We Are All Responsible For Donald Trump

A lot of people are angry over the election of Donald Trump. Millions are fearful and depressed. Others are actually over the moon with excitement that their chosen candidate has won. Some, who voted for Trump in a “let’s see what happens” mode, are waiting to see what is behind curtain number three. Many are already experiencing buyer’s remorse, which is typical of any voter after an election. One is never so optimistic as when buying a lottery ticket or voting. We have to be irrationally optimistic, we’d never do it otherwise.

What very few of us seem to be is reflective. Donald Trump has brought out the reflexive in all of us, we’ve taken our cue from him, so that we merely respond to stimuli rather than question how best to respond. It’s hard, when your initial impression is revulsion, to want to probe the matter further. It’s not our natural response to sniff the curdled milk a second time to figure out what made it go bad.

So instead we now live in a world we’ve suddenly come to realize we don’t understand. The world we thought we knew has hit an iceberg and sunk in front of our eyes. And yet our response to the tragedy is to stay aboard the Titanic, or else to build a ship of identical design. It’s not the ship that’s to blame, or those who were piloting it, it is the iceberg’s fault, that giant orange iceberg.

Denial is a natural response to an unpleasant reversal of fortune. When we choose denial, we shut down our intellects, from whence comes the unpleasant facts, and rely instead on emotions. Hence all the anger, the fear, the sadness. Hence all the irrational beliefs and unfounded accusations. We are like a sleeper who, while still in a dreaming state, hears his alarm clock and attempts to weave the sound into the pattern of his dreams because he does not want to go to work.

It’s time to wake up. We need to come to grips with the reality of President Trump. We have to understand it so that it will never happen again. And the first step in doing so will be to admit that Trump is not the true problem here but merely the most obvious and obnoxious symptom. Trump is the logical end of the path we have been travelling. We need to stop, look around, assess what we’re doing and where we’re going. Because when you hit the road marker that is Trump, that’s like a blinking sign that says the road’s coming to an end in 500 feet. Best hit the brakes and not worry for the moment whether or not you’ll spill your coffee or be late for an engagement.

I’m not just talking to liberals and leftists, but those who voted for Donald Trump. You too are fueled by emotions, in your case anger and hatred. If that were not the case someone would have put forth a rational reason for voting for a half-baked narcissistic sociopath, and so far I have not heard one. “Benghazi” is not a thoughtful, unemotional argument.

We have done it. We, Democrats and Republicans, and everyone on either side and those unfortunates in the middle, we have created a society in which Donald Trump was able to succeed. Not even Sodom or Gomorrah would have tolerated a man who builds gambling dens by evicting widows from their houses. We have created a society that equates the net worth of a man with his value to society. We worship wealth and fame above all else, or at least have permitted the culture we live in to create such norms.

This is not a good man, Donald Trump is not a Godly man. You conservative Christians know deep in your hearts that Trump does not represent Christian ideals. Wisdom, charity, brotherly love, a life of service, humility, faith, none of these words could ever be used to describe the person you voted for. To suggest that you voted for him because you are a Christian dirties the word and insults the One for whom your religion was named.

People who worried about a corrupt government know he is no moral beacon. You have sought to evict people who enrich themselves on the taxpayer’s dollar but have replaced them with a man whose only goal in his entire life has been enriching himself. You know that to be true.

You who call yourselves patriotic Americans, do you honestly believe I am to look at Trump and see that he was cut from the same stock as Washington and Lincoln? Whereas these men were scholars and thinkers and gentlemen, you have voted for a howler monkey in a suit and red trucker’s cap. If you voted for Donald Trump and have any degree of self-respect, you must be feeling a little cheap and sleazy. Don’t try to hide it, denial only makes things worse.

This is not to slam you. I do not make light of your legitimate concerns. But if because you are lonely you take up with a gold-digging, abusing, cheating, shrew of a woman, I would feel compelled to tell you you are being taken advantage of. Though it may seem to you cruel for me to point out the truth, it must be done or she will lead you into greater misfortunes than befell you before you met her. And Trump is not what you want him to be, need him to be. He is a self-serving egomaniac who needs constant attention. Look through my eyes for one moment and tell me if you cannot see it. I say this not to mock you but as a friend who wants what’s best for you.

Sane societies do not elect psychological case studies such as Donald Trump president. Healthy nations never permit a howler monkey near a microphone, let alone the nation’s nuclear codes. The response to Trump so far, by those who see his flaws, has been an emotional but ultimately impotent attack on the man himself. But if we wish to insure we never again let such an incompetent guide our nation, we have to re-evaluate every single aspect of our culture if we are to come to grips with what is wrong with us. We must question what kind of media we have, one that made him a star before enabling his rise to the presidency. We need to question the churches we go to that somehow see this man as compatible with Christianity. We need to question our nation’s morals and norms if we want to understand why we accepted someone who utterly lacks such standards.

We must ask ourselves many, many questions, and we must do so dispassionately. We must do so without attempting to find easy answers. We must do so without pointing the finger, but rather through personal reflection, asking ourselves how we helped create a society that has sunk so low, so lacking in morality, decency, respect for one another, and even simple good taste.

We must question the music and entertainment industries, must question the examples we set for our children and our neighbors’ children. We must question how we treat those we work for and those who work for us. We must question our relationship to our government. We must ask ourselves what kind of world we want for our children and then ask how we can best meet those aspirations while leaving room for the desires of those who want something different for their descendants.

We must ask ourselves all these questions and more, and we must do so HUMBLY the way an alcoholic must question his life after getting into a car accident while under the influence. Because we have screwed up, we have screwed up very badly. This is a moment for reflection, America. Do not abandon reason for emotion.