6/1/20
As America cried out in anguish over the death of George Floyd and the problem of abusive policing, the president retreated to the White House bunker on the advice of his security team. In his mind, he seems to think it's the riots of the 1960s all over again, and his reaction appears both terrified and angry. No moment defines the Donald Trump era more precisely, for this is a man whose life has been spent inside a series of bunkers -- intellectual, emotional, financial, and political -- where he schemed to make us all accept his narcissistic fantasy. This dreamworld, where he would rule as the "I alone can fix it" president has become, not the 1950s idyll of his imagination, but a hellscape governed by a man frozen in his childhood and out of step with the times. The world is spiraling out of control and its most powerful man is abjectly unprepared and unqualified. As a very wealthy young white man isolated in privilege, Trump didn't seem to consider the suffering that caused the crises of his youth. Having concluded that those who ruled had responded too weakly when protests led to riots, he adopted a hardcore law and order mentality and began developing a physical and psychological reality where he could be isolated from dissent.
With no experience in government, the military, or genuine civic engagement, Trump brought his true self to the White House, where his team included many who seemed to share his back-to-the-50s mentality. Those of us who knew Trump's limitations feared the kind of crisis that arrived with the deadly coronavirus. That the US is a country in crisis, without a leader, is now so obvious that as Time magazine reported last week, cracks are forming in his once-unbreakable base. The doubts the magazine documented before the country was convulsed by recent protests against police brutality reflected his failed response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which contributed to a death toll now exceeding 107,000. That the President has been deaf to the suffering, and incapable of responding like any previous president would, reminds us that his character, his view of humanity, and his life experience, made him wholly unqualified for the role he now occupies. He has lived much of his life in reaction to the trauma of the '60s and denying that the country has become a more richly diverse place where no one is willing to accept second-class status. Obsessed with the past, he doomed us all to repeat it -- and cannot lead us to a better outcome.
