An American Cancer

I bristle at the fact that a single errant person in a position of power can adversely affect so many people, but this always has been, in human history.

So now we have this decaying man with a fetid soul, who makes the Grinch appear nearly loveable, hovering over our nation like a foreboding cloud, raining toxicity. A nurse and a poet are murdered for no actual reason, except they were in the midst of a pack of wild dogs, unleashed by this person. Never before have so many in America disavowed the actions of their president, to the extent that there are two Americas, one with Americans, and the other with followers of this pathological narcissist. The entire world mocks him, but at the same time is cautiously wary of his power.

A biologist at Tufts university has observed that certain cells, which were ordinary cells to begin with, become outliers, uncooperative cells, who no longer work in purpose and unity to protect the healthy function of the organism. We call these cancer cells. Their purpose is to take over other cells for their own survival and growth, but the endgame, the outcome, is death of the organism, therefore, their own destruction.

This is the exact description of the person currently in power as the president of America. Everything around him begins to die, corrode, collapse, wither.

In the song License to Kill by Bob Dylan, are these lines –

…he worships at an altar of stagnant pool, and when he sees his reflection, he’s fulfilled…

The person described in the song was elected to be the leader of our country. But he does not represent America. For all its many many sins, shortcomings and egregious errors, America still has retained some core semblance of the values it was founded on – freedom, democracy, the pursuit of personal happiness available for all who live here. Unlike any other time in our history, that ideal is being trodden on by the madness of a single individual who seems to have within himself none of the qualities most Americans have – being decent, honest, fair, hardworking. Naturally helpful to one another.

He wields power indiscriminately, punishes those he bears grudges against, makes huckster promises to the common man then does nothing for them, instead spends all his efforts in the interests of the super-rich and himself. He lies outright, constantly, about everything, large and small, the initiator of an Orwellian post-truth world. Displays blatant racism. Cheats at golf.

Living in America now is like living in an Alice in Wonderland madhouse, Trump as the Queen, proclaiming the equivalent of ‘off with their heads’ daily, in his insane posts ranted in the wee hours of the night, when he apparently can’t face his own dreams in sleep.

We will survive this man. We can only hope that his time in office is curtailed by the rule of law, which he continually breaks for juvenile whims. If this were a Greek play, we would see omens of his downfall looming on the horizon. Something coming will surely cause it all to crash.

Then we can get back to being Americans, holding our heads up in the world, vowing never to let this happen again. We have let an unhinged wannabe dictator hold the reigns.

We are not what he is. That’s the lesson. To never allow such a person to be our president again.