Five and counting
Today, as I write this, marks the morning of my fifth anniversary as a contributing writer for Palmer Report. Among other things that means this is my 1,527th published article. Never did I dream where this path would lead when I first set my foot upon it. What a journey it has been!
Prior to the advent of the Trump presidency I was not what you would call a political animal. To be sure, my political leanings this century and the final 15 years of the last were to the left, such as they were. But nothing in the political world ever captured either my imagination or my energy before Trump. I am what you might call a monster of Donald Trump’s very own creation, one that I hope will one day prove to be to his unremitting displeasure.
Writing for Palmer Report has been deeply cathartic, and I hope reading what I have written, now and then, has been so for you too, brothers and sisters. This catharsis is the only antidote available to me to deal with the disaster that Donald Trump has visited on the land of my birth. That disaster is unequalled by anything in America’s brief history.
Nothing in our history, not even the American Civil War, has created such a massive number of men and women so devoted to the lies that could lead to the complete destruction of American democracy. Never in our history have millions of Americans ardently wished to cast aside freedom in exchange for fascism. To see it happen in my lifetime is every bit as horrifying, every bit as disconcerting, as it has been wholly unexpected.
Trump has given me answers to dark questions I was happier not knowing the answers to. He answered the question, once and for all, of how it was possible for a brilliant and talented folk like the German people to follow a man like Hitler. I used to wonder if there was something unique in the German character that made thinkable so terrible a mistake. Trump taught me that 1930s Germany was nothing unusual.
Trump showed me that the proclivity for despotism smoulders in many of the hearts and minds of all peoples everywhere. It just needed someone like Donald Trump to come along and make their hatred not just acceptable but something they are proud of. I don’t pretend to understand how people can think that way, but the evidence that they do is irrefutable, thanks to Trump.
That Trump is arguably one of the most personally repellent human beings in history proves just how desperate many people are to be able to publicly boast of their ignorance, their intolerance and their bigotry. Without Trump to give them permission they would have to hide who they truly are, so they turn a blind eye to what he truly is. Now that he’s exposed the undeniable fact that they exist in the millions they feel safe and justified and validated in their public stupidity. They are shockingly unable to see that Trump is in fact a whiny megalomaniac, a liar, a rapist, a murderer, a thief and a traitor. All they see is the man who set them free to be their very own despicable selves.
Trump has also made it possible for the rise of some perfectly awful politicians, even though some of them are against him. Ron DeSantis, for example, recently declared that if he’s elected president he would go on to “destroy leftism in this country.” In other words, if elected he’s going to try to out-MAGA Trump and destroy more than half of the American people, their right to think, their right to show compassion to the less fortunate, their right to express their opinions. I believe him. I believe he genuinely wants to do that. And America’s Medieval Supreme Court will probably back him up.
So blind to reality has this sorcerer Trump magically enchanted his people, that he has convinced them that his presidency was a huge success. And yet all he did as president, in much of which he had full control of Congress, was to pass one major legislative priority, a huge tax cut for millionaires and billionaires, and appoint some perfectly dreadful cultists and rapists as Supreme Court justices. The rest of the time he committed crimes and played golf.
Despite all their whining about immigrants and crime and inflation and how dreadful the Biden presidency has been and how they’d fix it once they regained power, MAGA Republicans barely regained power in the House in 2022 and did nothing about any of those things. What have they done with that power instead? They have used taxpayer money to get even with their enemies. And their people bowed and prayed. It is truly soul-destroying to see how blind their followers are.
We are rapidly approaching an inflection point called 2024. In that year we need a blue wave the likes of which we have never seen. We must take back full power in Congress and keep the presidency, solve the gun problem and increase the size of the Supreme Court to 13 members. We must reclaim Roe v. Wade, reclaim affirmative action, stop Vladimir Putin, solve inflation, ensure healthcare for all Americans and go to work in earnest on the existential threat of global warming.
Finally we must stop the MAGA deity and show his worshippers that he’s a criminal fit only for life in prison. The Republican Party, so-called, is no longer a legitimate party. It is an insurrection, an extension of January 6th, a grievance bubble for whining children who hate America and promote the Big Lie. The Republican Party as it exists must cease. I promise to commit another five years to do my small part to make it so. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.