As we were warned, the villain Trump has returned. The news cycle proves it
Mary McNamara March 29, 2024
Three years ago, I honestly hoped I would never have to write, or even think much, about Donald Trump
ever
again.
Three years ago, the then-still-sitting president made his despotic intentions clear to the world by sending a mob, in which many were armed, to
attack
the Capitol
and to
prevent the ratification of a fair and legal election that he lost.
The mob became violent.
Many of those involved have since been sentenced to
jail prison
. Twitter shut down Trumps account once a lifeline to his supporters and he fled to Mar
–
a
–
Lago.
Where many
of hoped wished
he would stay for the rest of his life.
It was as if I had never seen a movie, watched a television show or read a book.
IfIn
popular culture
has taught us
nothing else, it
constantly reminds us is
that villains, even
the ones who are those
caught and banished from the lands they would subjugate,
almost
always return
:.
Michael Myers, Thanos, the Joker, Emperor Palpatine, Doctor Whos
t
he Master
,
and
,
of course, J.R.R. Tolkiens uber-villain, Sauron, who was spectacularly defeated by Isildur only to rise
againandtry once again an d attempt
to control all of Middle-earth
once more
.
Just like Trump. For months, polls and then primaries made it clear that many voters either did not believe the facts
aboutof
Trumps political, financial or personal
misbehavioractions
, or did not think any of
them it
precluded Trump from becoming president. So once again, Trump is the
presumptive
Republican nominee
for president
and the center of every news cycle.
As it was from 2015 to early 2021, every day brings another mind-numbing
Trump
story.
About
the state of his four major court cases, in which he faces 91 felony counts, including attempting to interfere in the 2020 election, mishandling classified material after he left office, and using hush money to pay off Stormy Daniels so she wouldnt go public with their alleged sexual relationship.
About
the money he must pay
E.
Jean
E.
Carroll for defaming her after he
raped sexually abused
her. Or the fact that he is forcing the Supreme Court, much of which he appointed, to rule on whether a president is, in fact, above the law. Or the threats of bloodshed he regularly makes should he not win in November and the gag order the judge in the Stormy Daniels case felt compelled to issue to keep Trump from personally threatening those involved in the
suit trial
. Even the $60 God Bless America
B
ibles
and $399 gold Never Surrender High-Tops
he is now selling
as he confronts a mountain of his
legal fees.
Trump as a bible salesman.
Just when you think there is nothing this man can do to shock you, he becomes a
goddamn B
ible salesman.
Just
As if Flannery OConnor never wrote Good Country People in which a
B
ible salesman is revealed as a serial predator
to serially preyon of
the disabled or Ryan ONeal never starred in Paper Moon as a con
–
man
who
scams widows into paying for
B
ibles he claims were bought by their husbands before they died.
In the classical narrative, let’s say ” The Lord of the Rings,” we have entered the phase of the story in which the forces of evil break through the gates, only to be thwarted by last-minute reinforcements from the realm of the good.I mean, So
where
is
the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
For years
,
many of us have been waiting for a modern day
Theodan Thoden
of Rohan to emerge. Someone who, having woken from Trump’s spell
and the darkness of their dreams
, would cast aside their fear and old grievances to send the political equivalent of the
Rohirrim
sweeping into the battle to save Middle-earth.
For a minute it seemed Liz Cheney might do it, or Mike Pence, or any of the many former Trump
advisers advisors
who now regularly caution against electing a man who has made it clear he has nothing but crashing contempt for the presidency, the judicial system
,the legal system
and any member of the American public who does not wear a MAGA hat.
But as
Theodan Thoden
wondered, What can men do against so much reckless hate? Not enough, as Cheney found, losing her House seat after serving as vice
–
chair over the damning discoveries of the Jan. 6
committee.
Now our hopes instead are pinned on the more solitary figures
currently
trudging through the Mordor-like pits and plains
of
lawsuits and countersuits. The lawyers and plaintiffs who
are currently attempting to hurl
into the fire Trump’s oft- and baldly stated belief that he is above the law.
“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody , OK, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? ” Trump famously said in 2016. Now many regularly ponder if prison is a possibility and whether it would it be enough to keep him out of office . ?
Could he go to jail for falsifying business records? For taking, and refusing to hand over, sensitive classified documents? For pressuring Georgia election officials to manufacture votes? For violating a gag order?
Could he be convicted
of, and sentenced for, a
ny of these crimes, still win the election and pardon himself?
The fact that anyone is asking any of these questions, particularly the last, is proof that the future of this country really does hang in the balance.
As the
eleven 11
th hour approaches, millions wait and pray for something, anything, to dispel the shadow Trump
has
continues to cast over our
societycultural discourse
, to thwart his desire to return to power.
And for those who think I am being
ridiculous
by comparing The Lord of the Rings, with its wizards,
e
nts and
o
rcs, to the current state of American politics, please consider that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his masterpiece
afterto reflect the
experienc
inge of
two world wars. And if his epic celebrates a certain type of monarchy and the invariably white races of the West, it is also a
cri de coeur
against authoritarianism, political division and the power of
exploited
grievance.
Not for many years have we seen how ordinary people can fall under the spell of a political figure so closely aligned with the classic villains we have created in books, films and television. A man who, like every megalomaniac who sought to control Gotham City or Metropolis, refers to himself in the third person and violently blames
alleverything
that goes wrong on
anybody everybody
else.
A man who like every dictator in fiction or history regular chums the waters with disjointed, bloody bits of rhetoric designed to appeal to those who feel, history and fact notwithstanding, that too many other people immigrants, minorities, women, liberals, college graduates, the LGBTQ community,
whoever
are stealing their jobs, changing the face of their communities, raising their taxes, killing helpless babies, committing
all the
violent crimes, and making them admit
that
slavery is a bad thing.
I may be a liberal but that doesnt mean I think the Democratic
P
arty is without its own failings or that certain forms of conservative thought
don’tdoesnt
make sense, even if I dont agree with them.
Plenty of liberals are hypocrites, happy to fudge on their taxes or treat their employees terribly, to call for changes to law while they are busy bending or breaking it. As a highly imperfect human, I have plenty of grievances myself, including but not limited to the amount of money I pay in taxes and the use of those dollars to pay for programs I do not like.
But everyone, conservative, liberal and everyone in between, deserves a president who actually supports American democracy. And Donald Trump does not. Instead he has blatantly and unapologetically attempted to blast through and destroy virtually every aspect of this Great Experiment: the belief in free elections and peaceful transfer
ence
of power,
the independent judiciarythe legal system, the judicial system
, the legalities of American finance, the
belief hard-earned conviction
that, at the end of the day, all Americans are real Americans.
We have to stop waiting for someone else to stop him. Only we, the voters of this seemingly fractured and exhausted nation, can stop him.
The battle is already upon us; it is up to us to ride out to meet it.
