A Universal History of Infamy, Plus One
.
.
Trump is a unique phenomenon.
To find in the archives of history a similar shady, immoral character, with a similar influence on the affairs of a nation or the world, we might have to go back a millennium or two. We might also want to leaf through Borges’ story A Universal History of Infamy to find anyone, even in fiction, comparable to Trump in degree of depravity.
I have abstained from featuring an image about the subject matter since I don’t wish to add a single one to the daily flood. We know what he looks like, we know his demagogic gestures, we know why we turn away in horror and disbelief that he has not been arrested and jailed and shut up for good. That his candidacy is again being discussed, which would give him the ultimate opportunity to wreck this country for good, is a thought both frightening and appalling.
Still, his prime enabler was Ronald Reagan, who set this country into a downslope, who famously declared that Government is a problem, not the solution. The absurdity of this statement, coming from someone just appointed to the highest rank of government, is still unmatched except for the statements later coming and flowing unimpeded from Trump’s mouth. Reagan was first in line of inexperienced performers climbing on the political stage to keep acting.
Trump, the actor climbing up after him, is still a species by himself – in that perhaps distinguished from the first actor-president — as he has no morals, no grounding in ethics whatsoever, no values we humans consider dear. He is a total freak like no other, an outlaw — the product of a family that consistently scoffed at rules and norms we all consider for granted.
There must have been many Trump-like characters before, but the key difference is the political legitimacy this one, Donald J. Trump, acquired through Ronald Reagan and, more recently, through Newt Gingrich’s platform, which also owed to Ronald Reagan’s poisonous legacy. And let’s not forget the vicious talking dogs of late: Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Tucker Carlson.
In 1981, when I first saw Ronald Reagan speak in public on TV, something revolted in me. His insincerity, his lack of grounding came through in the way he looked at the camera, in his timbre of voice, in his idiotic statements about the pollution by trees and ketchup as a legitimate vegetable in school lunches. I remember coming close to throwing up. He was a fake through and through, and in hindsight I realize he was a template for all the fakes that were coming after him, with the worst – in the guise of Trump — not even imaginable at that time.
.
.
This entry was posted in Blog and tagged Borges, glen Beck, infamy, Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, Trump, Tucker Carlson. Bookmark the permalink.
Leave a Reply