Opinion: Normally, when one’s thoughts turn to superpowers – as mine so often do – things like spontaneous flight, astounding strength and/or speed, and the ability to deflect bullets with what appear to be simple metal bracelets spring to mind. In today’s United States, however, one of our two major political parties, led by an orange-domed supervillain, has developed twin superpowers that stem, not from something they can do, but something they can’t or won’t do – namely, feel either shame or guilt.
To be honest, I don’t know if it’s that Donald Trump and his Maga-maniacs actually don’t feel shame or guilt or that they don’t ever let potential shame or guilt influence anything they say or do. Either way, the impact has been devastating.
To use one of Trump’s favourite intros, think of it: imagine an elementary school classroom where one child runs amok constantly. He goes around smacking other kids on the head, writes profane, sexually explicit messages about the teacher and students on the blackboard, spits in every child’s lunchbox and disrupts the teacher’s every effort at following a lesson plan. Imagine further that, instead of these actions resulting in discipline, suspension or expulsion, they are ignored by the teacher (let’s call her Ms Supreme Court), applauded by students who seek to curry the miscreant’s favour and tolerated by the rest of the students for fear of retribution from the miscreant and his toadies.
That chaotic classroom is today’s Republican Party. Trump has, for seemingly his entire life, acted as if society’s norms and laws do not apply to him, and so far his judgment seems spot on. The rewards for his narcissism have been fame, fortune, and potentially, a second go as the world’s most powerful person.
His pathology is crystal clear and expecting him to improve his behaviour is as realistic as expecting zooplankton to speak fluent Italian. His millions of followers are drawn by the vicarious thrill of being in league with someone who believes he’s entitled to do and say whatever he wants, whenever and wherever he wants. Although they can’t pull such antics off in their own lives, as it would render them alone and friendless and send their moral compass spinning, they cheer on a man who can.
To my mind, it’s his legion of political enablers and sycophants who are the most surprising and disturbing element of this unholy trinity. Consider two of the leading contenders to be his vice-presidential running mate: Florida senator Marco Rubio, who once called Trump “the most vulgar person ever to aspire to the presidency”, called his rallies “frightening, grotesque and disturbing” and who was constantly mocked by Trump as “Little Marco”. Rubio recently said it would be an “honour” to serve as Trump’s running mate.
In 2016, Ohio senator JD Vance called Trump noxious, reprehensible and an idiot, and once told a friend he couldn’t decide if Trump would prove to be “a cynical asshole like Nixon … or America’s Hitler”. Recently, he called Trump “the best president of my lifetime”. The list goes on.
And in one critical aspect, Trump is America’s Hitler – for just as Hitler’s rise to power could have been derailed at numerous inflection points in the 1930s had some of Europe’s leaders been braver or more prescient, so, too, would Trump have been marginalised had not almost the entire Republican House and Senate membership decided the US Constitution and their own principles weren’t important enough to say no to his party takeover.
Since he doesn’t have to worry about those pesky feelings of guilt or shame, Trump has been free to use the most powerful tool in any cynical politician’s kit – fear – with truly reckless abandon. He has turned an entire party yellow. Previously powerful politicians cower in fear of his or his minions’ disfavour. He has created a bevy of bogeymen – illegal immigrants, criminals, communists and more – to keep his followers perpetually fearful. And if we, as a nation, don’t have the courage and conviction to sweep him into history’s dustbin, well, shame on us.
Jonathan Kronstadt is a freelance writer working in Washington DC.
