Time to Lose the Clowns
Because the joke is on us, and it’s not funny.
I wrote this is 2020 and it is still spot on. The clowns are still with us, and we still need to lose them. Send out the clowns!
Am I about to experience schadenfreude?
On the morning I woke to the news of Donald Trump’s positive test result for Covid-19, my first thought was, “Am I about to experience schadenfreude? Am I going to take pleasure or joy in this not very surprising, and yet extremely surprising, development? I, who have often come close to ‘praying’ that something would happen to Donald Trump to end his presidency?”
I did not experience schadenfreude, because my desire—my fervent wish—is not that Donald Trump should suffer; it is only that he should stop being the President of the United States. That he should stop misusing power to harm people and institutions. That he should stop enabling weak, scared people to throw away whatever integrity they might once have thought they had, in order to join him in the delusion that nothing matters except self-preservation through the consolidation of power. That he should, in the paraphrased words of Joe Biden, shut up.
I want him to shut up because I find his voice and his words vastly more grating than clanging cymbals or fingernails on a blackboard. I don’t want to hear the pathetic diatribes, excuses, self-aggrandizements, lies and damn lies, that spew forth from his mouth and twitter feed.
I want him to be gone from the Presidency of the United States because Donald Trump is a clown, a joker, a man whose worldview is a funhouse of mirrors in which he sees only his own distorted image, wherever he looks.
I have nothing against clowns. I just don’t want a clown for President.
I’m fine with Trump being an entertainer, a stand-up comic. Just do it on your own time and your own dime, buster! Don’t count on tax-payer dollars to support your efforts to make yourself into a laughing stock and us into your audience.
I realize that there are humans who love this man. We love entertainers. We love comedians. They are funny, they make us laugh, they are bold in saying anything that works in the moment and we admire that. They ask for our adoration by generously offering us their exuberant schtick.
Great! No problem, Donald Trump! Be a reality TV star, or a talking head on screens, spewing nonsense, or anything else that gets you your fix for adulation, and that does not cause enormous harm by giving you access to power for which you have no qualifications or aptitude.
Anyone with an ounce of sanity can see that it is a dangerous liability to have a man in the office of President of the United States who has shown himself unable and unwilling to take any responsibility for that office.
And it’s not just Trump. He has allowed a culture of greed and corruption—the unrestrained desire for power—which always clowns around in the shadows, to step right into the spotlight and party like it’s 1999.
This election isn’t about democrats vs republicans, liberals vs conservatives, left vs right; it is about democracy vs the grave injury to, or death of, democracy in the United States.
We have some very big caused-by-us problems that are going to require genuine maturity, intelligence, commitment and sacrifice to address. We need real leaders now, not clowns in high office. We need to get people like Donald Trump, and all the other weak, unprincipled people who are harming themselves, us, and everything else, out of the way.
As Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
For those of you with little faith in the Democratic Party, all I can say is, I feel your pain and it is exponentially better than the alternative. By ‘better’ I mean less likely to destroy this country — its system of government and every worthwhile value that it stands for, or will stand for, as we evolve towards greater awareness of interconnectedness, sustainable systems, and the mystery of what we are.
It’s time to lose the clowns, and we can do it.
Our best chance to get Donald Trump out of the way is to Get Out the Vote, and to VOTE!
That was a fabulous fed of writing jani and happy birthday yesterday
💯