After refusing to take Donald Trump seriously for months and months, the Republican Party is now scrambling to derail the billionaire celebrity’s chances of being their standard-bearer in the fall election. And their chances of doing so are not looking all that good. Maybe I’ll apply for credentials to the Republican Convention after all.
But Trump’s popularity and stunning (to some) rise should not be a surprise to anyone, and, the upside of his still soaring poll numbers is that they give us an accurate gauge of the sentiments of a large slice of the electorate. We truly are a deeply divided nation.
Indeed, author Chris Hedges (who possesses perhaps the keenest mind and pen extant in America today), in his 2009 book Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, explained how the cult of celebrity would end up with the rise of a Trump-like character on the American stage, and also foretells of the price his followers are going to eventually pay.
Read.
“Our fantasies of belonging, of fame, of success and of fulfillment, are projected onto celebrities,” writes Hedges. “These fantasies are stoked by the legions of those who amplify the culture of illusion, who persuade us that shadows are real. The juxtaposition of the impossible illusions inspired by celebrity culture and our ‘insignificant’ individual achievements, however, eventually lead to frustration, anger, insecurity and invalidation. It results, ironically, in a self-perpetuating cycle that drives the frustrated, alienated individual with even greater desperation and hunger away from reality, back toward the empty promises of those who seduce us, who tell us what we want to hear.”
This fits Trump and his message to a “T”.
Hedges continues, “We beg for more. We ingest these lies until our money runs out. And when we fall into despair we medicate ourselves, as if the happiness we had failed to find in the hollow game is our deficiency. And, of course, we are told that it is.”
For some time now I’ve been of the opinion that the collapse of the Trump candidacy portends calamity for his followers, and potentially for the country. We can expect an increase in alcoholism, drug and spousal abuse — and yes, even suicides once these lost, weak-minded souls get dashed with the ice water reality of defeat.
Already somewhat enfeebled in mind and spirit by hatefulness, these low IQ followers of false promises will have trouble — in the extreme — coming to grips with the fact that there are simply not enough of them to elect someone like the celebrity and false prophet they’ve been worshiping. Upon defeat, their giddiness and glee will turn to rancor and despair.
Black churches and Jewish synagogues had better step up security before Trump’s downfall; they need to install state-of-the-art alarm systems now; and they’d better watch over their flocks with a renewed, heightened sense of concern, since these are the institutions the haters — once they get all liquored and drugged up and their anger over their loss is too great to contain — are bound to attack.
We can only hope that the Democratic victory this fall doesn’t prove to be pyrrhic — a win that causes such a negative backlash that the country is engulfed in flames of bitterness and hatred as a section of the population that Trump has proved is larger than we initially imagined finally realizes that their chances of returning the country to the bad ’ol days of the past have once and for all slipped away.
Make no mistake that, like cornered rats, the losers are going to fight back (under the pretense of saving the nation from destruction by liberals). So we’d better brace ourselves for the ugliness that’s sure to come.
Trump has been successful in at least one regard: America is forever changed; let’s just hope that it’s for the better.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.
2 Responses to “MANSFIELD: The Rise and Fall of a Demagogue”
Roldo Bartimole
Mansfield: You sure know how to depress a guy. Unfortunately, with the truth.
Jerry Dolcini
Ciao Mansfield, I thoroughly enjoyed your incisive description of neo-fascist Trump and his worshippers. As a white progressive I also am pleased that you quoted the wisdom of Chris Hedges who is unknown to most Americans who watch
corporate tv. Hope to have a beer with you this year to celebrate Mussolini-Trump’s demise.