The Trump Depression
It began the day of the election. I was so confident that Clinton was going to win. She had the momentum, and I thought she had the votes. But what I didn’t count on was that Trump had gained the support of the disenfranchised working class. A support which was so perfectly placed that, while popular opinion may have been against him, the peculiarities of the American electoral college system would allow him to prevail. Despite the cries of a million lost democrats and liberals, this twisted tiny-handed Cheeto was elected president of the United States.
He looks like he had the popular support of the American people. But he didn’t. What he did was to find the exact places that his rhetoric of racism, sexism, and judgmental conservative values would buy him the most votes, and cross-index that with the places that would allow him to stack up electoral college votes. He wasn’t a populist candidate, despite how it looks on the surface. He was a candidate who played the system against itself. He swindled the Republican party.
I will never say that he is “my president”. He’s not. He doesn’t represent my values, my opinions, or my hopes and dreams for a better America. He represents a disgusting, bloated class of wealthy capitalists who have made their fortune on the back of the slave class of wage employees. He was the pinnacle – the “apex predator” – of the raider class of businessmen who buy up their competitors through aggressive, hostile takeovers. They then siphon off the assets, like some bloated, disgusting tick, and then use the “corporate entity” laws to file bankruptcy and slink away. Not real men, who would face their opponents, and give them a fair chance to fight back. But cowardly, opportunist weasels who would then later claim that their victory was evidence of their cunning business savvy, and not a brutal twisting of laws to meet their agenda of greed.
No, he is not “my president”. He is not my leader – and the American people have forgotten that he is our public servant. He is not our boss, and we don’t have to swear fealty to him. He is there because the will of the people demanded it. And if he has stopped being that, then it’s clearly time to re-evaluate the laws which would allow a fat, narcissistic reality TV star to hold the most influential political position in this land. He can’t demand my loyalty, and I am not anti-American because I don’t support him. In fact, I am more of a patriot that any who would place blind faith in that vile example of capitalism gone stupid. Patriotism in America isn’t about worshipping the president and the flag. Patriotism in America is about not being afraid to stand up when the foundations of liberty in our country are being threatened. Patriotism, in America, is about defiance.
So, no. He is not my president. He is my servant, and when we did his performance appraisal, he came up decidedly lacking. He should be fired, and my vote is to get rid of that unfortunate stain on the face of American virtue. But that must wait. The giant bus of the American system is full of lead, is going down the freeway at 100 miles an hour, and this system of checks and balances makes it difficult to steer the bus quickly. We have to persuade it to go in a new direction, slowly coax it to take a new path. This keeps radical changes from happening, preventing dangerous people from taking over America by doing exactly what Trump did in the business world. He exploited laws and regulations which were designed to help America grow, not empower him to attach his money-funnel and then call his daddy to ask if he’s a good boy. But the American system has checks and balances, which will keep him from…
Holy executive order, Batman. He’s doing his best to break those very important checks and balances. He’s discrediting the judicial branch. He’s discrediting the media. He’s telling us all that we have fallen for lies, because clearly, only he has the truth. And that we should all just sit down and listen like we are some B-grade actors on “The Apprentice”. Because he’s the boss, and if we don’t just shut up and obey, he’s going to point a stubby little finger at us and declare, “you’re fired!”.
That’s when the depression started. And as I went to social media, hoping to find fellow Americans to commiserate with. I was thinking that, clearly, I wasn’t the only one who was seeing the insanity unfolding before us. And that’s when THEY came out. That secret group of Trump supporters who had been lurking in my friend’s list forever, but were afraid to speak their mind. Of course, they were afraid to speak their mind, because they would find no sympathetic ear with me. But they were also afraid to speak their mind because their agenda of hate and their sense of self-righteousness and moral judgment would expose them for the racist, sexist toads that they were. Darkness hates the light, but when Trump was elected president... well, his diseased mound of corpulent flesh cast a lot of shade for darkness to play.
The conservatives who, for so long, were kept in check by the socially-sensitive liberals, with their crazy “reasonable arguments” and “love for facts” – well, now they were empowered. They were emboldened. We see another example of it every day. The radical right in America feels like, with their man in charge, they can show those who don’t look like them, or speak like them, or pray to their gods the same way, that they better learn to act like “real Amuricans”. Or they will get spit on, beat up, or …sadly, shot. And deported. Sometimes, in that order.
So the depression got worse. And every day, as I watch Trump leading this ignorant parade of hate-filled bigots and prejudiced fear-mongers, I begin to wonder if we should even be saved from him. Maybe this is the fate that we deserved. Maybe we are beyond redemption.
Maybe the "Trump Depression" is really just waking up to a corrupt, broken system that will be difficult to fix. We’ve elected an orange-haired, tiny-handed clown, and he’s filling his presidential clown car with every jackass and corrupt figure that he can find. He’s going to “make America great again”. But not for us. For “his rich criminal friends on Wall Street”, as George Carlin referred to them. The best joke that Satan ever played was convincing the world that he didn’t exist. And the best joke that Donald Trump ever played was convincing a disenfranchised group of Americans that if they elect the right fox for the leader of the hen house, that they wouldn’t get eaten.
Silly hens.
I'll just cut to the chase.
The Trump Depression tells me I should just accept this fate, and join the apathetic millions who no longer care. That I should just settle in to a world that has not changed one tiny bit since the 50's.
But, I’m a patriot. And I’m not going to give up, it’s not in my nature. And I’m prepared to die, having failed. That may sound poetic, but I'm tired of being depressed. To hell with Donald Trump.
