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I am sitting in the hot sun, drinking espresso on the terrace of a perfect beaux-arts terrace. The French alps tower around me. Specifically, Mont Blanc glistening like a fancy frosted desert, a choppy blue glacier advancing to its right, over our heads tiny humans paragliding, spin and plunge.
Sadly, there is trouble in paradise, my serenity smashed to pieces whenever I open Facebook. I am not forced to open Facebook, my fingers with their virtual muscle memory… like billions of others, slide over the smooth face of my smart phone and hit the pale blue F. Instantly I am plunged into transatlantic, liberal hand wringing and chest beating.
They scream, ‘Impeach Trump!’ Facebook posts from disillusioned liberals/hillarybots. ‘Impeach him now!’ Their unrealistic expectations give me daily pleasure. These are not, on the whole, dumb folk spewing liberal dogma. I’m concerned they genuinely believe impeachment is possible. I’m sad these highly intelligent, motivated folk can’t put their energy into the search for a credible and charismatic democratic alternative to fight Trump in 2020.
Am I alone when I ask: Is Trump good for the USA?
He behaves like a deranged, megalomaniac… a south american despot you say. Yet, Americans might remind themselves that there are those of us who live outside the USA in countries the USA has royally fucked over or whose elections and way of life America has meddled. To those who have endured the chaos of American intervention Trump is the last of a long line of equally despicable Americans presidents… including the holy cow, ‘No Drama Obama’. Unlike the others, Trump is merely treating the USA as the USA has treated the rest of the world. He is crude and greedy, he intends to take what ever he wants and will share the spoils with those prepared to cut him in on the deal.
Trump is good for America if Americans are willing to take a good hard look at their behaviors these past few decades. Their collective racism, their xenophobia, their greed.
To impeach a president takes a huge amount of effort and determination, it requires consensus in both houses. My British friends fail to understand if Trump were to be impeached/removed/assassinated… there will be no snap election, no variation on Theresa May’s rig the vote. The four years the American people voted for must be played out and there is an order of succession if anything were to happen to Trump.
The succession: Trump, Pence the vice President and then Paul Ryan, leader of the house. Each more terrible than the last.
Most of my ‘friends’ on social media are fully engaged with the trump drama, the trump conflict, and desire nothing more that the easy resolution of a mini series. They are looking for a perfect denouement, a canny plot twist that will somehow give them the President they desire, the happy ending proving they were right all along.
Crazy liberals cannot bring themselves to admit what is happening all over the world: the people are tired of the status quo. They are bored with democracy, they are addicted to intensity. They are focused on their smart phone, the television and the endless news cycle that feeds them divorce, terrorism, murder and larceny.
Let me say that again: the people are addicted en mass to intensity… however it can be served by whomever can deliver the strongest dose and Trump delivers, day after day.
All Americans treat vulnerability as a opportunity. If you are sick or find yourself on the wrong side of the law… Americans will fully exploit you. Trump’s Attorney General is filling his own private jails with black and brown men guilty of possessing small amounts of weed, their sentences are non negotiable. Trump is sacrificing the land, the resources therein, from sea to shining sea… he will let you foul the water and the air. By slashing and burning he is making everyone fight for what they believe knowing most will not fight but simply retreat. He is the Goth, the Visigoth, the Vandal. He is well-known in history… he is the black cloud hanging over the advent of the dark age.
Trump is the most American of Americans. He lingers within the psyche of the nation. He is born out of Manifest Destiny, slavery and mass incarceration. Until Trump was president only the few challenged America’s despicable countenance. Liberals, democrats and progressive were cautious critics of the very same USA Trump now fairly represents.
Those who say they hate Trump refuse to challenge the systems and institutions that put him into power and keep him in power. They blindly accept the dominance of their military industrial complex, they accept the word of law. They rarely challenge their own ingrained prejudices interpersonally they criticize internationally.
Trump’s supporters will not turn on him. They blame the establishment for interrupting him, they blame the FBI. They think little of the police and the rule of law. They watch Trump battle dark forces and his fight (absurd to the rest of us) confirms their worst fears about the USA. A president who can’t speak freely without every newspaper misreporting, who can’t hire and fire without scrutiny, a leader they wanted to lead them away from modernity, back to mythical greatness.
If anything happens to Donald Trump… and it will eventually. His people will take up arms and start gunning for those they see as hindering their dream. Some dream of wax fruit and paper leaves, their garden of Eden. Their Eden will not include uppity black people demanding apologies, trans toilets or gay marriage. Women will earn less than men and keep their mouths shut when their husbands need to beat or rape them.
It is, of course, the lie of simplicity they crave, the unprompted simplicity the people of this tiny French village understand. Uncoupled from their second screen, planting black currents, walking their dogs down verdant mountain paths. I don’t know how Americans will ever find their way back, back home. To a place where they can live without fear. Fear of sickness or another taking what they have. How will they get back to something honest and kind. I don’t know. How will they ever live without their crippling addiction to intensity, shame and resentment.
The further I get from the USA the more I am inclined to believe civil war is inevitable.
