This is what happens when leaders sell their souls for power.
In the last week, our country and the very concept of democracy have come perilously close to being crushed by the triumph of insurrection. Every day, every hour, we learn more about the plot to bring down the government and establish Donald Trump as de facto dictator. That this was predictable, yet still happened, will be analyzed for years. That it failed (so far), should give no comfort to anyone.
Sabateurs, terrorists in the literal sense of the word, hiding in the belly of the mob, were on a mission to kill Nancy Pelosi, Mike Pence and probably others if they could find them. The FBI is discovering a carefully planned attack, and we are fortunate, indeed, that the traitors’ targets survived. It could easily have gone the other way.
This is what happens when monumental hubris and blind ambition turn the leader of a political party, the party of Abraham Lincoln, into Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Four years ago, a Kentuckian named McConnell agreed to a deal with the Mephistopheles who rode the golden escalator in June of 2015 as The Music of the Night, from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, blasted through the basement of Trump Tower. How fitting.
In this Faustian bargain, the Kentuckian’s deepest desires were granted: remaking the nation’s judiciary; changing tax laws to benefit corporations and the wealthy; dismantling environmental regulations; eviscerating the country’s immigration system; abandoning global partnerships; solidifying a populist base. In exchange for this unholy alliance, Marlowe’s devil-in-chief ran amuck around America preaching authoritarianism, white supremacy and “American carnage,” which he “alone could fix,” to a congregation of millions of vulnerable citizens long fearful of the way life was changing and leaving them behind. They swallowed it whole.
This is what happens when, in April, 2021, armed white supremacists, Neo-Nazis calling themselves Proud Boys, but acting more like “Brownshirts,” stage a rehearsal for last week’s coup attempt in Lansing, Michigan, invading and taking over the state’s capital with plans for capturing and killing the governor, after which they face zero criticism from our modern-day Mephistopheles. What a boost to their movement.
This is what happens when a country, bombarded with more than 34,000 presidential tweets and 323 fan-the-flames presidential rallies over four years, becomes so desensitized to the stoking of racism and intense polemical bullying that politicians, elected to serve their constituents and the Constitution, become too fearful to denounce such behavior, let alone suggest it should never be condoned in America.
This is what happens when, taking a page from the propaganda manual of Joseph Goebbels, lies are told loud enough and often enough that gullible people believe with biblical certainty that the most secure election in our history was rigged and riddled with fraud. Polls continue to show more than 60% of Republicans believe this.
This is what happens when no one but toadying sycophants, whose moral corruption knows no bounds and whose sole job requirement is total devotion to the whims of their Mephistophelean leader, are placed in senior positions of authority. Now, as their deal with the devil unwinds, they are deserting the ship of state with nary a lifeboat in sight.
This is what happens when hate replaces kindness and a willingness to work collaboratively toward the common good to the extent that winning requires annihilation of one’s opponent. The result is a deep crack to the nation’s foundation.
This is what happens when the worst pandemic in a century is allowed to kill more than 400,000 of our fellow citizens by the time Joe Biden utters the solemn words of his oath of office. A pandemic during which never once has Donald Mephistopheles addressed the nation with words of comfort, empathy or even hope. A time in which the Oval Office has become an oval room of mirrors, where everywhere he looks he sees only himself. There’s no one there, Donald.
This is what happens when leaders sell their souls for power.
Tags: violence
