June 4th 2020

By Janet D. Coster & Alan James Strachan

There’s one thing we better get clear about right now.

Trump is not running for president.

“Running for president” implies that, in a contest against Biden, Trump would accept losing. Nothing Trump has ever said or done indicates that losing will be acceptable to him. Trump is all about getting his way.  Winning is the only thing that matters. 

He will use any means available.

If Trump loses in the electoral college, he will not accept the result. Insisting he still rightfully is president, he will delegitimize the election.

That’s if we even have an election. 

The coronavirus gives Trump an excuse to postpone or cancel the election. Not that he needs one. As you may have noticed, neither reality, nor conventional standards of justice or justification, are a requirement for anything Trump says or does.

Trump is not running for office, in spite of acting as though he is. Instead, single-mindedly, he is altering the presidency before our eyes, turning it into something that depends not upon the Constitution, or the rule of law, or 244 years of U.S. history, but upon his ever-evolving whims.

Trump cronies who break the law and are sent to jail? Pardon them. Enablers who are being investigated? Fire the investigators. Impeachment hearings? Bully the witnesses. Advisers who have the temerity to rely on science to combat the coronavirus? Fire them, too. 

If this sounds like an episode of The Apprentice, with Trump reigning as angry, impetuous god, that’s no coincidence. Trump reads from just one script. He knows only one way to “govern” – i.e., to get his own way, come hell or high water. Only now, beyond the confines of “reality” TV, the stakes are a tad higher. The Constitution, the rule of law, the environment, countless human – and other species’ – lives, and our willingness to care for one another, based on scientific realities and prosocial ethics, all hang in the balance.

We live in an era of epic floods. The coronavirus, as biological tsunami, is sweeping through the global landscape. Climate change is a technologically-wrought tsunami inexorably and lethally altering our planetary ecosystem. 

Trump-as-tsunami – a force of malignant intent – routinely sweeps aside truth, laws, norms of behavior and basic human decency. He’s not alone in this, of course, aided and abetted as he is by his many cohorts, some ruthless and ethically-seared, others seemingly unaware of – or uncaring about – his deeper intent. These include:  

·      the ever-devolving Republican Party, currently a hairsbreadth from jackboots; 

·      the corporate elites, remorseless purveyors of corporate feudalism;

·      Dominionists and many fundamentalist “Christians” utterly forswearing the teachings of Christ, latching on to Trump as their vengeful god; 

·      Fox News, cynically promoting a parallel universe divorced from objective reality, serving asunrepentant shill for the corporate takeover; and

·      Trump’s entranced, largely authoritarian voting block, loyal to a fault even as he relentlessly guts their lives and well-being.

Sadly, prior even to Trump, the US presidential race already had devolved into a tightly controlled in-game contested by select players, featuring:

·      two political parties, each serving as lap dogs for corporate interests:

·      millionaire candidates who long ago sold their souls to the largest bidders,

·      an electoral college repeatedly thwarting the will of the people,

·      gerrymandering and corrupted voter registration policies designed to pervert and deny democracy, and

·      carefully controlled, sanitized debates.

These are but some of the features of what the great political theorist Sheldon Wolin referred to as “managed democracy.’ Managed, not as democracy is intended – by the will the people – but by wealthy elites pulling strings behind the scenes.

Trump is swiftly changing the rules of even this shamefully managed ‘democracy,’ playing according to his own lawless code. Like a mob boss, he pursues, as he has his entire life, the power to do whatever he wants, to whomever he wants, for as long as he wants. Elections do not fit into his calculus, except as something to manipulate by any means necessary.

Oh, Trump is running for office, but not the presidency. He is running for an office that never before existed in the history of our republic:  

Despot. 

Gunning for permanent status as Trump the Exalted, The Magnificent, The “Genius,” The Divider and Dominator in Chief, once installed he will not have to bother with pesky items like election cycles, or checks and balances. Already, he is exhibiting for us how this works, flaunting his power, taking the Constitution-defying notion of a unitary presidency – i.e., one-man rule – far beyond what his predecessors dared.

Many floodwaters have yet to surge between now and November, but in Trump’s mind they all lead to the same conclusion.

Let’s be absolutely clear about the nature of the game we’re all playing. This is no longer a contest of “Who will be president?” Not anymore. Not with Trump at the helm. He has upped the stakes:  he is playing the game of how a right-wing dictatorship supplants any notion of constitutional democracy. 

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain has long been vilified for his policy of appeasing Hitler in the years leading up to WW II. Are we – though passivity, inattention, or misjudging the stakes - willing to repeat his disastrous mistake, allowing Trump to complete his right-wing coup?

As a rich, white male, Trump never has been made to suffer the consequences of his dishonest, law-breaking, sexual-assaulting behavior. It is in his nature to continue to push the boundaries of his power until he is stopped. 

Who, or what, will stop him?  

We know it won’t be the sycophantic, power-justifies-everything Republican Party, and even if the anemic, only occasionally-displaying-the-vestiges-of-a-backbone Democrats manage to beat Trump in the upcoming election, it will still be up to We, the People, to make sure that they stop bowing to corporate interests.

Waking up to the realities of this moment is a first and necessary step. 

Now is the time for every citizen to stand up for our deepest heritage: the inalienable truth that we all have been created equal – an inherent respect that lives at the very core of the Declaration of Independence, a credo that we have been attempting to live up to for the past two and a half centuries. Recognizing the inherent equality and dignity of others is only possible if we have empathy, a key attribute of emotional maturity that apparently has been scorched out of the hearts of Trump and his cronies. 

It is up to We, The People, to speak up, clarify the stakes, and put pressure on all of our ethically-challenged and courage-deficient “representatives,” first, to stop this madman from gutting what remains of our democracy, and then, to do the right thing by beginning to rebuild a country that genuinely provides freedom and justice for all.

Look into your soul and ask how much more you will allow democracy and the rule of law to be perverted. Ask what you are willing to do to preserve and strengthen the core values of this republic. The next time you are tempted to think that this is just another election, remember how perilously close we all are to a turning point that would exceed the shattering effect of 9/11 in its lasting impact on our lives. 

Are We, the People truly ready to succumb?

Who will be telling who …

You’re fired! 

Janet Coster M.A., M.A., transpersonal counselor and author of the forthcoming book Liquid, Stone and Light: Poems of Liminality and Rising Celebration

Alan James Strachan Ph.D., psychotherapist, co-author with Coster of The Lure of the Ring: Power, Addiction and Transcendence in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, https://thelureofthering.com