Below are excerpts from an investigative and personal essay by
Chris Hedges in Truthdig (12/12/16) of what is
to come and what we may expect after January 20th ; a succinct and
soul-curdling view of Donald Trump as leader of our country.
From Demagogue-in-Chief
“For
Donald Trump, the presidency will be a vast stage for accommodating his
megalomania and insatiable appetite for money. Those who mock, defy or anger
him will feel the wrath of the state. Those who are not obsequious will be cast
aside. He will invest most of his energy in his brand. Self-promotion is the
only real talent he possesses. Corruption, already rife within the political
system, will explode into a full-blown kleptocracy. Manufactured stories about
Trump’s prowess, brilliance, sexual allure and goodness, as well as how America
is becoming “great again,” will be pumped out by the White House smoke machine.
He will demand encomiums that will become ever more outrageous. All love,
devotion and allegiance will be to Trump.
“Trump
is the sick expression of a dysfunctional political system and mass culture
that celebrate the most depraved aspects of human nature—greed, a lust for
power, a thirst for adulation and celebrity, a penchant for the manipulation of
others, dishonesty, a lack of remorse and a frightening pathology in which
reality is ignored. He is the product of our escapist world of constant
entertainment. He embodies the mutation of values in American society that has
culminated in an enormous cult of the self and the abandonment of the common
good.
“’When
a population becomes distracted by trivia,’ wrote Neil Postman, ‘when cultural life is redefined
as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation
becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people becomes an audience and
their public business a vaudeville, then a nation finds itself at risk:
cultural-death is a clear possibility.’
“Demagogues—insecure
and crippled by an unbridled narcissism and seldom of high intelligence—play to
the inverted values of a decayed society. They attack all who do not kneel
before the idol of “the great leader.” “Saturday Night Live” can continue to go
after Trump, but Trump, as president, will use every tool in his
arsenal, no matter how devious, to banish such public ridicule. He will seek to
domesticate the press and critics first through the awarding of special
privileges, flattery, gifts and access. Those who cannot be bought off will be
destroyed. His petulant, childish taunts, given authority by the machinery of
the security and surveillance state, will be dangerous.”
The
entire article should be read here:
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