Despite four indictments and ninety one charges including election interference, hush money payments, accusations of sexual misconduct by over twenty five women, over twenty of his allies being indicted, being found guilty of sexual abuse and financial fraud, bowing down to Putin, engaging in insurrectionist activities, calling America soldiers suckers, threatening to let Russia attack NATO nations, the Trump train keeps rolling along. This doesn’t even include some of his bizarre behavior during the Covid 19 pandemic. Any person engaging in a modicum of rational thinking would ask how is it possible that a toxic individual such as the former president can command such allegiance to the level of fealty.
In actuality we have seen such obedience throughout history. Think about the people who gave up all their possessions to follow Jim Jones or to join Heaven’s Gate, Aum Shinrikyo or even the LifeSpring cult which Ginni Thomas, the wife of the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, belonged to. Perhaps the 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant gives us an insight.
Kant was one of the preeminent central thinkers of the Enlightenment Age. In his 1784 essay “What is the enlightenment “ the first passage lays out what the problem may actually be when he wrote “Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance, nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians. It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me. The guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult.”
The Trump crowd has not become immune to independent and rationale thinking because of a physical or mental impediment. Rather they have found it easier to surrender any exercise of intellectual thought to an individual who truly believes they are suckers. Despite the ability to fact check through a variety of methods they prefer to remain in a state of ignorance.
How else would you explain people sending their hard earned money to a man who claims to be a billionaire several times over. How else do you explain this segment of the population who try to defend every misdeed of the former president as if he were their only begotten yet wayward son. They need and want someone to tell them what and how to think and what to do. This not only includes the masses but most GOP politicians as well who seem incapable of taking a step without receiving permission from that which they believe has been sent by God as the second coming. How else can you explain the recent antics of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham who seemingly in tears like an evangelist went on television to beg people to send money to the former presidents campaign. How can we explain Senator Tim Scott’s Stephen Fetchit like performance in his recent endorsement of Trump. How else can you rationalize Senator Ted Cruz’s defense of a man who insulted both his wife and father. For them the answer is most likely fear. Fear of losing power which by their actions appears to be more fiction than real or perhaps of what the dear leader might reveal about them if they don’t kiss the ring.
Even worse is that the overwhelming majority of his followers refer to themselves as Christian even though what they follow is not the Jesus of the bible but rather a Christian nationalism which is the antithesis of the bible.
The reality is that it will be difficult if not impossible for this segment of the American electorate to disassociate themselves from this cult of personality. Those who attempt to save them from this political calamity will only make themselves susceptible to extreme disappointment.
Voltaire said “Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” This is why those within this cult of personality believe that January 6th was justified.
How long this political virus will last is unknown as it seems to be ingrained in the DNA of the GOP. The challenge is how shall the nation defend itself against such mindlessness. The first step is to get beyond the nonsensical notion of the presidential election being between two similar candidates. While it is completely rationale to want other choices those who claim to be torn between the two projected presidential candidates are exhibiting deliberate facetiousness or a clear case of cognitive dissonance. It would have been totally rationale to have been torn between Barack Obama and John McCain or Obama and Mitt Romney as all three were honorable men. In the year 2024 however the choice hasn’t been this stark since the 1864 re-election of Abraham Lincoln.
In my 2021 column I asked the question “Is an American Collapse Inevitable.” The answer unfortunately is yes if the populace does nothing to protect it. It is easy to sit back and think someone else will do it but in 2016 less than 60% of the electorate voted. Many claimed they were not excited about the candidates of that year and decided to stay home with the oft stated albeit irrational “what difference does it make.” Eight years later because of that sentiment the right to choose was taken away, the 1965 voting rights act was gutted, a Muslim ban was implemented, Clarence Thomas wants to overturn the marriage equality law, an insurrection has taken place, North Korea has a nuclear arsenal and guess who they are aimed at. Elections are not popularity contests. In essence they are a decision making process about the direction of the country. There are three criteria for voting. First is to win on a particular issue. Second is to protect any progress made on a particular issue. Third is to prevent something negative from occurring.
Unfortunately for the United States we are at the third reason. History has shown us that democratic regimes don’t necessarily fall at the barrel of a gun. Indeed both Hitler and Mussolini came to power through a democratic process. In recent times we have seen fledging democracies such as Venezuela, El Salvador and Hungary flirt with or turn into authoritarian regimes.
The mindless masses within today’s GOP have shown a propensity for being willing to sacrifice the nation for which many have died including those who came over during the middle passage and others who sacrificed everything to come here through Ellis Island all in obedience to one man.
The way for the nation to protect itself from this potential calamity is for better or worse to defeat it at the ballot box. While many want the courts to hold the former president accountable ultimately it is up to the public to reject outright this behavior as being antithetical to the values professed by the nation. There is no doubt the nation has not always lived up to its ideals but that is not a reason to let it fall into the hands of wannabe authoritarians and their mindless minions.
There is no doubt that if the former president loses the 2024 election many of his disciples will cry fraud. As egregious as those accusations will be it is nonetheless up to the thinking public to minimize and isolate that segment from the American political mainstream. They cannot leave him but it is time for the rationale segment of America to leave them behind in what the English essayist Augustine Birrell called the “ash heap of history’”