Once Again with Feeling: Do Not Vote for Mr. Trump

A warning from a dark past

On July 28th, I posted an essay in reply to an Austrian friend wanting my opinion on the current U.S. presidential election.  His immediate ancestors experienced the horrors of authoritarian dictatorship. First, its promises during the Great Depression, then its consequences during and after World War II. He was concerned that we might be re-awakening the same beast.

My essay is entitled “Do Not Vote for Mr. Trump.” https://davidclarkharrison.com/2024/07/29/do-not-vote-for-trump/

My friend came back with these thoughts, still concerned with what’s happening here but more broadly with what’s happening there and around the world:

Thank you very much for your nice writing. Your estimations about the election in your country are deeply interesting for me. But not only for me but also  for the politics worldwide. Your decision is clear and I hope you will be right. . . . Austria. . . is a democracy and we should be happy to have the chance to live in a democratic country.

Those intending to vote for Mr. Trump are exercising a Constitutional right that he intends to take away from them. Apparently in the mistaken belief that sacrificing personal integrity to the mindless will of a self-centered charlatan does better service to our cause than honoring the memory of Abraham Lincoln and the ideals expressed in his Gettysburg Address. Ideals of character for which today’s debased party of Trump stands in direct opposition.

The unhappy campers

Sapiens branched off from ape, long ago, in an animal kingdom of hierarchy and competition for supremacy. That rages without and within, for Sapiens, like everything, has its own contradiction to deal with. Its so-called dark side, a shadow-reflection that questions everything it stands and strives for. That pulls when it pushes, to go back when it goes forward. Whose idea of civility is offering its behind to be kissed.

“Make America Great Again” and its carnival-barking Pied Piper are ape-human that never signed on to accompany Sapiens on its new adventure. Unhappy campers whining and complaining so they can ruin the outing and maybe get the whole family to take them home. Back to ape and forget all about human. Forget all about Sapiens. Back to letting predatory animal instinct do our thinking for us and returning planet earth to its natural state: home to animal willfulness. Unthinking and unchoosing, insensitive and cruel. A paradise ruled by a romanticized “force of nature:” wildness alone on its throne of hierarchy, answerable to no one. Beyond even the limits of definition. Beyond real.

Triumph of the Ape

Mr. Trump. A tribe of apes impersonating human. An apparition put there by our own misguided thoughts: Sapiens getting in the way of itself. Misusing the tools of Democracy so it can place itself in captivity. Back in a state of animal self-unawareness, content to let its five body senses tell it all it needs to know. A wart hog rooting around in the underbrush. The tyranny of self-imposed ignorance, all in the name of  freedom without order. An impossibility so perverse that it would be worth a laugh if it weren’t so self-destructive.

My Austrian friend’s ancestors learned the meaning of “triumph of the will” the hard way. He’s hoping that the lesson won’t have to be learned again. Will it?