The country needs to unite. We need to set aside the conflicts of the past and work as one to move the nation forward.
Um, no. Absolutely not. Not at all. At least, not yet.
We’ve just been through a significant traumatic experience. We’ve had an armed insurrection, a violent incursion into the U.S. Capitol, and the attempted kidnapping and murder of our senior-most elected officials, including the Vice President of the United States. The 45th President just led a campaign of not only lies, but of broadcasted hatred, lasting four full years of his term. We still have threats against the government and the people, from inside the country and, quite likely, amongst the ranks of the military, law enforcement, the federal government, and elsewhere. Unity is not possible right now.
Time for some brutal honesty. Our very society is broken: horribly, horribly broken. These travesties are not symptoms of some mild disagreements, differences in policies or dogma. Divides like these don’t come from tax codes or health care plans, they come from anger and hatred and manipulation and dishonesty. These are serious behavioral problems, and have less in common with public policy debate, and more in common with alcoholism, cultic thought, and spousal abuse. I’ve had personal experience with the first two, and know far too many who’ve had experience with the third. The parallels are glaringly obvious.
Addicts
One thing about alcoholics is true from case to case: they cannot meet any commitment. They cannot be trusted. Always with broken promises. Couldn’t get to work on time; couldn’t go to the Little League game; couldn’t remember your birthday or your anniversary or what day of the week it is. Everything they do or touch is compromised. They are dragged down by their addiction, every action they take is in service of their addiction, and through their inability to do jack squat, they drag down the entire family or entire company or whatever they touch. We’ve just had four years of a president who is addicted to himself, with all the corresponding behaviors of an addict: promises broken, a broken government, a fractured society, and 400,000 dead from a plague that would have been better handled by practically anyone with any level of competence whatsoever. The level of failure by the outgoing administration is outrageous and disgusting.
Cults
Belonging to cults warps one’s thought process. Cults feed their members lies, lies intended to manipulate their actions to the benefit of their mad philosophies or charismatic leaders. They also develop their own lingo, working to isolate their members from their family, friends, and general society. They convince their adherents that all others are “lesser people”, that they are not “worthy” of “understanding” the “truth”. They are taught not to trust what other people tell them, to disregard experts, and to especially mistrust the press. Cults do this to convince their members that only they are special, that only they matter, as long as “they” serve the Greater Purpose. This is horribly disruptive to families, friendships, societies, and, ultimately, to the adherents themselves. We’ve just seen the result of cultic thought amongst a wide swath of society, leading to violence, assault, and attempted murder. Five people are dead. That’s where cultic thought leads.
Cult Experts Warn That Trumpism Is Starting to Look Awfully Familiar
Abusers
Abusive spouses are the worst of the lot. Beyond the physical violence endemic in such relationships, they are also well versed in manipulative tactics. They continually gaslight, and trivialize, and deny. They divert and dissuade and obfuscate. Everything is “your fault”. “You’re” too stupid to understand, and only “they” know what’s best. You must obey them, even to your own detriment, because they are worthier than you. Everything they do or say is so they stay in power, so they come out on top, so they get what they want, while you sacrifice your own hopes and dreams and even your humanity. They do it out of disgusting selfishness. We’ve seen four years of this very behavior from the very top, and we’re seeing the results now.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/25/trump-trauma-experts-abusive-relationship
Contrition Comes First
In all three cases, there is one thing that’s not possible, and that’s forgiveness, or unity. Sure, you may get some apologies, but these are shallow platitudes. You may get some promises to change, but these will be forgotten. You may receive pleas of forgiveness, but forgiveness is undeserved, because the pleas have no substance. They are diversions and distractions, meant to calm the situation, but the perpetrators will return to their old ways within a matter of days. I’ve seen it, this is what happens, over and over and over again.
What must come first is true contrition. Contrition is, first and foremost, an admission of guilt, an acknowledgement of what one has done, of the wrongs one has committed, of the lies one has told. In this case, there has to be an admission that there was no steal. The election was as free and fair as any we have had. There was no significant fraud. Donald J. Trump lost. He lost because he was a terrible president and hated by the majority of the voting public. That is a fact. There is no conspiracy, no deep state, no secret source known as Q. It’s all crap, a fabrication, a game. A game meant to anger and antagonize and divide, just to give miscreants and criminals an opportunity to seize power or line their own pockets. If you want unity, then first admit what was done was wrong, disavow this misanthropic nonsense, and stop supporting this narcissistic madman and his band of skeezy enablers.
The next step of contrition is to begin to act like decent human beings. Then ask for forgiveness.
Then, perhaps, we can have unity.
[I was going to post some photos of the riots to accentuate the point, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so.]
America In Context 
Leave a Reply