I Understand The Donald Because In Many Ways I Am Just Like Him

Donald J. Trump is just like most of us except he has no saving grace. Movie actors love playing bad guy parts. We all do within limits. It is much easier to be mean and destructive than it is to undergo the hard work that is required to be good and creative.

While we all allow our better angels to slide once and awhile, at least 50% of humanity is choosing to rise above their destructive impulses at all times — else there would never be periods of peace.

It has been said that hate is the most powerful of unifying agents, and there is plenty of evidence to prove the point. We are historically surrounded by its “carnage.” By the way, it’s not so strange that Trump would include that word (carnage) within his inaugural address. He is addicted to the concept.

Moreover, Trump is easy to discern. You can be absolutely certain that whatever term Trump tends to blast a perceived enemy, he is painting a most accurate portrait of himself — liar, crook, stupid, awful and pathetic are all words that describe the Donald to perfection.

Of course those folks most drawn to him are either incredibly naïve or much like him, though many are far more reluctant to let it show so brazenly. You might say that they have been closet Trumpers all their lives and feel relieved and free that there is finally a leader than gives them permission to be who they really are (most of us on our bad days).

This is too sad. Once our leaders have kicked the props of our better angels out from beneath us, it’s hard to resist a downward spiral of our entire social order as folks endeavor to get onboard the bandwagon of ruin. Of course the truly good ones among us will gallantly fight the decline into hell, but in time they too will either be overwhelmed or just fade away from exhaustion, until the hateful fever has run its course or the patient has died.

In any event we are commencing a long painful slide into a pit of horrors. On the bright side, just as they say the road to hell can often be paved with good intentions, sometimes unintended consequences of goodness can flow out of evil intentions. Or am I being too hopefully philosophic here?

The bottom line, my friends, is that Americans have just witnessed what is like when a man of impeccably good character, Barack Obama, is supplanted, by one who is his mirror opposite. We now get to stare at our dark side and wonder it we can survive it.