“You’ve got to accentuate the negative and eliminate the positive.”
or…
Maybe it’s me?
So, I watched Corey Booker on Colbert at lunch a few days ago. I still love and admire the man’s passion, optimism, smarts and humanity, but when Colbert (the arch cynic) briefly steered the conversation to the fact that Trump finds endless ways to enrich himself, Booker brought things right back to Americans standing together in a “moral moment” for American principles and values.
All this is good. All this is true. But is it the answer?
Calling out the threat, appealing to the better angels of our natures, even citing ways in which we can take strength from each other will move the needle exactly…how? More rallies with each other? More calls and texts into the ether? More rants on social media (mea culpa, mea culpa)? Sure, it feels good to feel “good,” to have agency and solidarity, but the lines have been distinctly drawn, and for those awake, the issues and stakes are clear, aren’t they? The Constitution. The Rule of Law. Equity. Empathy. — and their flip side, threats of Authoritarianism. Patrimony. Corruption. Narcissism.
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Maybe my frustration has made me jaded, cynical and just negative. God knows I feel all those things much of the time now. But in the end, getting us like-minded folk united, stirred and determined will lead to what? Revolt? Revolution? Wouldn’t that play into his martial law craving, tiny hands? Wouldn’t it throw gasoline on the flaming, tribal tropes of Us vs. Them? Because we aren’t the ones who put this guy into office or allow him to remain in office. His supporters are. His enablers are. Republicans everywhere who have turned a terrified or just blind eye while their party has slid into Neo-Fascism are.
It seems to me that with a large group of Americans whose feelings of grievance got us into this mess — grievance is the way to get us out. We can talk about right and good and America all day long, but people do not like to feel lied to and cheated. And people who feel threatened or marginalized or underappreciated in the first place are going to be even angrier if they feel they’ve been duped with empty promises by someone who is personally exploiting their faith.
Who in his right mind would start a trade war and tank the stock market? Someone who has the reserves to swoop in (with his Billionaire buddies) and snap up shares once their prices have plummeted.
Who would call cryptocurrency a scam only to turn around to open the floodgates to deregulate it? Someone who is going to start his own crypto line and make a mint.
Who boldly claims he’ll put a stop to carnage in Ukraine the day he takes office, only to give the war’s aggressor everything it wants once he’s in? Someone who is beholden to and seeks to profit from the aggressor.
Who summarily fires watchdogs in every government agency? Someone whose and whose buddies’ business practices might be in the crosshairs.
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Who says he’ll stop the carnage in the Middle East only to give Netanyahu the green light to expand it? A fellow felon whose own freedom requires remaining in office.
Who promises to Make America Great Again only to gut every department and program within his grasp? Someone who wants to be able to balance the books on the obscene tax cuts he wants to extend for billionaires like himself.
So, I think it’s not that he’s evil. It’s not that he’s undemocratic. It’s not that he’s incompetent, deluded or even corrupt. It’s the fact that he is a cheat who is using the highest office in the land to enrich himself and enrich the people who will enrich him further. Like no other leader before him. At the expense of the citizens who trusted him and put him in office.
Not a smart and ruthless businessman. A parasite.
Isn’t that the message that Dems should be pounding? And then mapping out what they will actually do to look after the interests of all those misled MAGA’s…interests of all Americans. We can Kumbya as much as we want, but until we change the whole country’s (not just our own) image of this man, he will only get bolder and uglier with what he’s trying to get away with. And only when constituents make it clear that they will turn on the lawmakers who abet this man will the lawmakers who abet this man try to remake themselves as actual Americans.
This article appears in Mar 28 – Apr 3, 2025.
