Saturday, March 22, 2025 at 12:48 PM
Do you remember Elian Gonzalez? He was the Cuban boy found floating in the middle of the Caribbean Sea in an inner tube after his mother, and most of the other people on the boat, had drowned. The boat that they used to escape from Cuba had sunk. It sparked an international incident, and held our collective attention for months until he was reunited with his father, and sent back to Cuba.
Before Elian there was Anita Hill, who accused Clarence Thomas of being a sexual predator. Then there was the OJ Simpson trial, and then the Monica Lewinsky blue dress, with evidence that led to the impeachment of a president! All these incidents were national and international news for months, unending. The nation stood still as we watched and discussed all the tawdry details of those incidents. Since that time, we have lived through 9/11, mass shootings, mass school shootings, George Floyd, oh, and the first election of the Crimson King.
Those were the halcyon years, my friends, the good old days. Remember when the Black messiah, Obama, brought us promises of hope and change. Well, we gat no hope, and a lotta changes; mucho, mucho change!
In less than the two months since Trump became president, there has been a drastic transformation of the American landscape—in fact, of the world. We have seen our rights being challenged and curtailed. We have seen deportations, using archaic laws from the 1700s to justify those actions. We’ve seen foreign journalists being denied entry into America because this president did not share their points of view. We’ve seen oligarchs take control of most government departments. We’ve seen the beginnings of constitutional crises. We’ve seen our allies becoming our enemies, and our enemies becoming our allies. We’re seeing our cultural institutions becoming politicized and weaponized. We have seen our halls of learning subdued and made to bend their knees to the king. We’ve seen a cult-like obedience from Republicans that would make Joseph Stalin jealous.
How can any of us be angry at Donald Trump for all the chaos we are now experiencing? For that matter, how can we blame Putin or Xi or Nodi of India or Erdogan of Turkey or Orban and all the other wannabe dictators all over the world for their seemingly unconscionable actions? We cannot, and we shouldn’t. I myself have some reluctant admiration for a man who was cornered. A man who made mendacity into a new art form. A man who has broken all conventional norms as a politician, was indicted and convicted and became president for the second time, against all odds. Wat a ting!
Instead of all this outpouring of outrage towards Trump, we should see where the fault really lies for his reversal of fortunes. It lies with the majority of voters who elected him, in spite of all the chaos and retribution he promised if elected. They voted for him against their own self- interests. They voted for him although they had nothing in common with him. They voted for him knowing that he wanted to become a modern-day Nero, burning down the establishment and all the norms we took for granted, to the ground. The fault lies with us, specifically you, who voted for this imposter.
So, when I hear about people having buyer’s remorse, that they didn’t believe he would carry out his authoritarian agenda, that he would temper his actions and become a statesman, that he would look out for the little guy, the joke’s on you, not on him. He, in all his pettiness, his meanness, his lack of empathy, his complete disregard for law and order, was given license to carry out his mission, any which way he wants.
So, America, suck it up and take it like the careless, uninformed, selfish, greedy bunch of irresponsible guardians of democracy that you are. Enjoy four years of dysfunctional government, of pain and suffering and lies and corruption and measles and polio and tuberculosis and seig heils!!
“The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves.” — Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.
Glen