Anyone else feel like they are suffering PTSD from the Trump administration? What happened in the last four years? I scratch my head, incredulous as to how many people didn’t see through his lies and to call him out for what he blatantly is and always has been: a con man. We thought the Presidency would be bad, but not quite this bad, leading to his crowning moment; inciting a mob to storm the Capital fueled by lies that the election was stolen. It really was shameful. His last days in the White House and his historical legacy is an insurrection in which five people died trying to hijack the democratic process fueled by the delusions of an ego maniac (with sociopathic and narcissistic tendencies. 

There is so much to unpack – it’s difficult to know where to start. Throughout the Trump Presidency I always found it very hard to grasp how seemingly reasonable and educated people – even some of my friends – were unable to call him out for some of his atrocious behaviors. Even before he was elected, whilst on the campaign trail, he stood on stage and mocked a disabled person – this for me was always a lasting image and a absolute low in a whole cacophony of lows. My own children would know it’s not acceptable to mock disabled people and if they did it at school they would probably be expelled.  Yet here was the future President of the United States doing it on the world stage for his loyal fan base and supporters, many of whom cheered him on in the process. If anyone else did this it would probably have been the end of their careers, but in the cultish world of Trump each new low seemed to fortify both his ego and his followers. It’s a very strange phenomena. I would often look at Trump supporters and scratch my head at the cognitive dissonance occurring. ‘You’re a woman’ I thought, ‘why would you vote for him when he boasts about grabbing females by the pussy’, a blatant act of misogynistic sexual assault? He tried to brush this off as ‘locker room’ talk but it’s more serious than that and totally unacceptable.  Again, for most normal mortals, a career ending moment. Not for the Don.

I would also get the same perplexed head scratching feeling when I would see Latino or black supporters in his fan base despite his blatant racism. ‘Hang on, he referred to African countries as shit holes?’ ‘When talking about Mexican immigration – a problem he tried to fix by caging children at the border – he said the immigrants are bringing crime. They’re rapists.’ Don’t these sort of comments – and many other’s there isn’t room to quote here – illustrate a racist xenophobe? Why would you not see through this and vote for him, it’s weird? It’s only really understood by seeing it as a cultish situation where normal judgement is sidelined in favor of idolization of personality. Sane critical faculty is overwritten. And with the Donald, it really was a very overwhelming and brutish personality. There’s little interest in what he can achieve in terms of his policies but just a cultish and totemic repository for his followers emotions and frustrations. I am angry and frustrated in my life – I will transfer these feelings into my support of Trump.

For me this was the main alarming phenomena whereby society became totally polarized between pro and anti-Trump with absolutely no middle ground. Fueled by social media and the highly toxic manner in which Trump dealt with people; permanently-conflict and drama, name calling, a constant ‘you’re fired’, not listening, tantrums, governing via Twitter and dismissing anything that didn’t chime with his version of events as fake news. The worst his behaviors got the more fervent his fan base became whilst the rest of us looked on and scratched our heads, perplexed and confused. ‘Just listen the guy speak, he’s making it up as he goes along, he’s clearly a fraud.’

I always stand by my theory at the beginning which was Trump never actually wanted to be President. He thought he would initially put his name in the hat for increased exposure and to further his reality TV star career whilst growing his personal brand. Then at early campaign rallies as he stood on stage he found the more outrageous things he said the louder the cheer from the audience. His ego fueled by the crowd and the crowd hyped up by his raging ego in a dark symbiotic interplay, each feeding the other to create a cartoonish grotesque. This is where I see the valid Hitler comparisons; a rabid fan base fueling various out of control maniacal personality disorders. Then in the dying days of his Presidency getting gullible and stupid people to do stupid things based on lies. ‘Hey fanbase, let’s form an angry mob and storm the Capital as the election was stolen from you.’

He was and is a dangerous person. He deserves to be punished for his criminal actions. Thankfully democracy came through and for now – touch wood – the Trump Presidency is history, hopefully to never be repeated. Truth, democracy and sanity prevailed – just.