There are many seditionists who stand out as we view the footage of the insurrection at our Capitol. We have the man carrying the confederate flag, a person sitting in Nancy Pelosi’s chair with his feet propped up on her desk, the woman who is in a rage because someone sprayed her in her eyes, and many more. The one who captures the most attention by me is the Horned Man who is seen in frequent shots. He is covered with an animal skin and has his faced covered with red, white, and blue paint. He looks like someone from a different age when the wheel was invented.
As I was watching the cast of characters taking over the Capitol, I thought that none of those people would be seen at an event at Mar-a-Lago. It was the epitome of cognitive dissonance when two things just don’t go together. It points out that a good many of those domestic terrorists had nothing in common with Trump except the sharing of the same lie that the election was stolen. We did have people who were Senators and professional athletes who Trump did feel were good enough to be at Mar-a-Lago. Most of terrorists seemed to be working class individuals which is a group that Trump stiffed in the building of his structures. He would declare to those blue-collar workers that “they should take 50% of what he owed them or they would get nothing because his lawyers would tie them up in court for a long time.” A good many of those small businesses went bankrupt. There were some 3000 lawsuits filed against him by such workers. Why didn’t that reality filter down to his working-class supporters?
Trump used his supporters in the same way that he used the contractors for his buildings. This is what most news reports state. But this was a marriage made in hell for the radical fringe of his supporters like Bannon and Miller were using him. The radical fringe in his group knew that he was a narcissist and played to his ego and manipulated him as he manipulated others.
Let’s shine the light of Ethics on this scenario! When you start treating people as an “It” and not a “Thou”, you do the worst thing that you can do to another person. You dehumanize them. The Jewish theologian, Martin Buber, was the first to coin the phrases the “I/It” and “I/Thou” as categories of relationships. The “I/It” relationships are transactional ones focusing on what I can get from another person. The “I/Thou” relationships see the other person as a whole to be honored, respected, and seen as a child of God. You can recognize “I/It” relationships for they contain that mindset of “what have you done for me lately?” We see this graphically in his relationship with Vice President Pence. Pence supported Trump in every way until he didn’t. It was then that Trump turned on him because he wouldn’t do the President’s bidding.
Trump did not have a moral center. It was replaced by “tell me how great I am”. There are those who see the book ends of Trump’s presidency as the expletive word, pu- - y. He was caught saying that he could do anything to women because he was a celebrity including grabbing them by their genitalia. This was heard for all to hear in his interview in the trailer with Billy Bush. He used the same expletive when he called Pence by this word at the end of his Presidency. “You can be a person of courage or a pu- - y. We see his treatment of women as “I/It” in the many women who have come forward to call him a sexual predator.
This also points to a corollary that he is misogynistic. When he is talking about “Make America Great Again”, he is really saying, “make America great again for white men.” He had little regard for women as he was locked in the 1950 (s) mindset referring to “suburban housewives” and “I am the only thing keeping low-income housing from taking over your suburbs.” He was fearful of strong women. His worst nightmare came to fruition in the form of Nancy Pelosi.
I am looking forward to the day when I see the horned man and Lindsey Graham play a round of golf with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Cognitive dissonance. I won’t be holding my breath in anticipation of that day coming. Hell would have to freeze over first.
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