fit for office. The deeper issue is that Trump’s authoritarian project does not rely on his personal lucidity. It never has.
“It’s a machine now. A coalition. A movement with money, lawyers, Christian dominionists, military loyalists, and a constitutional playbook that’s already in motion. Trump’s cognitive state might change the tone, but not the trajectory.
“The real danger is not that Trump might be mentally unfit. It’s that he doesn’t have to be. (Emphasis added.) Because others are already ready to carry out the programme. In fact, others already are.”
Lori then identified the following “others”:
1. Legal architects like the Heritage Foundation;
2. State-level operatives (in the movement to cause an Article V Convention of the States to revisit and replace the existing Constitution);
3. Tech oligarchs and surveillance capitalists;
4. Theocratic power blocs; and,
5. Military and policy loyalists.
The Partisan Divide
Whether Lori is right or wrong or a little of both, the situation is dire.
We the People are the energy, attitude, and permission that drives the American Dream down the rutted road of history. We presently have surrendered our power and purpose to apathy and hate. These animosities weaken us. They are useful weapons for enemies envious of our historic strengths and present wealth.
Here are the four camps into which we have divided ourselves. And the pouty partisan attitudes that keep us deaf to each other.
1. MAGA Cult: In 1978, Bob Seger famously sang:
Like an echo down a canyon
Never coming back as clear
Lately I just judge the distance
Not the words I hear
2. Constitutional Loyalists: In 1958, Rodgers & Hammerstein had Marine Lieutenant Joe Cable sing:
You've got to be taught to hate and fear
You've got to be taught from year to year
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade
You've got to be carefully taught
You've got to be taught before it's too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught
3. Disenchanted, Disenfranchised, Disinterested: In 1969, Peggy Lee wondered:
Is that all there is?
Is that all there is?
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is.
4. Discarded, Diseased, Despised:
In 1964, Bob Dylan forecast a day of reckoning against injustice:
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
And you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'
Survival of America the Beautiful will require accommodation of each other for sure, compromise maybe.
The archangel Michael is not a celestial Uber service. His terms of employment preclude favoritism. He is not going to row any single one of the four attitudes ashore.
We must lash up together and call again, sharing the ride and its cost, to escape the storm and cross the troubled waters of today to a safe harbor tomorrow.
Delay Is the Devil’s Cocktail of Preference
The devil hides in details. And does worst work in uncertain pauses. Resistance 2.0 need not be sophisticated. Just instant, constant, faithful, responsive, and innovative. Ditch hate. Overcome apathy.
Manifesto
To each their own.
As an 83-year-old Southern white woman, I understand the strategy of going to social media to reach the eyes, hearts, and minds of that pool of potential voters needed to discomfort Trump 2.0 in Election 2026. However.
I am neither comfortable nor willing to rent a cat to wear as a hat while I attempt to break dance to “What a Feeling!” to reach, charm, and reason with persons frequenting or addicted to those modes of communication.
Short of that dereliction of duty, I am willing to do what I recommend. To use my person and my purse everywhere every day in every peaceful way to protest the fact of the Project 2025 playbook and the horrific effects of its implementation.
Please join me.
Let us rise together to defeat despair, distrust, and delay.
Let us covenant with each other to:
1. Resist
2. Persist
3. Prevail
That was terrific. But I still don't know what I can do. None of the people I know are Trumpers. I am also 83. You are doing something I can't. You are writing clearly and informatively. I can't do that. I'm a writer, but I can't do what you are doing. So I just seethe, Seethe and feel such despair, so much grief and so much anger about the people being dragged off the streets, away from their families, their places of work. Of course it is because they aren't white, and this maniac and his cronies seem determined to make this a nation of white people. All white Republican men, their. obedient white wives.. obedient little white children, God almighty. what the fuck? And the thousands upon thousands of people losing their health insurance.. Dying for lack of care. I am filled with hate. And I can't even think about FEMA, and every ...I can't. just can't.
Powerfully written and spot on Susan. And I think you are absolutely right. The forces behind Trump are the real worry. They'll tolerate him speaking and posting gibberish indefinitely while they get on with their schemes. It is nonetheless strange that the mainstream media do not eviscerate him. Contrast over here where every newspaper and broadcaster takes a swipe at our government (and with some justification!). There must come a tipping point when right thinking prevails Surely? SURELY?