America In Context

[Edited to fix some horrible formatting choices that made it look like my opinions were President Trump’s comments — PAD]

A Punch to the Throat

When I was about 13 years old, I finally had enough. I didn’t care that I was small, scrawny, had Coke-bottle glasses, and had never been in a fight in my life. I was sick of being pushed around. So I let my anger boil up, and I stood up, fists clenched, ready to fight. That red-haired punk (whatever his name was, at this point I don’t care, I only hope he’s in one of those terrible private prisons somewhere) took one swing and punched me in the throat. I dropped like a rock, right to the ground, completely powerless.

When something like that happens, it’s not cinematic. There’s no color-graded slow motion, no violin music, no anguished looks or hammy overacting. You just go :flooomph: and hit the ground, in the most undignified fashion possible. Then you wonder just what the hell hit you.

A Punch to the Throat

So there I was, watching the inauguration silliness, when along came the time for President Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address. Now I make no bones about hating this man, and one of the things I hate most is his big mouth and the words that flow out of it. But this is special, this is different, this is an Inaugural Address, and like it or not, he is duly-elected and is President. I made a concerted effort to put down Twitter and listen to the man, as fairly and as fully as I could, even with my own biased viewpoint.

After it was over, barely twenty minutes later, I was horrified. Truly, deeply horrified, right to the core of my being. My brain was locked right up, I was speechless, and I had a pain right in the gut. It was a metaphorical punch to the throat, and I was lying in the grass in a lump. My next tweet was “That was revolting.”

Expectations

Politicians, pundits, and the “socially active” always have these grandiose expectations for the content and tone of these inauguration speeches. Some want to “bring the country together”. This was a big one this year: it was such a nasty and divisive election, a lot of people felt he needed to do this. Some want to “expand on the vision” (a favorite of the intellectual right this year); or “bring gravitas” (which is code for “learn to communicate like an adult instead of a preteen troll”).

I, like a lot of Americans, don’t have any expectations for political speeches any more. It’s yet another speech with another set of platitudes. I always have a private list of buzzwords and tropes, and giggle when one is hit, because I know the press will talk about each one, and the phantasm we call  “political discourse” will continue. After this miserable election, I’d love to get back to the same, old, tired political discourse for a while. It would be comforting.

Well, all those expectations went right out the window, 58 stories, and splatted horrifically on the sidewalk.

Instead of any of these same-old tropes, Donald Trump double-downed on the antagonism. I would love for a future historian to dub this inauguration address “The Sh*tstorm Speech”. It would be the most honest of descriptions.

Realities

Here’s what we got from Donald Trump on this historical day:

Donald Trump has no intention of uniting a divided country

This speech has the same tone & timbre as all his campaign stump speeches. Same style, same content, same delivery, everything. This means several things: 1) he’s targeting those people who found his style appealing in the first place, and has no interest in broadening his base; 2) he’s totally doubling-down on everything that angered half the country (blacks, gays, Latinos, women) in the first place; and 3) he enjoyed the combative nature of the campaign and wants to keep it going. This third one is most troubling. Most candidates hate the trail and want off it as soon as they can, because it is combative and nasty. He likes being combative and nasty.

Donald Trump wants to inflame the people

Someone go back in history and find a President using the term “American carnage” in any public, non-campaign speech. Carnage? Seriously? Half his speech was dedicated to painting a picture of America like we’re a miserable, forgotten hellscape. Yeah, we got many problems, but “American carnage”? That is a massive stretch, even with our problems. I dare anyone from his tribe prove that American carnage describes our situation . But there he is, crafting America as a place of death. “Carnage”. “Tombstones”. “Lives Robbed”. It’s Grand Theft Auto: Fifty States Edition! There’s only one reason to take things in that direction: he wants to give his base a motive for hating our country (not “our country”, as in the patriotic slogan on a t-shirt, but our ACTUAL COUNTRY as it stands today).

Donald Trump is providing targets

All throughout his speech he’s tying this faux bleakness to our ruling politicians of both parties in a grotesque, attack tone. Usually, inauguration speeches attack ideas or ideologies that are not to their liking; Trump makes it personal. He doesn’t come right out and say  “It’s all their fault!” while pointing at everyone around him on the Capital steps, but it’s close. I think if he had a big enough private army, he could easily have the entire Congress, Judiciary, and bunch of old, retired presidents executed on the spot.

Donald Trump wants to ignore the real targets

You can also read into what he left out. Grab your loudest “government cynic” hat, and think the worst of your government. Do politicians work for themselves? Well, yeah, but on who’s behest? Those who fund their campaigns. So they’re beholden to those moneyed interests. Who are these moneyed interests? Well, for shorthand, it’s the 1%. These are the ones who wanted NAFTA and the TPP and the banking loopholes and all the other stuff that, either in reality or in Trump’s universe, has created this “carnage”. But not a shred of anything in his speech about the effects of money on politics. Why? Well, because to him, Big Money is good, and the rich are better than you. Why do you think his Cabinet is populated by CEOs, wealthy elites, and people who hate public school kids, people on Medicare, and anyone who works at more than minimum wage? They are “great”, and aren’t “the problem”, in Trump’s eyes.

This is why you inflame people: you make them stupid so they miss the real target.

Donald Trump is suggesting illegal, tyrannical revolt

At first glance, his statements about “our government is controlled by the people” are awesome. Yes, it is supposed to be “our government” and “our country”. But then he blurts out “January 20th, 2017 will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.” Whoa whoa whoa whoa WHOA! America does not have rulers! Even “carnage America” does not have rulers, and that INCLUDES the people. We are a nation of laws and rights. The ONLY thing that “rules us” are the laws and regulations that are put into effect by our elected representatives, under the auspices of the Constitution, and constrained by the Bill of Rights and other Amendments. This notion of “we are the rulers” is the type of dangerous talk that gives “populist” a very bad name. That’s not me being a “libtard” either: that’s historically traceable to the most infamous of tyrannies. All of them were started with this kind of talk. James Madison famously wrote “[True] democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” He’s talking about the mob overruling the rules of law and the sanity of a representative, republican (small “R”) form of government.

Enough

I can’t analyze his little speech any more. I could on for pages about his comments and executive orders on loyalty and patriotism. Tyrants give me ulcers. This man is a menace, and he must be stopped. God almighty, I hope we find a way.