The Trump Sickness

There are times when I approach writing this blog with the same sense of avoidance many of us feel when we're tired and not in the mood to work out but lace up our trainers and go to the gym anyway.

It's not that I lack for subject matter or ideas. The daunting factor that strikes me every time I sit down to write is the knowledge that I am going to have to read something that Trump, or worse, a member of his family or a follower, has said.

Just looking at their words on a screen makes me feel ill with what I have come to think of as the Trump sickness.

Trump is all the things I hate and despise, not only in politicians, but in anyone: racist, dishonest, corrupt, unethical, intolerant, xenophobic, cruel, mean, misogynist, bully, threatening, megalomaniac, demagogue, irascible, disrespectful, champion of violence and inciter of unrest, and I'll stop there; it's a very long list.

I find most of the same behaviors among many of his followers and family members, plus stupidity, moral blindness, slavish acceptance of lies, bigotry, violent urges, lack of imagination, inability to distinguish between fact and fiction, and between right and wrong.

Trump spends a lot of time insulting people by running them down and calling them names, which only means he's inviting others to do the same to him. Most of us like to think we're above such behavior, and if you are you're a better person than I, as this rant demonstrates.

The United States is a government of laws, and its society is based on that of Great Britain--arguably the most civilized nation of its time. Even before Trump became president he has been spreading hate and division, defying the laws that govern us, flouting the norms by which we live, and sending the country into a downward spiral toward third-world brutality.

This need not be a death spiral, but every one of us needs to rise up and take political action to save the nation. Be righteously angry. Be Proud. Be American.


--Diogenes, 6/24/2020