By Tom Robotham
When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, I disagreed with many friends who thought there was no way he could win. The book I mentioned in my last essay—Amusing Ourselves to Death—kept coming to mind, and Trump personified author Neil Postman’s dark vision: the degradation of politics into cheap, televised entertainment, which millions of people eat up like so much junk food.
This time around, by contrast, I felt cautiously optimistic, given the apparent enthusiasm driving the Harris campaign and the fact that Trump seemed increasingly unhinged and hateful, even by his standards.
Clearly, I overestimated a large portion of the American electorate.
I had long ago written off the core of his base as bigots who take sheer delight in Trump’s relentless demonizing of immigrants, inner-city Blacks, trans people, women, liberals, journalists, teachers, and even members of the military. This fact was illuminated in his last pre-election rally when he sneered that a would-be assassin gunning for him would have to “shoot through the fake news media” (i.e., the reporters standing in front of him) to get to him and that he “wouldn’t mind that.” The crowd behind him erupted in laughter. Hillary Clinton, it turns out, was right. These people are deplorable, as are Trump’s surrogates who spewed vile garbage at the Madison Square Garden rally.
Let me add, however, that I don’t lump all Trump supporters into this category. Many of them simply cited the economy as their number one issue. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that, per se, but I find it troubling for two reasons.
First, it reveals an unsettling gullibility—an obliviousness to the fact that Trump inherited a good economy from Obama, tanked it by mishandling the pandemic, and now promises to impose heavy tariffs, which scores of economists have said will drive up inflation.
The second reason is even more disturbing. Let’s assume for a moment that all those economists are wrong and that Trump’s policies will lower prices. The message sent by his supporters is that they’ll happily accept fascism as long as the price of eggs goes down. It reminds me of the old saying about Mussolini: at least he made the trains run on time. (He didn’t, by the way.) It is the grossest kind of selfishness. Trump has promised to use the military against his “enemies from within,” cruelly round up immigrants and put them in concentration camps before kicking them out of the country, charge opponents like General Milley and Liz Cheney with treason, eviscerate the Department of Justice and a variety of federal agencies like the EPA, put a lunatic conspiracy theorist in charge of the department of health, deprive women of control over their own bodies, abandon measures designed to combat climate change, and abandon our European allies while urging Putin “do whatever he wants.”
But that’s all OK, right? As long as I have mine.
There are some people who didn’t even vote for Trump but trust that he won’t actually do these things, since “he didn’t do them the first time around.” There is, of course, a bit of amnesia at work here. He did, after all, violently break up a peaceful protest across from the White House so he could have a photo op in front of a nearby church. Then there’s the little matter of inciting a violent mob to storm the Capitol for the purpose of overthrowing the government, hunting down Nancy Pelosi and lynching his own vice president.
That said, I agree that the first Trump administration could have been a lot worse. The reason it wasn’t was because he had people like John Kelley employing a kind of political jiu-jitsu on Trump to keep him in check. We owe Kelley two debts of gratitude: for partially succeeding in his tempering of Trump’s mad schemes, and for later acknowledging that Trump met the definition of a fascist. That word used to be tossed around carelessly by the left. But when you hear it from a conservative retired Marine Corps general, there’s good reason to sit up and take notice.
Sadly, a majority of voters dismissed Kelly’s warning. The same people who fly their flags ostentatiously and claim to “honor the military,” it seems, don’t have any respect for a decorated Marine who knew Trump as well as anyone. They put their trust, instead, in a man who denigrated John McCain’s heroism and who called soldiers who died in combat “losers.”
In the run-up to the election, I embraced the term “nauseously optimistic.” Now, I just feel nauseous. I think there are three reasons for this.
First, I regard myself as a patriot. I love America, in spite of all its flaws, because to me, at its best, it’s represented a bright vision of possibility: a land where all people are welcome and given opportunities to improve both their own lives and the welfare of the nation; a country that strives to lift up the poor and bolster the middle-class; a nation of people who cherish our abundance of natural resources and works tirelessly to preserve them; a people who hold dear the idea of education and are willing to invest in it for everyone; a society that loves the very idea of democracy, worships the First Amendment, and values freedom of the press, every bit as much as Jefferson did; a country that takes seriously its position as a world leader and stays true to its allies—and finally, an enterprising nation that reaches for the stars, both literally and figuratively. There are times when we’ve come close to realizing that vision and times when we’ve fallen far short. But now, none of it seems possible any longer—at least not in my lifetime; for Trump stands in complete opposition to every single aspect of this vision.
The second reason for my nausea is that I now fear for my own welfare. As a journalist and liberal-arts college professor, after all, I’m an “enemy of the people” twice over, according Trump. Given my modest status in both professions, I’m not under the delusion that Trump will target me personally. But I do worry about a chilling effect—a trickling down of MAGA sensibilities that will make it riskier to speak freely.
The third and final reason for my nausea is that the mere sight and sound of Trump makes me sick to my stomach—the way he drips self-adulation, puts on that fake-tough-guy voice, waddles around the golf course, and cakes his face with orange makeup. He absolutely disgusts me on the most visceral level.
I know a lot of people who feel the same way. The day after the election, my Facebook feed was filled with expressions of grief and horror, and private conversations deepened my sense of the severity of this catastrophe. My own daughter called me from New York and immediately broke down sobbing. Other friends reported that their daughters had done the same.
For months now, in fact, a common refrain among my friends has been, “if Trump wins, I’m leaving the country.” I get it. But for my part, I have neither the means nor the desire to do so. I’ve loved this country my whole life, and for better or worse it will be my home till I die. That said, in the wake of this catastrophe, I now love it less. I’m trying to wrap my mind around the fact that so many of my fellow Americans could have made such a horrible decision—and in doing so, essentially thrown us all under the bus.
The noble thing to do now, is to strengthen our resolve and fight with all we have against the coming gloom in the form of Trump’s vicious policies against virtually everyone except for the billionaire class that he so admires—and envies. If I were 20 years younger, I’m sure I’d be up for that fight. Now, I’m not so sure. I just hope I’ll rally when it counts.
Essayist/opinion columnist Tom Robotham is the former editor of Port Folio Weekly and has had several books published, including “Charlton Heston Presents The Word — Hope & Joy” and “Varga.” Currently, he is an adjunct professor at Old Dominion University. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
