Donald Trump Is Not the Problem
During the time that has passed since Donald Trump commenced his churlish Presidency, millions of Americans (as well as millions of other people around the world who are not Americans) have gone out of their way to express, repeatedly and clamorously, their extreme loathing of him. It seems that directing vehement avowals of hatred toward Donald Trump has, in the general flow of current discourse, become the latest craze. Because he offers such an enormous target, each spiteful arrow of half-baked scorn that is aimed at him easily finds its mark.
Unfortunately, those arrows of scorn result from an erroneous line of thought. Hating Donald Trump is, for the most part, a useless activity. It serves no greater good, and it changes nothing. We all know that Donald Trump is an imprudent fool. (One even suspects that Donald Trump knows it, too.) Being an imprudent fool is what he does best, as he has proven again and again, but he is no more impudent, and no more prone to foolishness, than the American citizenry as a whole.
The evil that Donald Trump signifies is bold and unmistakable. As a representation of utter foulness, he leaves little to the imagination. He is greedy, selfish, dishonest, and overbearing. He is so full of himself, so dangerously swollen with the noisome fumes of his own unrepentant bombast, that he seems likely to burst at any moment. Even at his absolute worst, however, the moral ugliness that he so vigorously manifests is, quite clearly, nothing other than the moral ugliness of America itself.
After eight years of Barack Obama as President (eight years in which the ruthless avarice of huge corporations flourished, American drones were used to kill civilians in foreign conflicts, and the number of guns in the hands of Americans increased by an alarming proportion), the Presidency of Donald Trump amounts, in most ways, to a case of business as usual. While Donald Trump's loutish disposition is, admittedly, different from that of his predecessor, his intentions are mainly the same.
Donald Trump himself is not the problem. The problem is capitalism and its inequitable effects. The problem is a brutish mentality in which the constant pursuit of money is put above every other consideration. The problem is a widespread acceptance of malign devices that control their users with oppressive technology. The problem is too many weapons and too many wars. The problem is a nation of servile consumers who have lost the ability to think and act in accordance with the essential demands of reason.
The heinous problems that weigh heavily on America were not created by Donald Trump. Indeed, it is beyond dispute that all of those problems first began to display themselves under the watch of former Presidents, who were aided and abetted in their actions by the casual assent of a careless public. America had problems before Donald Trump became President, America has problems now that he has become President, and America will continue to have problems long after his Presidency has withered into a bitter residue.
No, Donald Trump is not the problem. In the extended view, he can be seen as no more than a shallow distraction, the brainless star of a cheap sideshow, whose main purpose is to divert the masses from the urgent necessity of coming to grips with the true import of their collective situation. Given the frantic quickness with which the American mainstream carelessly flits from one fad to another, how long will it be until Donald Trump's peevish enemies require a new distraction?
Unfortunately, those arrows of scorn result from an erroneous line of thought. Hating Donald Trump is, for the most part, a useless activity. It serves no greater good, and it changes nothing. We all know that Donald Trump is an imprudent fool. (One even suspects that Donald Trump knows it, too.) Being an imprudent fool is what he does best, as he has proven again and again, but he is no more impudent, and no more prone to foolishness, than the American citizenry as a whole.
The evil that Donald Trump signifies is bold and unmistakable. As a representation of utter foulness, he leaves little to the imagination. He is greedy, selfish, dishonest, and overbearing. He is so full of himself, so dangerously swollen with the noisome fumes of his own unrepentant bombast, that he seems likely to burst at any moment. Even at his absolute worst, however, the moral ugliness that he so vigorously manifests is, quite clearly, nothing other than the moral ugliness of America itself.
After eight years of Barack Obama as President (eight years in which the ruthless avarice of huge corporations flourished, American drones were used to kill civilians in foreign conflicts, and the number of guns in the hands of Americans increased by an alarming proportion), the Presidency of Donald Trump amounts, in most ways, to a case of business as usual. While Donald Trump's loutish disposition is, admittedly, different from that of his predecessor, his intentions are mainly the same.
Donald Trump himself is not the problem. The problem is capitalism and its inequitable effects. The problem is a brutish mentality in which the constant pursuit of money is put above every other consideration. The problem is a widespread acceptance of malign devices that control their users with oppressive technology. The problem is too many weapons and too many wars. The problem is a nation of servile consumers who have lost the ability to think and act in accordance with the essential demands of reason.
The heinous problems that weigh heavily on America were not created by Donald Trump. Indeed, it is beyond dispute that all of those problems first began to display themselves under the watch of former Presidents, who were aided and abetted in their actions by the casual assent of a careless public. America had problems before Donald Trump became President, America has problems now that he has become President, and America will continue to have problems long after his Presidency has withered into a bitter residue.
No, Donald Trump is not the problem. In the extended view, he can be seen as no more than a shallow distraction, the brainless star of a cheap sideshow, whose main purpose is to divert the masses from the urgent necessity of coming to grips with the true import of their collective situation. Given the frantic quickness with which the American mainstream carelessly flits from one fad to another, how long will it be until Donald Trump's peevish enemies require a new distraction?