The payoff situation every episode of The Apprentice works methodically, hyper-edited scene by hyper-edited scene, to create is boardroom chaos, that state of nature when every contestant is looking for a back to stab. Of course, there sits the Donald on his throne surveying the mayhem with satisfaction, ready to pounce with wanton abasement. Flanked by perhaps one or two of his children, or designated Trump Org. higher ups, Trump invites each of the combatants to ratchet up their desperate attempts at self-preservation, goading away with what one of their peers said about them, wondering aloud how they feel about such a slight, thus engendering another round of recrimination.
Yet and still, regardless how nasty and vile the contestants become to each other, none ever lose sight of the common thread that binds them, the golden rule: always exhibit full, slavish subservience to “Mr. Trump.” Anything with a wisp of uppity indifference to that requisite is grounds for “your fired,” regardless how impressive the entrant’s performance has heretofore been. The only tone tolerated toward Mr. Trump is one doused in supplication. Challenges to his status as, er…. God, get you a quick cab ride on 5th Avenue back to Palookaville.
For those with decency and sufficient grey matter, Trump’s beseechfest got old in a hurry. Obviously, for others, it made a more lasting impression. Those marching on state capitols, with nothing but The Apprentice’s guiding principles on the brain, and within their vapid souls, express little that resembles the basis of American citizenship we have at least avowed to collectively embrace since our beginnings. After all, even Southern secessionists gave lip service to enlightened self-interest; they simply were willing to go to war over the belief it blessed their right to consider fellow human beings as chattel.
These deplorables screaming in the faces of health care heroes – or even police they couldn’t love enough back when violating the rights of unarmed black men was the subject instead of the “liberty” attached to ignoring a pandemic’s deadly consequences – believe it’s their prerogative to die, and kill, because fellow countrymen and women no longer qualify as more than statistics, acceptable losses. That every assemblage of these nasty cusses is littered with Trump/2020 campaign accoutrements leaves no doubt their motivations are as nefarious as the messaging suggests. It’s bloodbath time in the boardroom, and Trump could not be happier.
The sweep of history provides few mulligans to peoples shortsighted enough to take what they’ve inherited for granted. Democracy lost is seldom rediscovered without misery, ask Germany or Spain. That’s because its alternative is not moderate in the cruelty it dispenses as the only means trusted for its perpetuation. Repressive governance represses. Any pauses are simply to recalibrate and take stock in who has been spared and whether such indulgence has rendered them enough of a threat to require attention…. when in doubt arrest. Laws that protect everybody can’t exist because authoritarians don’t permit factors they can’t control; protection is for them to dole out as a means to extend and protect power. Nothing really too complicated about the whole thing.
It’s tragically ironic that America, whose modern day leadership brand was fostered by the sacrifice of its young men in world wars it was reluctant to join, but committed to finish, now surrenders its global relevance due to exactly the type of destructive populism it rallied allies to resist for decades. In the midst of the gravest crisis since WWII, world leaders convened a virtual summit Monday to pledge solidarity in a collective effort to develop a Covid-19 vaccine. That the US was a no-show, while surely unprecedented, didn’t seem to shock attendees, nor did they spend much time worrying about it. Such shoulder shrugging underscores a shared sensibility that MAGA has nothing constructive to offer anyway; the world is moving on.
Trump had nothing to say or tweet on the matter. One Administration official, unwilling to be cited, as is now the norm, spouted gibberish about the “generosity” of America as “… the single largest health and humanitarian donor in the world….,” while refusing to explain why the US wouldn’t participate. Of course, it’s no mystery why we weren’t there. Global unity is no more appealing to Trump than national unity; he views both as threats. Collective accord is progress, the enemy of regressive nihilism, our President’s sweet spot.
Abandoning international responsibilities goes hand in hand with dangerous disdain for the work necessary to lead a democratic state. Anyone who believes Trump trusts and is willing to depend on the rule of equally applied law to pursue his fortunes is addled or disingenuous. Really, nothing now ever comes out of the President’s mouth that isn’t a clear refutation of that premise. Whether it’s ventilators for inadequately grateful blue-state governors or inspector generals tasked with making sure no graft infects trillions in government Coronavirus aid, Trump is unapologetically overt in expressing his desire to ignore best practices, or even legal practices, in favor of his unhinged version of absolute authority. Nothing has been left to the imagination about that. Whatever support he enjoys comes at the expense of the institutions MAGA relentlessly attacks. Why would he validate those forces abroad he actively sabotages at home? He is far more comfortable “doing deals” with despots than cooperating with democrats.
From the start this has been a two-track presidency: Trump doing half-ass and with zero good faith what he was told the office demanded; and Trump taking to his East Wing couch with a remote and Twitter account, or a rally podium, and promoting his dangerous petulance. As time has gone by, his fear of the unknown replaced by sociopathic delusions of his own grandeur, and the pathological insecurities he has always suffered, the former has been consumed by the latter. Policy is now driven by his rabid revisions. Whatever was officially laid out in a stilted statement read for the first time, will surely be reshaped by his hourly admonitions as he digests what Tucker has to say about it.
MAGA Governors are now reopening their states despite failing to meet the declining Covid-19 numbers his own task force guidelines stipulate… and Trump is cheering them on. A scapegoat is required to cover up Trump’s criminal neglect and incompetence to prepare us for what he knew was coming as early as last year, so all hands are on deck to vilify China. The initial Coronavirus hotspots were all blue states, whose situations spotlighted the Administration’s pathetic performance, so federal policy has become making them suffer. The list goes on and on, punctuating our slide into the authoritarian gutter.
Worse is on its way. Trump hasn’t the slightest concern for the basic requisites of protecting public health during this crisis, never has. The measures he agreed to for flattening the curve were always under duress, another of those pesky obligations of office he temporarily surrendered to. In the meantime, buttressed by ceaseless Fox/AM toxicity, the wretched core has become wedded to the notion public health and economic revival are mutually exclusive, zero-sum propositions, one a “lib” indulgence out to destroy the other. Now the lines are drawn as they always are during this Presidency… reason vs. militant ignorance.
What’s coming? Round two. Multiple hotspots, inadequate resources, overwhelmed health care workers, lots of death… everything round one offered and more. But this time Trump and Hannity and Rush aren’t going to accede to reality; they’re going to pretend it’s not happening and incite a grotesque national referendum on how many deaths we should accept, how awful the means can become to justify the ends.
It was Joseph Stalin who, while killing “kulaks” by the hundreds of thousands vis-a-vis a famine his barbaric industrial policy created, quipped “one death is a tragedy, a million just a statistic.” The real question now is how much of that observation is Trump and MAGA capable of embracing? The inhumanity of ruin…. from the boardroom to our door! BC