You can identify a cult and recognize its adherents by how they defend it. Logical arguments dispelling the lies that form the basis of their odd and far-fetched beliefs, be the cult religious or political, fall on deaf ears but evoke an attack disproportionate to the threat.
On March 31 I posted the question: President Don Trump is 70 days into his second term. Is he Making America Great Again? Or is he making it worse? What’s he doing right? Doing wrong? Let me know what you think!
A few of the responses:
“At least our new President isn’t sniffing toddlers and able to sign his own name to legal documents.”
“I am still waiting on Mikey to let us know whether he condones men in little girls locker rooms, and rest rooms. HE will not reply except to say it’s TRUMPS fault He seems to have a problem answering that. I believe perversion is in his DNA.”
“I think if everyone quits letting the government and the media spark controversy, fighting and stupidity, the country would be a lit better place. Democrats are doing the same thing the Republicans did. DESTROYING PROPERTY AND THINKING THAT THEY ARE IN THE RIGHT!! It’s all childish and ridiculous. Controversy is being sparked, so the public is too busy fighting when we all want the same thing, while the government does all their shady business behind the scene. Quit destroying others peoples property and stop being so mean to one another.”
“Excellent cabinet appointments with the exception of Pam Bondi, but overall pretty good. We could use a lot less trolling of the left, doesn’t serve any purpose but gets you guys fired up over jokes like the ‘third term’ or ‘invading Greenland.'”
That’s Trump, in it to own the libs. And tear down the constitution, do away with democracy, raze the rule of law, the three ingredients that are, or were, the essence of what made the U.S.A. the envy of the world, a nation known for its demands for fair play, for equal treatment, for justice, for truth.
To direct the forces of the U.S. government against private law firms in retaliation for who they serve as clients is not the act of a United States President, it is the act of a petty and vindictive tyrant. For a president to emplace loyalists such as Pam Bondi as head of a Department of Justice and then all but dictate the direction of a department that must be autonomous shows clear disdain for the laws he is obligated to execute.
And for that president to deliberately emasculate the branches of government meant to provide balance and prevent the ascension of a king shows clearly that president’s intention is to serve only himself that he may be crowned that king.
Those are not actions to Make America Great Again, but the woefully wrong actions of a weak and fearful man trying to make himself appear great. As strong and as wise and as brave as the daft inanities portrayed on the non-fungible trading cards, the digital depictions of no intrinsic value that he peddled to the gullible.
Trump is also attacking education, persecuting those who seek to learn, to expand their horizons and their understanding. He and DOGE are dismantling the institutions of our government that made scientific studies possible, that put the knowledge gained to good use in service to people in need around the world. To withhold funding from school doesn’t stop at our border. Isolation does not Make America Great Again. He continues his onslaught against a free press, maintaining the ruse that only press that serves him is good … all others are lamestream and enemies of the people. The test of “good” media and bad? A “good” press will do as told, refer to the Gulf of Mexico by the proud and patriotic name given arbitrarily with no process or procedure, and will alter truth to give credence to myriad presidential lies.
Nothing great will ever stand on a foundation of lies and half truths.
A real president would not exacerbate a perplexing problem into a national crisis requiring construction of a wall to keep the evil ones out and spare our fine, upstanding citizens the indignity of being robbed, raped, force-fed dangerous awful drugs, killed and our precious pets eaten … by whom? Canadians? Europeans? Of course not! We’re talking the teeming hordes of evil brown people, the ones who want to replace “us,” the teeming hordes of superior and thus privileged who see nothing wrong with buying illicit drugs from rich Mexican cartels and even providing the majority of illegal firearms with which those terrible cartels maintain their power.
For Trump, it’s a win-win … he can sell the mostly white supremacists who comprise MAGA on a terrible all-but-non-existent enemy to fear and with their support and admiration launch a war on illegal immigrants where “illegal” is actually not a rule, but more of a loose guideline. None of those deported to date have been afforded due process as required by the constitution and many of the deported have been legal immigrants with the temerity to express their points of view. It’s a fine way to get around a right protected by the constitution so as to stifle the speech you don’t want to hear at the moment.
In a land dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, the deliberate attempt to exalt one race to its former self-appointed status of superiority will not be countenanced by those U.S. citizens who would again have to be marginalized, not after the struggles they endured for the minimal gains they achieved toward securing their inalienable rights as U.S. citizens.
A U.S. president would not issue an executive order calling on ending the so-called weaponization of government against the one specific religion of the white Christian nationalists who form one pillar MAGA, offering their support with evangelical zeal in exchange for the promise of their mores and morals being imposed on others in a land whose people cherish the freedom to worship as their conscience dictates, not as dictated by their government. Such people might not stand with you.
And a U.S. president would never turn without notice and declare economic warfare on our closest allies and trading partners and then deliberately and with obvious malignant intent use the massive power of the highest office of trust extant to illegally enrich his friends.
Who would do such things is a lifelong conman who has accomplished nothing in life but to convince the gullible that he is a great man.