The New 1984 Is Coming

by Bill Formby

As I sit here thumbing through the various news outlets, it’s dawning on me that I was probably wrong about the Trump Administration. I had feared that his unpredictability would render the country a complete scene of chaos. But I was wrong. There actually is a predictability to Trump’s behavior and I believe their is an end goal in sight. The question right now is whether he gets to his end goal before our democracy gets to him.

If we go back a bit, like to just before Trump entered the presidential campaign, everything was lining up to be a normal Republican trashing of Hillary Clinton and her fighting back. Nothing really new, just the same old, same old that has been going on for the last 25 years. It was a perfect setup for a wildcard like Trump to pull a sleight of hand and at least get a lot of notoriety. He really, really wanted a chance to try to get back at President Obama for embarrassing him at the correspondents dinner. This was it.

While most people, including myself, thought he was just fooling around and really did not think he could win, I now think he felt he had a path to victory. He just felt that he had to play the game differently than it had ever been played. It had to be played by street gutter rules, which is really nothing new in politics, except that he was going to play them right out in the open, and without the usual upfront niceties that we see in politics.

I think that every person in America knew at the time that there was a nasty undercurrent of people in the conservative ranks that was just waiting to be turned loose. We didn’t like to admit or acknowledge it because we thought that, as a nation, we were better than that. Not only were we wrong we grossly underestimated just how wrong we were. We now know that roughly a third of the voters in America are a hardcore part of that nasty underbelly. It is not that they all agree on the same thing, it is just that they want to change the way they tell everyone about their feelings. Trump just stumbled into that part and it clicked.

Donald Trump has been known for a long time as a narcissistic asshole. That was the worst kept secret in the world. He has always believed that he was better than anyone else, smarter than anyone else, and entitled to better treatment than anyone else, and why would he not have felt that way. He has been coddled and pampered all of his life. While most everyone in America has worked hard just to get by Donald just coasted. When the military draft came along he didn’t have to worry about that because his family had enough money that a doctor would get his classification set so he would not have to serve. When asked about his sacrifices for the country he said that he had worked hard, built buildings, and created jobs. He just failed to mention that he made himself rich off his daddy’s money while others went to war. So he is a product of his upbringing.

As one who has always been raised to believe in his superiority, he has presumed that is who he is; God’s gift to America if not the entire world. He just needed to show people where we were wrong in being civil to each other. We needed a strong leader to model ourselves after, that would tell it like it is, and that person was him. And while he still knows next to nothing about running the country his view is that the country has been run the wrong way all along and he is here to save us. We need, according to his philosophy, something along the lines of Russia with a singularly powerful individual in charge. One that can see problems and give orders and make immediate changes for the better. After all, he sees himself as being a success with that philosophy. Just ask his kids.

The problem with the country is us, not him. Those of us who like to think through things and process information before rushing headlong into the briar patch. He sees where we have gone wrong for the last two centuries by trying to get by with a triad type government with no one person being in charge. It is actually silly that he is not able to tell congress to write a health care bill and they cannot do what the CEO says to do. I mean, really, this is ridiculous. He is the boss is he not. And, who are these damned judges who dare tell him he cannot do as he sees fit simply because it does not fit their idea of meeting a constitutional guideline. Really, how can he run a country under these circumstances. Preposterous!

The other thing that we are doing is interfering with his proposed changes by getting advice from his mentor from Russia. So what if he got a few pointers and a little help during the campaign from Vladimir Putin and the experts in Russia. After all, they have the model for his new American government. They have a democracy, sort of, in a way, but in a good sort of way, I think. Well, at least it would give Donald his way and a lot of people seem to believe that would be a good thing. Yeah, I know those are the nasty underbelly of our society, but they are something akin to people. They just do not think like real people think.

Now that the Donald is in charge he is bound and determined to change America into what he thinks it should be. A more autocratically run country that gives into what their Dear Leader says they should do. He feels that not only should he suddenly have instant obedience from those in the government but he also feels that he also needs to straighten out the private sector as well. It is his place to tell the news media when they are doing wrong but as well as to criticize individual citizens if he believes they are inappropriate in their private sector jobs, especially when they are taking out their private time to criticize him.

As a country we have lower the standard of acceptable  behavior for our president to the point that when Donald manages to read his speech off the teleprompter without making a mistake he is lauded in the press. If he goes a week with enraging some part of the American people it seems that everyone gives him a pat on the head. It is now to the point that if he does this for the next 3 years there will be enough people to re-elect him to the office again. He is making being a “special child” be normal and some are starting to ooh and ahh over his behavior when manages not to offend most of the civilized world.

President Trump is slowly making HIS world the new NORMAL. Even some world leaders are beginning to accept this. His minions like Kellyanne Conway are now making alternative facts become real, and his Press Secretary feels perfectly comfortable criticizing and disrespecting individuals by name from her podium. In three years this will be the new 1984 but will we realize it when it arrives.

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