I hope you are sitting down. Because I’m going to make the argument Donald J. Trump, the so-called president of the United States, is perhaps the best thing that could have happened to our country.
Whether we want to admit it or not, America, as envisioned by the founding fathers, is living on borrowed time. Among his many observations on democracy, the Scottish judge and historian Alexander Fraser Tytler (aka Lord Woodhouselee) wrote:
The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.
Not only has it been 228 years since ratification of the U.S. Constitution. In less than ten years we have raced through three of the last four stages of Tytler’s life cycle of what the Greeks called the polis or city/state.
You want the definition of complacency. How about believing the election of the first African-American president was the beginning of post-racist America? Instead it was a green light for bigots to come out of the woodwork and a justification for Supreme Court judges to gut voting rights for people of color.
How about apathy? In 2016, 41.6 percent of Americans of voting age did not think it was worth their time to cast a ballot in the presidential election. They did not believe their vote made a difference.
And dependence? Enough voters in critical states were compelled to vote for the candidate who, during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, declared, “Nobody knows the system than me, which is why I alone can fix it.” Translated, don’t worry, sit back and relax, I will take care of everything.
I am reminded of the story of the frog being slowly boiled alive. When the threat to America comes in stages, like the frog who is subjected to an incremental rise in temperature, it is almost impossible to detect one’s pending doom until it is too late. But that all changed on January 20. Donald Trump, in three weeks, turned the dial to high. And the frog now knows it is in a fight for its very existence.
Ironically, Trump has done the one thing Hillary Clinton could never have done. He has reversed a historic trend. Instead of accepting dependence and possible bondage, many Americans, by the following actions, are saying, “Let’s prove Tytler wrong. We will not be apathetic. Complacency is not an option.”
- On January 21, millions of men and women around the world marched to demonstrate they would resist efforts to roll back women’s rights and other hard-earned rewards of democracy.
- Following an ill-conceived and incompetently implemented executive order banning legal and already extremely vetted immigrants and refugees from selected Muslim nations, average citizens swarmed every major international airport to proclaim, “This is not who we are.”
- Post-card parties are popping up all across the nation at which citizens are letting their representatives know, in the words of the immortal Howard Beale, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore.”
- Four duly appointed federal judges told a questionably elected individual you are not king and no one in America is above the law.
- Over a thousand Utahans jammed a town meeting to tell Republican congressman and chair of the Government Oversight Committee Jason Chaffetz, “DO YOUR JOB!” They called for investigations of Trump violations of the emolument clause of the Constitution (pertaining to receipt of monetary or in-kind gifts from foreign governments or their representatives), inappropriate contacts by National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and the Russian ambassador prior to the inauguration and Kellyanne Conway’s violation of federal law when she used her public position to shill for Ivanka Trump’s made-in-China line of clothing.
- Scientists are planning an Earth Day march on Washington to remind Trump, his cabinet and numerous Republican senators and congressmen climate change is real and the scientific method is still valid.
Last night on Real Time with Bill Maher, former CNN host and and U.S. editor for the Daily Mail On-Line Piers Morgan questioned the hysteria by Trump opponents and suggested they needed to give him some time. (NOTE: Is Morgan’s defense of Trump and his being named the winner on Celebrity Apprentice in 2008 a mere coincidence?) In response, Australian comedian Jim Jeffries reminded Morgan more early hysteria in 1939 Germany might have been a good thing, “Hitler didn’t kill the Jews on the first day, he worked up to it.”
Rumor has it, Piers Morgan will now be writing for the Daily Mail under the pseudo-name Neville Chamberlain.
For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP
Cast of Characters (special all-white male cast)
On July 21, 2007, we were first introduced to Mad Men (Liongate Television, 2007-2015). The title refers to the staff of a fictional Madison Avenue advertising agency in the 1960s. Senior partner Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is the central character who struggles with both his professional and personal life when the sanitized world of the 1950s turns chaotic as Americans experience political assassinations, the Vietnam war and the sexual revolution. The final episode aired on May 17, 2015 (spoiler alert) with Draper embracing the times and, as a result, coming up with the iconic 1971 Coca-Cola marketing campaign, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.”