Upon reflection, it "had" to happen here...
Beginning in the 1950s, the Republican powers that were at that time recognized the talents of one Ronald Reagan, who, as president of the Screen Actors Guild, had been feeding information about “subversives“ to the FBI and other organizations. Somebody realized that you could take the charisma of a B actor, write some speeches for him and sent him out on the road proselytizing republicanism. And that was his role in the Party for years.
And it worked… There was a nearly perfect storm in 1980 and along with some impetus provided by behind the scenes manipulation, read: treason, Reagan ascended to the Presidency. And they knew they had struck a gold mine, rich with ore. Coupled with Nixon’s southern strategy and racial animosity as well as “class issues” the Right basically took over the conversation in America. We stopped discussing freedoms and rights for heretofore oppressed groups, and began to focus on the “diminishing importance and value” (sic) of the white majority.
Although we have certainly had Democratic presidents elected to two terms, neither of them could be classified as true left-wing Democrats. I recall distinctly when people were railing against Obama as a socialist prior to his first election, I told them that he was a middle of the road to slightly right of Center Democrat who happened to be a different race that had ever been nominated or elected to that high office prior to that time. Ditto with Clinton who was governor of a southern state. There are, and were not too many Mario Cuomo types running anything south of the Mason Dixon line.
I have no idea whether the money people initially wanted Trump as President, but they have certainly jumped on board the steam train to lower taxes. Because, in fact, that is all that this is about, this has nothing to do with race, religion, Social justice, truth, or immigrants. This has to do with saving money, putting it in the pockets of the already-rich. The mechanism by which they achieved this varied in intensity, but they found their perfect individual in this sociopath from New York City, who until relatively recently, was a proclaimed Democrat and donated and supported same.
Having never followed a cult, I must say that I have never listened upfront and personally to these people who claim to be the second coming of Jesus, but I think one of the fascinating aspects to the acolytes of these individuals is the dichotomy that each presents to the public. Anyway you slice it, Trump represents the obverse and reverse of the same coin: he, to be polite, has had a very prolific and varied sexual history and yet claims “moral righteousness”; he has bankrupted many businesses, including almost unbelievably, casinos, and yet claims to be a master businessman; he has had three wives, two of whom he discarded and yet they champion his moral “values” and his love of his family; and interestingly, but not as importantly, he claims to be a seductive man of the world, but he essentially has an apparent quid pro quo payment for sexual “ favors”. (My guess is that Brad Pitt did not have that problem.)
I firmly believe that to some fair extent, many people are intrigued by the paradoxical nature of this individual and identify with his weaknesses and sins, all the while spewing moralistic braggadocio - he is the public embodiment of their own souls. Dante wrote something concerning what eventually happens to these individuals- but then again, they have little to no concept of classical literature so they have no idea of that which awaits them if they truly subscribed to their belief system. Also, they never read James Joyce’s Sermon on hell from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. This would perhaps give them pause. Or not….
Some say that one has to bottom out prior to cultural resurrection. We are almost there - that is, the bottoming out part. We shall see about the rest of the Journey.
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