The Problem With Creating a God In Your Own Image

During the Clinton Administration, the GOP began to fan the flames of the ugliest and most base human emotion--selfishness, greed, misogyny, racism, xenophobia, tribalism; naked hatred of anything that is not the white male capitalist establishment--through under-the-table encouragement, even financing, of right-wing media. 

In the early days of the "movement,"  no sensible politician of the “mainstream” Republican party publicly espoused the meteoric growth of this contentiousness, of this embrace of ignorance and disdain for facts and truth.  But since it was having the desired effect of putting the American electorate directly into their hands, their winking silence on the subject tacitly encouraged the descent of the American public into the divided, hate-filled, tribal-mentality hell that exists today.  Gradually, the tenor of our society has become, “If you don't believe in lockstep every thing that I believe, you are the enemy and I hate you.  And, I have RIGHTS!!!  I can (and will)  do anything I want…you try to stop me if you don't like it."  With the unspoken caveat that if  you DON'T stop it, then any negative repercussions are YOUR fault.  So much for taking personal responsibility.  (But that is a different rant...)   

Over time, GOP legislators themselves began to buy into and publicly demonstrate this behavior.  Once they gained power, there was nothing they wouldn’t do, no words too objectionable, no act too outrageous, if it allowed them to manipulate their "base," maintain that power and wield it to their own best advantage (NOT, mind you, to the advantage of their constituency); up to and including denying the President of the United States his Constitutionally conferred right to place a judge on the Supreme Court, should a vacancy eoccur during his tenure.  They did this because they COULD.  Who was going to stop them?  (Can you tell I STILL haven't got over that one?  But THAT is also a different rant....sigh!) 

In 2016, Republicans promoted and then lined up behind a man who not only represented, but vividly and unabashedly displayed the aspects of human nature which the GOP has been encouraging and giving a platform for over twenty years.  They literally created a god in their own image--a leader who flat out, no holds barred, walks the walk and talks the talk the GOP has been "mainstreaming" for two decades.   

So I had to shake my head when I heard a quote by GOP Senator Lindsey Graham on the radio last Friday.  This was during a Congressional “discussion” of Trump’s now infamous (but either denied or decried as “fake news” by Trump loyalists and the Cheeto himself) comment about immigrants coming here from “shithole countries”  like Haiti or third-world African nations—nations mostly inhabited by dirt-poor black people.    

“Tuesday we had a president who I was proud to golf with, call my friend, who understood immigration had to be bipartisan ... but he also understood the idea that we had to do it with compassion. ...I don't know where that guy went. I want him back." 

Even as mainstream Republicans have rushed to embrace Trump because of his popularity with the base, they have found themselves stymied, even distressed, by his behavior.  He does NOT play by the rules.  Those rules being that Congress and members thereof can be as contentious, mercurial, untruthful, faithless and anti-negotiation as they please--or as will please whoever paid to put them in office--but the President must NEVER exhibit this kind of behavior.    

For  sixteen years--a large portion, if not  the entire tenure, of many of those in Congress right now--the President's role has been either to be the puppet-mouthpiece for the Party and the monied interests that control it, or to be the anti-Christ enemy who must be thwarted at every turn.  Members of Congress may lie and fudge, fabricate and disseminate misinformation, point fingers and call names, in order to whip up the base.  But up until now, the President has been relegated to the position of the eye in the center of the storm.  Slightly above and disconnected from the winds and destruction of the storm itself.  All decorum and calm.  All very controllable.

GOP legislators have absolutely no idea what to do with Trump, now that they've got him. He's not reasonable.   He doesn't negotiate.   He points fingers and calls names.  He lies.  He tweets.  He rants.  His word means nothing. 

On Sunday, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, on the talk show circuit in the wake of the "shithole" comment, had this to say about negotiating with Trump on the immigration issue/government shutdown:

"[after speaking to Trump and making a major concession on funding for Trump's wall]... Chuck [Shumer] came back to the Hill.  We sat down in his office, ad I said I think we're going to avoid the shutdown  I think we're ready to go.  Two hours later a call from the White House said the deal is off.  We're not going to stand by this at all.  How can you negotiate with the President under those circumstances?  He agrees to move forward face-to-face and within two hours pulls the plug."

Well stated.  When there is no truth, no respect, and no honor, there can be no negotiation.  Only it's not JUST the Democrats' problem, any more. 

Lindsey Graham's politically correct public tap-dance before the cameras was that Trump was being "badly served" by his staff.  Nice try, Mr. Graham.  But  what's obvious is that YOU are aghast at the situation...that it took only two hours for Trump's hardline advisors to get in his head and cause this bad faith about-face.  But Presidents don't behave like this, so we have to shoot the blame over to someone else. 

The problem with this, sir,  is Trump IS the president and he DID do the deed, regardless of who was in his ear at the time.  And you have no idea how to move forward with a guy who is controlled by whomever he spoke with last, or by Fox and Friends, or by the voices in his own head... rather than being utterly under the thumb of the GOP Congress.   

"Oh, no!  We've put an infantile bigot bully with no honor and no filter in the highest office in the land, and we have no control over him whatsoever!  What do we do now?" 

Good question.  Probably one you should have asked before you all lined up behind him like he was the Second Coming.  It's not like he isn't exactly what he showed himself to be during the campaign--the one thing he hasn't lied about in eighteen months. 

What do we do now, indeed?