You’re probably at least dimly aware of what’s happening. You and the rest of your fellow Americans are on the table in the operating room right now, under the knife of the mad doctor. No one is sure about our precise problem, but the operation itself involves the removal of your heart and your brain. The first incisions have been made, so if you aren’t feeling the searing pain, it is likely because the anesthetic is working. You’ve become numb enough to withstand practically anything.
Just a quick check to see how the anesthetic is coming along.
In March of this year, the president compared his Attorney General to the cartoon character Mr. Magoo. He confirmed that he would never have appointed him if he knew he would recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
If that hardly draws a yawn from you, chances are the drugs are working well.
How about the president’s Memorial Day tweet? “Happy Memorial Day! Those who died for our great country would be very happy and proud at how well our country is doing today. Best economy in decades, lowest unemployment numbers for Blacks and Hispanics EVER (& women in 18years), rebuilding our Military and so much more. Nice!”
If you can hardly raise an eyebrow for that one—the “Happy” in Memorial Day, as well as the co-opting of deceased veterans for a bit of self-promotion–then you are even more safely located in the Numbness Zone. (Love the “and so much more!” Kind of like a Bed, Bath, and Beyond ad.)
Then there was the news of 27 May, about Ivanka being granted another couple of trademarks for her product line sold in China. Did you barely manage a second glance when you saw that four days later her father agreed to rescue Chinese telecom giant ZTE? (Saving crucial jobs in China!) Fantastic. You’re on your way to complete insensibility.
One last check: On 31 May of this year, the president tweeted, “Not that it matters but I never fired James Comey because of Russia! The Corrupt Mainstream Media loves to keep pushing that narrative, but they know it is not true!” This comes after a nationally-televised interview with NBC’s Lester Holt barely a year before, on 11 May, 2017, in which he said he did indeed fire Comey because of the Russia investigation.
Does this one get little more than a shrug from you? No big deal here, just another public admission of lying, playing us all for fools, brazenly expecting to get away with that and, as he likes to say, “so much more”? Terrific. There you go. The doorway to oblivion.
These examples of Trump anesthesia are potent, as so many of we patients can attest, but they act more quickly and completely if they’re administered in conjunction with the scores of other lies and half-truths he pumps us full of every week. After such a constant infusion, we eventually just want to lie back and let go. Change the channel and maybe see if NCIS Spokane is on, or just count to ten backwards until the darkness sets in. Eat a chocolate cake.
There is, however, an alternative to a lie-down in the OR of the Franz Kafka Memorial Medical Center. It’s called staying awake. It’s called refusing to normalize any of the mad surgeon’s activities, even when it feels like an operation without anesthetics. It’s frustrating and painful, but far better than waking up sometime down the line with a distinctly hollow feeling, lots of psychological stitches, and blood stains all over your sense of decency.