The Eternal Return

Trump’s Secret Sauce

When your life is not going your way. When you cannot get what you want when you want it. You have options. Buy snake oil from a carnival grifter or a love potion from a New Orleans witchy woman. Or vote for Donald J. Trump in Election 2024. Follow instructions carefully for best results.

Credit. iStock

These options are all about circumventing fate and co-opting personal responsibility. A desperate cop-out.

There are some who will point to religion as the same surrender decision. I use time to make a distinction between any of the established religions and the click-bait cult of DJT. Mayflies do not enjoy a long lifespan.

The Cult of DJT

The rise of the MAGA Movement was like a snowball down a mountain hill. The guy worked for decades to obtain presence in the public mind. He took the rock of racism, wrapped it in a layer of avarice, and lobbed the hateful package of toxicity anywhere shock would accept, and prejudice would nurture, it. Time and the election of a black man to the presidency in 2008 increased the size and velocity of his appeal for attention, relevance, and opportunity.

“Cult is a term often applied to new religious movements and other social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term has different, and sometimes divergent or pejorative, definitions both in popular culture and academia and has been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study…………… According to Susannah Crockford, "[t]he word ‘cult’ is a shapeshifter, semantically morphing with the intentions of whoever uses it. As an analytical term, it resists rigorous definition." She argued that the least subjective definition of cult referred to a religion or religion-like group "self-consciously building a new form of society", but that the rest of society rejected as unacceptable.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult

The cult of DJT is founded on three 2016 principles and strengthened by two 2020 principles:

1. 2016

· For reasons I fail to understand or believe, America quit being great in 2015;

· For many reasons, but in every season—a MAGA member is dissatisfied; and,

· For reasons I refuse to accept, DJT will make everything just perfect again using his stable genius, personal charisma, and renowned transactional skills.

2. 2020:

· Any act of DJT is acceptable before the law; and,

· Anyone or any institution that disputes him is to be punished.

The extreme devotion of MAGA Movement members to these principles makes them resistant to, and aggressive toward, ideas and lifestyles not fully supportive of their worldview. Progressive hopes and strategies focused on returning to political power in Election 2026 best not count on any votes from MAGA believers based on fact. They did not hear or believe you in 2016 or 2024.

Here’s the fun part. Elon Musk has, as Dan Rather

so eloquently put it, “bought the hen house.“ He is Best Buddy in Trump’s Billionaires Boy Club. He is counting on We the People to fund his population of Mars. MAGA members are not interested in the Starship Enterprise message of progressive candidates. They do not want or intend to “go boldly” (or any other way) to a commitment to equity. They want for eggs and gas to “return” to prices they remember as affordable. Somehow these dear believers can accept the proposition that the private plundering of the commercial possibilities of space is in no way tied to consumer prices here on earth.

A Hard Truth

America always has been patriarchal. Making political strategies or statements that ignore or deny the presence and power of sexism, racism, and misogyny will not bend the arc of our national history toward fairness.

A Sad Fact

Donald J. Trump is nothing special. He is an unscrupulous and venial white man of advanced age and diminished physical and mental capacity. He is the living embodiment of “It’s better to lucky than smart.” Any rich bigot would have served the moment of Eternal Return in 2015 as well as he. As Roy Cohn’s terrible golem, he campaigned long and hard for name recognition well before running for any public office. That would not have been enough to make him The Chosen One. Kellyanne Conway was who sealed his deal with The Moment of opportunity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellyanne_Conway My blood turned cold when first she introduced “alternative facts” into the political arena to brush aside Trump’s foibles and failings. She debuted the term to excuse Trump’s lackluster performance in the first debate among candidates vying to be the standard bearer of the Republican Party in its quest to return to power in Election 2016. He has become only more crass and corrupt swimming in the secret sauce of his doublethink world. He is a dangerous and vindictive clown.

The Long and Winding Road

The civil rights movements of ‘60s and ‘70s are now a bittersweet memory. They were not pretty in their own time and space. People were killed and jailed for demanding equity. Their hard-won legacy in law and culture is under vicious assault.

In contemplating this present socio-eco-political tragedy, my mind turned to the possible truth of The Eternal Return. I choose to believe that We the People will cause the pendulum of aggression and repression to return to center. Eventually. Only with sustained and focused effort. And at great cost.

On behalf of every presently disappointed and vulnerable soul, these lyrics sprang to mind:

“Many times I've been alone
And many times I've cried
Anyway, you'll never know
The many ways I've tried

And still they lead me back
To the long winding road
You left me standing here
A long, long time ago
Don't leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door”

Paul McCartney, 1970

Sometimes the esoteric is a useful point of reference and discussion.

What real and strong phenomenon did Showman Trump harness to name and drive the MAGA Movement?

I suggest:

The Eternal Return

In 1961, Harper Torchbooks published Willard R. Trask’s translation of Mircea Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. One of my philosophy professors made it a reading assignment in 1964. I was mesmerized by the theories in that book. For readers unfamiliar with Eliade, I offer the following:

“Mircea Eliade…was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. One of the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century^[1] and interpreter of religious experience, he established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day. His theory that hierophanies form the basis of religion, splitting the human experience of reality into sacred and profane space and time, has proved influential.^[2] One of his most instrumental contributions to religious studies was his theory of eternal return, which holds that myths and rituals do not simply commemorate hierophanies, but (at least in the minds of the religious) actually participate in them.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade

Put more simply, and for our immediate consideration—there are folk more comfortable with the myth of a Better Past than the rough edges of their personal Present Time. They will make the Better Past memory their Present Time motor.

Google AI suggests that “Eliade argues that traditional man attributes no value to the linear march of historical events: only the events of the mythical age have value. To give his own life value, traditional man performs myths and rituals.”

If you doubt the power of The Eternal Return, recall that a MAGA crowd was content to watch Trump silently and awkwardly sway to his personal playlist—a new ritual intended to celebrate Togetherness (with a mentally incontinent speaker).

In preparing this opinion piece I was shocked and disappointed—then informed—by the assertion that Eliade was a fascist. Who better to understand and articulate the force behind the MAGA Movement?

I doubt that George W. Bush read enough history to understand how chilling was his use of the word “homeland” in a comprehensive national security protection strategy. Or, worse, the use of the word “patriot” in an act which allowed government compromise of essential civil liberties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act

Trump misuses the word “patriot” a lot. Lately he means folks who stormed and defiled our National Capitol Building on 06 Jan 2020. I really resent having that day of infamy mischaracterized. Or, worse and most recently, shortened to the easily forgettable (and totally disrespectful) “J6.”

Trump also throws the word “truth” like a strand of spaghetti against the nearest wall of opposition. He admires Hannibal Lector and thinks Hitler had “some good ideas.” The table is set for a banquet of abuse.

Although the meal likely will not last 1000 years, I predict that its nature will resound through history.

The choice is not simple. Options exist. Consequences attach. Attend the banquet as a guest or as a menu item. Eat or be eaten.

Even the cooks and wait staff will be remembered poorly.

If you can, avoid an invitation to dine. Choose to be a little hungry.

Stand apart and ready to clear the table after the cannibals make a meal of each other.

Don’t just survive.

Prevail.