This Unholy Mess

On Tuesday, April 30, every politics junkie in America saw the news that our most recent former “president” was found to be in contempt of court, as part of his criminal trial for alleged election interference. He was adjudged to have made public statements denigrating and/or intimidating members of the court staff, their families, as well as potential witnesses and jurors.
Sounds like a big deal. And it is. But the court’s contempt judgment is just the tip of the iceberg. Our former “president” is made of contempt. He bathes in it every day, it’s his Unifying Principle, even more than Diet Coke or Clairol for Men.
This is easy to see when it comes to institutions and individuals that frustrate his drive for personal power, e.g., the intelligence agencies, the judiciary, the Justice Department—and don’t forget the electoral system. He is withering and unrestrained when it comes to insulting and defaming these. The contempt oozes from every pore.
But how about the contempt he showers on his own supporters? It is obvious and inevitable, contempt for all being the flip side of total self-absorption. It’s about his disdain for absolutely anyone or anything that is Not-Him. If he’s not being openly contemptuous of you, it’s only because you can be of some use to him.
His own supporters make it easy for him, with their consistent, indiscriminate, blind allegiance–through his p****-grabbing, his denigration of dedicated Americans like John McCain, all the way to inciting an insurrection in Washington to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power. He now feels unfettered, knowing with absolute assurance that every absurd lie, every twisted innuendo, every brainless hyperbole he utters will not be questioned. They’re putty in his hands. Whether his contempt for them is based on their mob-emotional attachment to him, or anchored in their reliable ignorance and lack of curiosity doesn’t really matter. Whichever, he clearly revels in his subjugation and easy domination of them.
As an example, take a look at some of his comments from a rally on April 13 of this year, in Schnecksville, Pennsylvania. He litters his remarks with the usual mad claims: “If we don’t win this election, this country is finished,” and “I love women more than I love anything.” This latter would be a hilarious double entendre if it weren’t so sick. An example of his contempt not just for his entire crowd, but for women in particular.
When he goes off his teleprompter scroll and begins talking in his faux-folksy, braying tones about the Civil War battle of Gettysburg, we get still more contempt. In just a few minutes he spews a bizarre collection of gibberish and false statements which includes a reference to the loss of one of the Confederacy’s best generals at Gettysburg (utterly false), and giving Robert E. Lee a kind of pirate accent as Lee supposedly warned against the final, doomed charge that effectively ended the battle. In fact, Lee himself ordered the storied Pickett’s Charge.
A good question is: what prevented our former “president” from asking an aide to note two or three interesting facts about the battle and then using those in his remarks? Answer: Apparently, he couldn’t be bothered. He felt that his audience would prefer hearing improvised, incoherent blather from him, rather than facts. Which is to say, he was again contemptuous of his followers, feeling certain that either (a) they don’t know even the most significant details about the Civil War and don’t care to find out, or (b) the sound of his voice, whatever nonsense he is spouting, is good enough for them.
It is useful to note that only once in this farcical “Gettysburg Address” does he exercise some caution, using his favorite tools of omission and ambiguity. He never mentions Gettysburg as the turning point of the war in the east, the battle that helped see the Union (a.k.a. the United States of America) through its darkest time. He talks instead about General Lee, musing, “…Robert E. Lee—who’s no longer in favor—did you notice that? No longer in favor.”
So just when was Robert E. Lee “in favor,” and with whom? I mean, other than in the South, during the war and after? He was, after all, the traitor who led Confederate forces so well that by many estimates he prolonged the war by one to two years, and cost the country well over a hundred thousand additional casualties. What to make of this, other than his throwing a bone to the many crypto-Confederates who support him, such as those who carried Confederate battle flags into the Capitol building on January 6, 2021?
You cannot accuse this man of not knowing his followers, though they clearly do not know him.