When I hear the absurd and infantile utterances of Trump, and look in dismay at his mean-spirited policies, I find myself perplexed at how reasonable human beings can find him anything but pathetic and dangerous. Narcissism, vindictiveness, idiotic rants, bombast, threats, absurd levels of self-praise – who could possibly want to serve under such a man?
But the sad truth is that human frailty enables tyrants. Politicians that might otherwise be outraged by Trump and oppose him live in fear of his animus. Their own lust for power makes them powerless before him. Their craven pandering to him and his MAGA mobs is partly motivated by fear and partly by opportunism. Sadly, conscience plays no role at all.
Some of Trump’s cabinet and advisors are true believers and are as damaged as he is – Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Robert Kennedy, Tulsi Gabbard come to mind. But there are others who in their previous lives seemed to have some semblance of dignity and good faith but now are full-throated advocates of the Trumpian dystopia – here Marco Rubio comes to mind. Marco desperately wanted power and fame, and he has it for a moment, but he will go down in history permanently tarnished as a Trump lackey.
JD Vance has been a shameless opportunist from the start, so his evolution into an almost demonic mini-Trump is not surprising. The video of him berating Zelensky in the oval office will serve for all time as evidence of how hunger for power can create a monster.
The broligarchs – Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, Thiel, Andreessen, and the like – also fall into the crass opportunism category, with AI, crypto and pretensions of hyper-masculinity and libertarianism serving as their animating impulses. They were never admirable characters, but their craven kowtowing to Trump is final proof of how low their massive egos and sense of entitlement have brought them.
The cast of the fearful and the opportunistic is also populated by law firms, universities, media empires and other businesses. Fear and opportunism go hand in hand. There is the fear that Trump will withhold government funding or have his pet Attorney General Pam Bondi initiate lawsuits, but also the opportunism that believes that capitulating to all of Trump's petty demands will result in more business, more influence, a closer proximity to power.
The Trump parade of the fearful and the opportunistic is a nightmarish real-life production of the Emperor Has No Clothes. Since few of the powerful in the USA seem willing to scream out the obvious truth, we look to our erstwhile allies – the Canadians, Brits, Germans, French, Danish, Norwegian, etc. – to take up the banner of good will and sanity and have the courage to confront and stand firm before the Trumpian onslaught. And we pray that their resolve and reason will be rewarded by a massive rejection of Trump and his enablers in the midterms.
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