Fear And Loathing In
The Trump White House
If the late, great Hunter S.
Thompson were to pen a commentary on the presidency of Donald J. Trump, he just
might rework one of his previous books and title it Fear And Loathing In the Trump White House: A
Savage Assault on the Heart of the American Dream
In
Thompson’s book Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey Into the Heart of the American Dream, Thompson
includes a quote to begin his tale:
“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain
of being a man.”
If there is a better description of
Donald Trump, I don’t know what it is.
While the ongoing disaster of Donald
Trump unfolds daily before us, we stand helplessly by as each new chapter is
written.
We
never know what is coming next, but we do know that whatever it is, the
underlying reason is a president who is consumed by the fear that he will be
exposed for the fraud he is and a loathing of his predecessor whom he knows is
still loved by a majority of the American people.
Whether it is an assault on women, immigrants, people of color, the LGBT community, Democrats, members of his own party or the Constitution of the United States, it is clear that Donald Trump holds everything he doesn’t understand in contempt.
His
contempt is born of fear, and his fear breeds a virulent hatred that he can’t
help but spew to his loyal supporters who share the same fears and the same
prejudices.
His
naked loathing of President Barack Obama informs his decisions.
The
withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, rolling back protections on the
environment, the Muslim ban, reversal of Obama’s Cuba policy, reversing the
Obama policy of allowing transgender people in the military and his open
sabotage of the Affordable Care Act are the acts of a man so consumed by envy
that he is unable to see the destructive nature of what he is doing.
He
will do anything and everything it takes to erase Obama from the history books.
But he can’t and it eats at him. So he awakens each morning before the sun is
up and takes to Twitter to vent his frustrations in an attempt to relieve his
inner turmoil.
It can only be likened to a bad acid
trip the entire country is being forced to take.
Driven by a fear of exposure, whether
it’s the Mueller investigation – which Trump is so determined, yet hamstrung,
to quash – or the Schneiderman investigation – which he can do nothing about,
Trump takes to Twitter to launch attacks on a daily basis in the hope of
changing a narrative he is powerless to change.
It can be said that the election of
Barack Obama ripped the scab off of the racism that was hiding in the shadows
and brought it out into the full light of day.
The
election of Donald Trump did more than shine a light on that racism.
It
gave it a power not seen on the streets of this country since the race riots of
the 1960s, when fire hoses were turned on African-American people who were
fighting for their right to be full citizens of our society – a battle that
still rages.
It
was a victory for those who reveled in the demeaning of an American president
by circulating racist memes depicting President Obama as a pimp and the First
Lady as a whore. It was a victory for people like that odious woman who called
Michelle Obama an “ape in heels.”
It
created a state of euphoria in the worst elements of our society when someone
like Steve Bannon was invited into the White House to whisper his white
supremacist poison into the willing ears of Donald Trump.
It
wrote a terrible chapter in our history when Trump made the false equivalency
between peaceful protestors and torch bearing, Nazi flag waving, heavily armed
white supremacists on the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia.
Make
no mistake: The presidency of Donald J. Trump is an all-out assault on our
democracy and the American Dream. Given half a chance, he will take us back to
a time when women and people of color had no power and coal plants belched
pollutants into our air unimpeded.
Donald Trump is an ignorant, dare I say
stupid, small-minded man who stumbled into the White House because the American
people didn’t bother to do their due diligence and really look at who was being
installed into the highest office of the land.
There is a remedy. It is the 25th Amendment. It provides for the removal of an
individual who is unable to carry out the duties of the presidency.
Donald
Trump has demonstrated time and again that he is mentally and emotionally unfit
for that office. Congress must act before irreparable damage is done to our
beloved country.
Author Ann Werner is the author of thrillers and
other things. Show her some love and check out her books! Visit her at Ann Werner on the
Web. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
