Buyer’s remorse gets Trumped

Every time that Trump does something stupid and disastrous that will have lasting effects on both our national and foreign policy and disgraces the office of the President, so about seven times a day.  I see yet another article by some news outlet pondering the question of whether or not the Trump voter will now finally regret their decision to have voted for him.  The answer is and always will be no. 

                This question is analogous to asking if a habitual lottery ticket purchaser regrets the money they have wasted each time they don’t win the jackpot.  You can sit down every day with this person and go over the numbers.  You can show them that their odds of winning are miniscule.  You can show them how much money they could save every year and every decade if they just chose not to spending it on the lottery.  This will have no effect on their mindset or their behavior.  Someone who buys five dollars’ worth of lottery tickets twice a week will continue to do so in spite of your best logical arguments.  The fact that you have worked out the numbers and can show them the facts of these numbers will make no difference. 

                This is because playing the lottery fulfills one of the basest human needs that there is, it provides a sense of hope that allows the purchaser to continue to dream impossible dreams.  They say that prostitution is the world’s oldest profession.  If this is true, then in the waiting room of the first brothel someone started a numbers racket and everyone present bought a ticket.  This racket has been alive and well ever since and it isn’t going to end. 

You may be asking me what sense of hope Trump inspired that would have caused someone to cast their vote for him?  The answer is simple.  He said he would make America great, again.  I know that great is an ambiguous and manipulatable term just like patriotism, which can mean completely different things to each person, but this doesn’t change the fact that he hit a nerve.

 

                The people that felt America was no longer great don’t have to be completely bigoted, racist, misogynistic, homophobic pricks.  They just have to live with an underlying and daily sense of dread, real or imagined.  Though I will concede that a false sense of dread not tied to reality is much harder to overcome then one based on actual threats.  The majority of those who feel this sense of dread are not ignorant, openly racist rednecks.  They are the pseudo-educated, who hold certificates of education whose main purpose is the constant reminder of the debt burden they accumulated for such a privilege.  They are those that just signed for a loan on an overpriced house on the “right” side of the tracks.  Those who make $75,00 to $150,000 a year and still live paycheck to paycheck.  Those who do whatever it takes to get their children into charter schools and still feel that their kids won’t have it as good as they did.  Those who distrust and dislike law enforcement but still put blue lights out on their porch in solidarity because they believe that the alternative to militaristic law enforcement is to be overrun by those who are worse off than they are. 

                These people believe that the “system,” however they define it, is and has for a long time been rigged.  The reality of the situation is that they are right, for all the wrong reasons, and the reasons fucking matter.  Trump played to these fears and promised to be something different.  This is what jumpstarted his campaign for President.  He was able to win because he was the perfect storm of the American illusion.  Trump is the icon of modern extravagant wealth.  He’s a thin-skinned braggart that believes his wealth is the source of meaning and purpose in life.  He openly states that this wealth is a sign of his betterness and that he is therefore entitled to act as he pleases in all situations without fear of consequence or retribution.  Something he believes he is entitled to dole out to others on a daily basis. 

                This sales pitch is not new.  It has been the mantra of monarchs and depots throughout long course of human civilizations.  If you want a biblical reference for the same type of herd behavior look no further than the people of Israel beseeching God to provide them a king.  They perceived that they were surrounded by overwhelming threats both foreign and internal.  They willing gave their functioning form of tribal democracy for the presence of a strong leader.  In spite of the warnings by their own prophets of what type of destruction such a leader always does to their own people.  If you want to know the aftermath of this horrible decision read Kings and Chronicles. 

                Many of the people in the United States today feel those same pressures the tribes of Israel felt, and have turned to the same solution.  It is my opinion that much of this fear is real even if it is grossly misplaced.  The constant cycle of endless consumerism driven debt coupled with a digital permanent record of all financial and personal failings that can and do occur over a lifespan of seventy plus years.  Removes a sense of wellbeing from most individuals that is impossible to get back.  In a vain and misguided attempt to do so we elected a blowhard charlatan who promised greatness with even not knowing what the term meant. 

                I believe Trump as President will cause much great and irreversible damage to the once sovereign country of the United States.  He already has with his actions in the realm of foreign affairs.  This so-called, travel ban, just being the latest blow. 

                Our Statue of Liberty proudly proclaims, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”  Yet, we as a people have forgotten that those masses are not supposed to remain forever tired, poor and wretched. 

                As the wealth gaps grows daily by leaps and bounds, between the wealthiest few and the rest of us.  The gap between those who are just getting by and those who aren’t closes just as rapidly.  This is the real terror that we should be waging a war on.  Yet we are giving up our freedoms that allowed for us to prosper together. In exchange for a false sense of security, which we will find out to late, is going to be our undoing. 

                The Trump voter can see all this happening but they will still never regret their choice in the ballot box.  This is because, just as the lottery player, they never truly expected to win.  They voted on the outside chance that something other than their worst fears would become reality.  When those fears and more, do become reality, which they will, those who voted for and still support Trump will recite the same tired excuses they were taught in place of an actual education.  It would have been worse if we elected the other one.