The answer to everything.
by Don Clasen
Oct. 23, 2016
If Trump loses this election the epitaph on the tombstone of his candidacy will surely be, “It was the pussy grabbing that put the nail in this coffin.” Barring any further level this man may drag us down into, this incident will probably be looked back upon as the straw that broke the camel’s back.
It may well break the back of Evangelical support as well, a fitting irony considering how much our public image is conflated with sex-based issues. Truth be told though, I haven’t seen any fall off in support since then, although I have seen an uptick in pathetic rationalizations along the lines of, “Well, the Church has survived tyrants like Nebuchadnezzar and Nero before and we can do it again.”
Wow, that’s quite a downgrade from “restoring America” by “electing men of character,” one of the foundational erroneous premises of the Christian Right as I tried to point out last time. It’s one thing to suffer under a tyrant; it’s another to be so stupid as to elect one. I imagine this kind of so-called logic would cover Madame Caligula as well, though Donald Trump makes “Crooked Hillary” look like Joan of Arc in comparison. This election has brought out the Church’s obsessive bigotry and hysteria over “liberals” like none before. The gall of this man who belongs in prison the rest of his life to declare before the entire world “you’ll be in jail” after he’s elected! How much of a banana republic do you want to become?
Dragging Us Down Into The Gutter
While comedians have had a field day pointing out his absurdities, others have been making a well-taken point that Donald Trump has degraded American politics to a level we may never recover from. Now the bar has been set so low that virtually any demagogue no matter how ridiculous, unqualified, vulgar, hypocritical, shameless, reprobate, criminal, corrupt or venal he may be can be taken seriously as a candidate for what is putatively the most powerful office in the world.
This in contrast to what I remember growing up to in the early 1960s, that if a politician was caught telling a lie, any lie, it was a big deal, to the point that they often had to resign from office because of it. After the wholesale way the American public was lied to after the Kennedy assassination and later Watergate however, the slide into cynicism and passive acceptance has just gotten worse and worse.
This is perhaps as good an explanation as any for the absurd levels of support this worker of iniquity has garnered, that it’s a mass hysteria/gut-level revulsion against business-as-usual in Washington. Unfortunately all this anger as it typically is, is not being directed at those right wing forces who got away with killing the liberal Kennedy. This “vast right wing conspiracy” as Hillary once put it included the CIA, the mob, the Rothschild bankers whose private central banking scam Kennedy threatened, and the Israelis whose nuclear ambitions he stood in the way of.
None of them has ever been brought to justice and are at the heart of what has corrupted this country. They have wrenched this country so far to the right (including the Democratic Party) as to make it barely recognizable. Decades of pseudo fact-mongering by sources like that Israeli front Fox News have completely psy opped them while the Republican elites smirked on.
Trump’s supporters are now so outraged they are apparently willing to throw their brains out the window and pin their hopes on a cynical sociopath in a desperate attempt to get relief. That they wouldn’t consider the populist Bernie Sanders to address their concerns is beside the point. Sanders is, after all, such a Communist don’t you know?[1] The point that I and so many others have been trying to make about Trump from the beginning is not that he doesn’t swerve now and then into some legitimate questions about Beltway received dogma on immigration, trade, bringing back jobs, demonizing Russia and the like. It’s that he’s such a consummate con man, how can anyone take seriously any promise he makes even when he can be pinned down (which is mostly never)?
Loves The Mob…
Speaking of my youth, watching Trump come on the political scene reminded me of so many tough-talking, Mafioso personalities I remember growing up around in the New York City area. They’re like a dime a dozen there and to borrow his own words, they are some nasty people with some nasty attitudes. It was so bad that when I got my first chance to really get outside the area when I was about 18 I couldn’t help but notice how nice people were in contrast at O’Hare Airport. That’s right, O’Hare Airport! Trust me, when Chicago seems like a nice place you know you’ve grown up in a brutal city with a brutal mentality.
Thus when I found out that Trump really did have a mobster upbringing, being in fact personally mentored in the art of complete sociopathology by no less than Roy Cohn, it was all I needed to know. 
But I must say, Senor Trump’s performance since that article has been nothing less than a revelation to me of what the reign of the New Order crowd is going to be like. It will not be just a time of incredible fascistic repression, it will be a complete assault on people’s very sanity, an attempt to create an alternate universe wherein the elites, the “gods amongst us” will upend all morality, decency and common sense and be constantly telling the public in one form or another, “Are you going to believe us or those lying eyes of yours?” Yet another Marvel Comics movie, Dr. Strange, features the Illuminati delusion that real reality can’t be trusted but man of course can literally create his own. It’s so Talmudic.
In Donald Trump’s case, the man doesn’t only have the shamelessness to not blush when he gets caught red-handed in breaking the law but has the gall to turn around and accuse his victims of attacking him! It has spawned another political fad word, “gaslighting,” based on a 1940s movie with Ingrid Bergman whose husband steals her fortune by having her committed to an insane asylum after having manipulated her sense of reality by turning a gaslight up and down.[2]
But Not The Women
Set aside all the contractors, laborers and investors he’s stiffed, the Trump U. students he exploited, the taxes he avoided through laws “politicians like Hillary” made possible,[3] his endless threats to sue or destroy those who dare “tell on” or cross him, and on and on. Then just consider one small example from the latest episode of the ongoing soap opera that is his life.
When about a dozen women came forth after the “pussy grabbing” story broke, Trump brashly declared that they’re all lying, even when they have lots of credible and corroborating eye-witnesses. This after dragging up Bill Clinton’s past with Paula Jones, Juanita Brodderick and company at the second debate. You could almost see him indignantly declaring, “I never had sex with that woman. Not once…” and say it with no sense of shame or irony at all. Indeed, the avalanche of such behavior by this man is so constant and demoralizing that one’s head gets soupy and disoriented just trying to keep up with it all.
Mocking Jeb.
Which brings up the question: Does Trump even realize just how hypocritical he is or is it all a deliberate psy op? Is he really that blind or does he know what he’s doing? Although my instincts are for the second, it’s possible both are true. The condition of the wicked, especially in the last days when lawlessness abounds (Mt 24:12) and men have their consciences seared as with a hot iron (I Tim 4:2) is that they may not know the difference. “Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived” (II Tim 2:13).
So what does it matter? People like him are incredibly dangerous either way, and the fact that he’s getting away with it means that millions of Americans may now actually end up admiring the man and imitating his modus operandi. A virtual army of sociopaths who just don’t care about right or wrong, other people or anything could be our near future. The deputizing of a small army of private mercs who love the gore of war could be one significant example.
Hutzpah and the Tough Guy Syndrome
There is plenty in the New York Kosher Nostra mobster scene adapted from Pharisee philosophy that seems evident in The Donald’s own youthful “apprenticeship” if you will. One is the abject misogyny (“Blessed are you, Hashem, King of the Universe, for not having made me a Gentile…a slave…[or] a woman.”) Another is the Code of Omerta or Silence usually attributed to the Italian mob but actually Talmudic in origin. In Orthodox communities to this day, no one is allowed to rat on a rabbi, no matter how grievous the offence (pedophilia for example). If they do they will be excommunicated, their careers destroyed or relegated to a dead end, etc.
Predators like Trump get off on treating underlings like slaves, detaining them against their will, threatening to destroy them if they retaliate and the like. This is standard fare within Western media culture now, which is characterized by signed agreements by crew and supporting cast to protect often-abusive celebrity stars and powerful moguls. Trump has stated that if elected President he will consider requiring high level federal employees to sign NDAs (non-disclosure agreements). So much for open government and accountability.
Understanding Hutzpah
One characteristic that is increasingly lionized in our time is that of hutzpah or chutzpah, “the quality of audacity, for good or for bad,” derived from the Hebrew word hutspa “meaning insolence, cheek or audacity.”[4] In Hebrew culture it usually is used as a term of disapproval although one get’s the impression in today’s upside down world that audacious personalities like Trump who are used to getting away with murder wear it like a badge of honor.
The mystery of hutzpah is that it’s behavior that can truly be both good or bad yet still seem identical on a superficial level. If you’re right and you know it and you act upon it, that’s hutzpah as boldness. “The righteous are as bold as a lion,” king David said, and he exemplified it in one of the most thrilling acts of heroism in history with the giant Goliath.
But if you’re wrong and don’t realize it, that’s hutzpah as foolishness. You rush forth to do something, find out you were wrong after the fact and make a fool of yourself. But if you’re morally wrong and know it but go ahead and do it anyway, that’s hutzpah as brazen arrogance or presumption. Rightfully it ought to produce great offence to others, but in our morally confused time, some will be impressed with such a “charismatic personality.” Barf.
It takes discernment to tell the difference. Jesus I’m sure came across as an arrogant, presumptuous young man to the religious leaders for the way He acted (teaching with authority, whipping the money changers, etc.), but God saw it differently. Talmudic culture being so morally confused as it is still has a hard time figuring out what kind of hutzpah is being manifested at any given time. But thank God for the blinding insight of Christians!
Yet It’s So American
The raging popularity of hutzpah dovetails nicely with another trait of American culture—that of always showing how tough you are in your approach to problems. James Carroll in “America’s Ghost Story” well describes how this affects every candidate who seeks for high office in the Redeemer Nation:
Military power…functions in America the way state religion has functioned in other societies. The Pentagon is the temple of this religion. It has dogmas, rituals, high priesthood, saints, cults of sacrifice, sacred language and a justifying narrative – what theologians call “salvation history”…
Thus, the entire electoral process has become centered on establishing the candidates’ “toughness,” as if the only “virtue” a leader must fully possess is unflinching willingness to declare war. Never mind the question of whether, since 1945, war makes sense.
No surprise, therefore, that no presidential candidate questions the current Pentagon budget, which surpasses every record set during the Cold War. That would be apostasy – and political suicide. In today’s America, the “national security” interpretation is sacred.”[5]
This explains Mrs. Clinton’s penchant for making war. No doubt because she’s a woman she feels the need to establish her bona fides in Washington as an “unflinching hawk.”
But what about The Donald? This pampered laptop bombardier like so many of his party’s chicken hawks loves to talk tough while hiding behind his money and privileged “fixer” spot, crushing the insects who annoy his life from time to time. Here’s a clue, Church—it’s his character! He has none!
If I haven’t made the case yet, I’ll let the hated liberal Bill Maher sum it up for you in two clips. The first is the truth about Trump’s so-called manliness, the second what a con man he is. I dare you to watch them.
Update: August, 2020.
God I hate being so right. “America Is Done With Trump and Stupid Cruel Tough Guy Acts.”
Notes:
[1] When Sanders describes himself as a democratic socialist, he is, according to the language of precise political definitions, being accurate. The Scandinavian countries which consistently rank highest in both affluence and world happiness surveys are social democracies, having a hybrid capitalist/socialist economy that brings out the best in both models. In short, Bernie is slightly to the left of the New Deal, but all the average fundamentalist Christian out there can think of is a return to gulags and the persecutions of pastors.
[2] http://www.salon.com/2016/10/16/donald-trump-as-a-gaslighter-what-we-must-learn-from-his-manipulative-non-apology/
[3] Laws and loopholes his party championed and “me-too” Democrats went along with; laws he would expand if elected President of course.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chutzpah
[5] International Herald Tribune, 2-25-08. Emphasis added. http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/25/opinion/edcarroll.php
