JAZZMAN CHRONICLES IN THE AGE OF TRUMP: JANUARY 2018.
REALITY LOST
OR
THE GOD GIVEN
RIGHT TO FABRICATE THE TRUTH
One of the worst things about politics in the age of Trump
is the loss of objectivity. We
cannot have a constructive dialogue about economics, foreign policy, history or
democracy without slipping by raw instinct into tribal politics.
If you stand with the president you necessarily believe that
climate change – aka global warming – is a hoax. You believe that God stands unconditionally with Israel and
therefore America must do so as well.
You believe that a wall must be erected to protect us all from swarms of
lowlife Mexicans and terrorist Muslims.
You believe that military commanders and billionaires in general are
superior beings whose dictates should be followed without question. You believe that police officers are
under siege and have no need of citizen review or procedural reform. You believe that white privilege is an
appropriate response to decades of affirmative action.
Trumpeters have proclaimed the right loudly and boldly to
declare their own facts, their own truths and to create their own
realities. Their opinions are
convictions that cannot be challenged.
They have no use for science or history or knowledge or expertise. The most fundamental laws are subject
to arbitrary denial. Those who
would stand for facts or scientific theory are declared elitists and discarded
outright.
Those who stand against the president and everything he
holds to be true and right believe the president is bat shit crazy with the
knowledge base, intellectual standing and emotional balance of a kindergartner
and no amount of rational discussion will convince us otherwise.
It is hard to reconcile the
uneasy fact that outside the state of California a majority of voters preferred
Trump to she who will not be named for president of the United States of
America. For god’s sake, how
pissed off and alienated do you have to be to rise up from your cozy couch,
drive on down to your local precinct and cast a vote to elevate an obvious
racist, misogynist, blatantly dishonest con man to the highest office in the
land? Granted most of us don’t
have go anywhere to cast a vote these days but we do have to fill out a ballot
and send it in. It does require an
affirmative action. It does
require a conscious choice.
Do we deserve
what we get or is there in fact some rational lesson to be learned from this
deeply embarrassing choice in leaders?
Is it a joke that most of us don’t quite get and can’t quite reconcile
with the universe of reason?
In moments of
lucidity I do recognize the genius of Donald Trump. He pulled off the penultimate con of the century and he did
it by breaking every damned rule in the political handbook. He took disasters that would have
destroyed any other candidate and tossed them over his shoulder like dust in
the wind.
You can
grab ‘em by the pussy and they let you do it; because you’re a star they let
you do it!
Forget about
it. It’s just locker room
talk. Boys being boys. Men being men. Freaking morons being morons.
Not even the
Donald expected to win. Faced with
the prospect of bankruptcy, a crumbling financial empire, loss of credit and a
mounting debt, he parlayed a reality television show into a successful campaign
for the White House.
The man wanted
a loyal following of fifty million pissed off Americans. That’s it. He wanted to rebuild his financial base and cancel some
Russian debt along the way.
Winning was the last thing he had in mind.
What do you
have to do? Shoot someone on Fifth
Avenue?
Well, Donald,
maybe that would have turned the trick.
Maybe not. That’s how
pissed off the American people were and likely still are. That’s how sick and tired people were
of the Bill and Hillary Clinton show.
That’s how weary Republicans were of Lying Ted and Little Marco and Low
Energy Jeb and politics as usual.
Sixty million people would have voted for a can opener.
Now the
president and his chaotic White House is under siege and any other president
would be hunkered down in the basement working on his exit strategy. Not this president. He continues to tweet daily in defense
of an alternative reality where it is not only legal and acceptable to conspire
with a foreign adversary to defraud a presidential election; it is in fact
strategic, bold and wise beyond knowing.
One man’s treason is another man’s vision.
Don’t think
for a moment he can’t win this thing.
He is winning. This is a
man who admitted up front to obstruction of justice. He openly stated that he fired the Director of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation to stop the Russia investigation in its tracks. He conspired with his son and others to
issue a false and misleading statement concerning the infamous Trump Tower meeting
with campaign representatives and Russian operatives.
The party in
control of both houses of congress should have issued articles of impeachment
on the spot. When the GOP balked,
Trump grabbed them by the balls. When
you’re a president they let you do it!
It was shockingly easy to transform
the party that obstructed legislation under Obama to the party that willfully
participates in a conspiracy with the chief executive to obstruct justice. Every weasel conspirator from House
Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes to Senator Lindsey Graham should be indicted as
traitors.
We are only
beginning to see the audacity of this congress. They will demand an investigation into the
investigation. They will hold
endless hearings on the betrayal of Christopher Steele – the
author-investigator behind the Dirty Dossier – and the politicization of the
FBI. They will tie it into the
Clinton Foundation, Hillary’s emails and the great Benghazi cover-up.
If Trump gets his way the truth
will be so obscured you won’t be able recognize it as it slams you over the
head with the force of Thor’s hammer.
It will fall to historians to rectify the harm, to sort through the
obfuscation and misinformation and locate the stone cold truth: Vladimir Putin orchestrated the election
of an American president and got away with it.
So which is it? Is Donald Trump the moron that so many
– friend and foe alike – say he is or is he the greatest con man the world has
ever known? Is it possible that
both could be true?
At a time when global warming
threatens hundreds if not thousands of species including our own and nations
are collecting weapons of mass destruction with renewed vigor, we don’t really
have time for political bullshit yet here we are. Once again we are confronted with a critical election and we
don’t know if Russia will be a major player. So far we’ve done less than nothing to stop them.
If we don’t elect a Democratic
majority to both houses of congress, there is very little chance that we can
stop Trump. Even if we do, there
is the troubling matter of Mike Pence.
We keep fighting the same fight –
Democrat against Republican – knowing that it probably doesn’t even matter in
the end. After all, asking the
Democrats to save us is like asking a convention of anarchists to help you put
out the fire.
Jazz.
JACK
RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES, VOLUMES I-X (CROW DOG PRESS 2015), WASICHU – THE
KILLING SPIRIT, HARD TIMES – THE
WRATH OF AN ANGRY GOD AND PAWNS TO
PLAYERS – THE STAIRWAY SCANDAL, A MATCH FOR THE WHITE HOUSE AND THE PUTIN
GAMBIT (CROW DOG PRESS). HIS FIRST NOVEL GHOST DANCE
INSURRECTION WAS PUBLISHED BY DRY
BONES PRESS (2000) AND RE-ISSUED BY CROW DOG PRESS (2017).
