morford: The day democracy died: An epitaph
(by the way, we are allowed to play with the trolls on his columns--and, dear goddess, there are sooooo many of them in the comments section. go have fun!!)
The day democracy died: An epitaph
By Mark Morford on January 20, 2017 at 7:16 AM
This much we know: He is not going to step up. He is not going to pivot, or suddenly turn classy and shrewd, or reveal a surprisingly warm intelligence or thoughtful demeanor, one which makes us proud to have him representing our hobbled nation on the global stage. Just the opposite. He will gain no kind of sure footing, inspire not a single iota of grace, compassion or dignity in those around him. He will relinquish no shred of the bloviated, terrifying reality-TV egomania that got him here, a place he very much does not at all belong, or deserve. Would that we could be so lucky.
No, on the day the pussy-grabbing, climate-denying, NATO-sneering, China-taunting, nuke-happy, Putin-fellating, woman-hating, neo-Nazi con-artist gameshow-host troll king officially ascends to the highest office in the land, we find a mad scramble across all media worldwide to locate a single bright spot, a silver lining, any kind of upside to this thuggish, deeply unstable man-child who is our 45th president, a brutishly vain, vindictive human chased by countless almost-certainly-true insinuations of vast corruption, crooked deals, massive debt, Russian hookers and flagrant tax evasion, sexual assault and ideological venality, all covered by a pocked orange skin as thin as tissue paper and twice as scaly. And there is nothing, of course, to be found. There is no good news. No upside, no benefit either nationally or globally to a Trump presidency, AKA the end of common democracy as we know it, the convulsive death of the American experiment.
I have scoured the media, the analysts, the historians and the Trump biographers, and the best anyone can do is offer a meek possibility that the hatestorm that’s coming just might not be as destructive as everyone knows it will be. As many others have pointed out, liberals have no idea how bad it’s about to get, what serious disfigurements Trump’s policies are about to wreak. Then again, neither do most Republicans, and certainly not Trump voters themselves, a stunningly naïve, mal-educated voting bloc that’s about to get smashed the hardest with the reality that their new king despises them most of all.
Did you note Joe Biden’s final speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos? The unprecedented alarm he sounded of just how volatile it’s about to get, the degree to which Trump’s degenerate egomania and venal soul could very well destabilize the fundamental world order, destroy economies, set us all on a tailspin toward antagonism and war? Rest assured, it’s not because the new president has a sharp but divisive agenda, well planned but just a little bit… evil. Just the opposite: He has no clue whatsoever. He opines on topics he knows nothing about. He is guided by nothing by desperate vanity and lust for power at the lowest, most tawdry levels. He will never be a statesman, will never separate the interests of the nation from his own gross self-aggrandizement. And he knows, just like the rest of the world, that his presidency has as much legitimacy as a pedophile suddenly handed the keys to Toys R’ Us.
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http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2017/01/20/the-day-democracy-died-an-epitaph/#photo-784400
