Autocracy: Shitting in our own bed

The Trump campaign ran on disdain: for immigrants, for women, for disabled people, for people of color, for Muslims—for anyone, in other words, who isn’t an able-bodied white straight American-born male—and for the elites who have coddled the Other. Contempt for the government and its work is a component of the disdain for elites, and a rhetorical trope shared by the current crop of the world’s antipolitical leaders, from Vladimir Putin to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. They campaign on voters’ resentment of elites for ruining their lives, and they continue to traffic in this resentment even after they take office—as though someone else, someone sinister and apparently all-powerful, were still in charge, as though they were still insurgents. The very institutions of government—their own government now—are the enemy. As president, Trump went on to denigrate the intelligence services, rage against the Justice Department, and issue humiliating tweets about officials in his own administration.

Gessen, Masha. Surviving Autocracy (pp. 17-18). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

What do citizens do when they elect a chief executive of a government that that chief executive holds in contempt and disdain and takes steps to destroy?

Most Americans don’t comprehend what their government does for them. If life has not been good to them, they have to blame somebody just as people tend to blame their parents for their unhappiness.

When people are unhappy their first instinct is to feel like a victim of forces difficult to identify and so they tend to blame the institutions they were told would take care of them. Like parents, these governmental institutions are not able to meet all the needs of the people they attempt to serve. When there is a disconnect between the person desiring help and the hoped for helper, contempt, disdain, and resentment arise and the wish for retribution and revenge are very powerful feelings which unfortunately all too often get acted out.

Did you ever want to hurt or destroy someone that disappointed you and let you down? Would you side with someone who offered to inflict  harm on the offender? Would you vote to give power to a leader who promised you revenge and retribution? “Lock her up!” Would you vote for protection from further disappointment and perceived attack by building walls? Would you want to destroy the very institutions who have the expertise and competence to help but which frustrated and disappointed you?

The American voter is like a puppy or a kitten shitting in their own bed and now they have to lie in it. Where’s the CNA when you need one to clean you up?