Trump: The Devil on America’s Shoulder

I am surprised that I haven’t seen any cartoons or magazine covers depicting this, although they may be out there, but Trump has really been the proverbial devil on America’s national shoulder, appealing to all the demons or “worst angels” of our nature: fear, anger, tribalism, bigotry, selfishness, intolerance, xenophobia and so on. His relentless hateful verbal and Twitter rants, completely unthinkable by any previous president and more characteristic of the dictator he would like to be, have all but drowned out the protests of the better angels on the other shoulder. What is so very frightening is how many people are indifferent to, susceptible to, entertained by or even in love with this kind of abominable rhetoric and behavior.  Add to that the sycophantic ravings of emboldened right wing pundits who either have a justification for every awful thing Trump says and does or just default to the excuse that the Democrats/radical liberals have done the same thing, and the complicit deafening silence of most Republican legislators, many of whom must be disturbed by what we are all witnessing. It really seems as if we are stretching the fabric of our society close to the point of tearing it apart along social and cultural lines, egged on by the divider-in-chief. Of course we have witnessed and survived great social upheavals at other times in my lifetime, including the antiwar protests and race riots of the 1960s and 1970s, but the turmoil has never been stoked like this by a president and his administration. The current situation seems much more pernicious because of the Trump administration’s intentional campaign of fear mongering, lies and divisive propaganda as well as the outrageous attacks by POTUS on our fundamental democratic institutions including the press, all geared for political and economic gains by those in power and their backers. Not to mention bolstering Trump’s fragile ego! The question remains how much of the damage to our nation and society will be permanent?!