Why Trump will cause chaos, corruption and terror in the upcoming elections and won’t care. He has everything to lose–fortune, family, power and freedom–if the elections are lawful and normal.
12 minutes ago
(From Botticelli’s Map of Hell, of Dante’s Inferno; Vatican archives.)
At the beginning of Chapter 8 of his brilliant book East of Eden (1952, Viking Press, NY.) the California-born writer John Steinbeck, gave us a clear and sobering description of the “anti-human” human, the epitome of evil—terrorizing all he or she touches, by exposing in its full-frontal ugliness the absence of any soul or conscience:
“I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. Some you can see, misshapen and horrible, with huge heads or tiny bodies; some are born with no arms, no legs, some with three arms, some with tails or mouths in odd places. They are accidents, and no one’s fault, as used to be thought. Once they were considered the visible punishments for concealed sins.
And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?
Monsters are variations from the accepted normal to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience…To a man born without a conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish.
You must never forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.”
Steinbeck wrote that six years after Donald Trump was born, written to describe one of the most monstrous characters he’s ever created in all of his books.
It was not intended to describe Trump, but over time, Trump has morphed into Steinbeck’s soul-less and conscience-less Monster, who cannot abide by normality, or the rules, or the law, since, to do so, forces him to face his own abject deformity and culpability.
It’s why Trump will do everything he can to cheat, corrupt, corrode, undermine, disrupt, and cause chaos in the upcoming Elections, just three weeks away. And he won’t care what people think or say about it, what columnists write, or what television and social media say. It doesn’t matter to him; he is immune from shame or conscience or normal notions like duty or the law, or devotion to a greater good. To Trump, there is no greater good than his own. That’s why he will do everything in his power to disrupt the November elections, and knowingly send his use of illegal force and seizure of ballots into Court for months. If he can illegally chop down 400 mature trees on federal land—in direct violation of a court order not to—he will surely try to steal this election, destroy ballots, or make them disappear like immigrants dragooned off by ICE.
To do otherwise, to allow the elections to take place normally, legally, and without interference, or terrorism, would open a huge Florida-sized sinkhole in the earth, entirely exposing the Monster and all of his monstrous lies and frauds and thefts and rapes and hatred. And like Botticelli’s depiction of the “Map of Hell” Trump and his entourage will be sucked down into the firey swamp they created, which will devour them forever. The amoral Monster, who has faked and cheated his way through 80 years of life, will do things “normal” people of conscience are not capable of contemplating, in order to avoid the fate of consequences for actions.
Seven hundred years ago, Dante wrote about such crimes against humanity and decency, and for hundreds of years later great artists like Botticelli depicted what some of the most horrible punishments, and personal consequences, would look like. They are maccabre scenes which exceed anything seen in modern horror films, that make non-Monsters blink, but Monsters, like Trump, don’t even blanche.
None of it matters to Trump; he just doesn’t care. He didn’t read Dante, nor look at the vast collection of Dante-inspired Vatican art, nor read the Bible, any bible, or Steinbeck, or anything but his bank account, which has increased some $2.2 billion since his second term began. It is the purpose for his existence. He (and his sons) accumulated such obscene wealth through theft of public funds, and fraud; rigging the markets, illegally boosting their own stock, and steering multi-million dollar government contracts to companies in which The Trump Sons were major investors. Some of those companies made millions by war profiteering, making prolonging the wars in Iran and the Ukraine, good for the Trump Family business.
All the national polls may show the Trump Monster’s microscopic approval rating sinking more each day, and the flashing “normal” political signs of danger for an incumbent President of a sweep of both Houses of Congress by the opposition party, with the power to investigate and subpoena and hold the Monster’s minions in contempt finally being exercised. To the Monster, immune from conscience or soul or decency, none of that mattes.
The Democrats may be poised to win US Senate Seats in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, New Hampshire, Alaska, Georgia, Florida and North & South Carolina, but none of that matters to the Monster without a conscience or soul, and the criminal without any shred of honesty. He will continue to eat everything in front of him, including human beings, or laws, or “precedents,” or “traditions” they way he ate evidence of his sex crimes, and multiple financial frauds, and business and policy failures.
Tsk-Tskers will shake their heads, and mutter, “Is there no Bottom?” or “Have you no decency?” or “Have you no regard for Democracy?”, and the answer to all of those pleadings is, and has always been the same. NO.
The Monster has none of that, nor will ever develop it, even if forced to, because as Steinbeck wrote, “to a Monster, the “norm” is monstrous.” Expect the worst disruptions and chaos and criminality on Election Day. It’s all the Monster knows how to do; it’s all he’s ever done.
The only question is, what will we do about it, and how quickly? Will we only mourn the 400 fully grown trees after they’ve been chopped down? Will there be consequences? Will our own consciences and souls render us ridiculous? Will our honesty force us to play the fools once again?
The Monster melts when doused with a bucket of normalcy, rules, restraints, the law, and consequences. Do we have the courage to confront him, remembering, as Steinbeck instructed us, that “the Monster is only a variation.”
Do we have the moral strength to hold the Monster accountable for his actions? We’re about to see if the Monster wins, or, if we do.
