The website DeviantArt has a thing its artists do--or perhaps it's something artists on DeviantArt do and it has nothing to do with the website--called "timed sketches". I don't know if there are specific rules, but the concept interested me. I decide that I'd do a similar thing today: A timed post. I'm writing for twenty-five minutes (I've already started) and will write the entire time. I haven't a topic, per se, that I'm going on about. Instead, it's the idea of writing and staying focused on writing the (almost) entire time.
Because this is a timed write, I have to keep my fingers on the keyboard as much as possible. Editing (inasmuch as I ever edit these essays) will be kept to a minimum, since the whole point is to get as many words down as I can. Additionally, I will likely end in the middle of a sentence, because when the alarm stops, I have to stop. (I will give a quick word count at the bottom.) If this is successful* then I might do it again. Perhaps we'll see if my word count increases as we go.
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| Art by FunkyMonkey1945 and this pic is the only thing not writing I did for this post. |
One of the things that has been frustrating me lately is that there is a tendency for political discourse to normalize what ought not to be normalized. I just got back from Germany, where I went to study World War II. One of the more frightening places we went to was a museum that has been built on the same space as the former SS building. In a very real way, the pulsating heart of Nazism pounded out its malevolence from that area. In its bombed-out place, a museum has been raised. As you walk into the building, you can see the remnants of underground holding cells--now over seventy years old--where enemies to the Nazi party were held, starved, tortured, and killed.
Inside the Topography of Terror museum is a lot of stuff to read. It isn't a holocaust museum, necessarily, though any description of Nazism includes that crime. Instead, it documents the slow creep of Nazism and the ways in which the far-right philosophy took over the German mindset. The fact it was open built upon anti-Semitism is only one piece of the distressing puzzle. There are a lot of other indications that, in retrospect, were clearly designed to strip power and the ability to criticize the government from everyone.
To go back to what I mentioned earlier, I feel like the normalization of President Trump has walked along similar, disturbing, and uncouth lines. The U.S. Constitution is significantly stronger--and our country older and our institutions more robust--than the Wiemar Republic was. Germany's unification in the 1870s meant that they didn't even have a century under their belt as a country. Instead, they had long linguistic and race-traced traditions to knit them together. After the catastrophe of WWI, Germany was broken in ways that America hasn't been since the end of the Civil War. So I'm not saying that America of 2017 is like the Wiemar Republic of 1932. Different countries, different people--but similar tactics.
So, while I agree that there ought to be respect given to the office of the president, and that there were people who were scared of what a President Obama would do, I have to make it known that what President Trump does in the office I respect is chilling, inappropriate, and dangerous to our democracy and republic (and I'm fully aware of what both those terms mean and, yes, they both apply to our country).
Look, I'm not a conservative person. I deeply distrust business, profit-motive, and the false-god of "Small Government and States Rights". I think large government and dictatorships of the far left, particularly the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the USSR and Communist China are in the same pot of horrors as the far right fascism, Nazism, and totalitarianism. So this isn't a full-scale "Commie/liberal" conceit here. I would not vote for a person who espoused most of the social and economic philosophies that are embraced by the GOP. But Evan Macmullin, the out-of-nowhere conservative alternative that Utah fell in with right before the election, often points out everything that's wrong with what Trump is doing. And again, I would never vote for Macmullin. But if he, with his conservative credentials, is saying the same things as obvious opponents to the president do, then I think there's something to the critique.
President Trump's first two weeks, if his Twitter account is a genuine reflection of his priorities and concerns are any indication, foreshadow a lack of ability that is staggering. I know it's not easy to transition leadership. I know that there's always acrimony and distrust after an election. But I'm pretty sure that President Bush didn't call those who voted for Al Gore his "enemies", as President Trump did. President Clinton didn't call Bob Dole advocates supporters of a crooked, corrupt politician. President Obama didn't demand that Mitt Romney or John McCain be investigated and jailed. That type of rhetoric is not wind-bagging or bravado--it's the way in which President Trump thinks. How that could not be alarming to others I cannot conceive.
I know that Godwin's law is in effect with this president. That's part of the worry and concern--the boy who called wolf is supposed to instruct us in this instance. And as a historian (fledgling and poor one though I am), I can't help but wonder why people don't listen to those whose job it is to remember the mistakes of the past. I recognize that there's an R next to President Trump's name, but that has yet to excuse his behavior...right? How is it that those who claim the same religion and same background as I--Mormons and Utahns--be such staunch supporters of what is patently un-American (and I use that term carefully)? Chaffetz and Hatch have been cheerleaders for neo-Fascism. I don't think there's a way to look at their behavior otherwise. How can I feel represented when it's obvious the disdain that my elected officials have for history, for common sense, for Constitutional balance of power, and the sake of the Union?
This is something that has been haunting me ever since I returned from Europe. We left under President Obama's administration and returned under Trump's. The first things that President Trump concerned himself with was the size of the inaugural crowd, despite ticket distributions alone demonstrating how few people came, comparatively (though a quarter of a million isn't bad. Then again, I think that shows his mentality: It isn't what he has, it's what he has in comparison to others. And since there will always be someone smarter, better, faster, or whatever than he--not the same person, unless we're talking about Batman--then he's always going to feel insecure. I'm not a psychologist, but I've seen little evidence to contradict my theory).
Word count (1208)
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*Successful meaning that I enjoyed it, felt I did something because of it, or in some other way consider it aught other than a waste of time.