Hello All! How’s everyone doing? Are you hanging in there? Are we great yet?
Nothing that Trump does surprises me anymore. We know who he is: convicted felon, racist, liar, malignant narcissist, sociopath, misogynist, rapist, idiot, petulant manbaby and – as recently pointed out by drummer Tommy Lee– “off-brand butt plug.” His behavior is outrageous, cruel, self-serving, immature, criminal, unethical, disgusting, appalling and sadly predictable. But he could not do what he’s doing without the help of enablers. And they are what this post is about.
Trump enablers fall into one of two categories: sycophants or cowards.
The main sycophants are the GOP members of Congress and his hot mess of a Cabinet. Their motivations are rooted in greed, lust for power, white nationalism or some combination thereof. They know what he’s doing is illegal and immoral. They know what he’s doing is dangerous. They know what he’s doing is treasonous. But they don’t care. They kiss the ring regardless. They roll in the odious muck right alongside him. The pay-off is either too great to rock the boat or they have a very dark and dystopian vision for our country.
The cowards are the capitulators. One stupid comment from Trump or passing threat on social media, they’re on their knees, shaking and groveling, a puddle of piss pooling beneath them. In some instances, they’re preemptive in their submission. It’s like a kid digging in his pocket for lunch money to hand over before the bully has even stepped on the playground. The worst of it is that many of these entities have the power and means to effectively push back. But instead, they accommodate his extortion. I’m looking at you Paul Weiss, Skadden, Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins and the rest of these embarrassments cosplaying as law firms. Grandma in a wheelchair, protesting outside of the senior center has more courage than the entire lot of these people.
History will not be kind to these enablers and neither should we. I say we shame them at every turn. Call them out on their hypocrisy. Call them out on their dishonesty. Call them out on their cowardice. Make it uncomfortable for them to continue to enable fascism. Do it in big and small ways. Jam up their phone lines. Protest at any opportunity. Ridicule them on social media. Boycott their products and services. Challenge their lies. Stay in their faces. And most of all, we don’t let them break us.
A few posts back, I wrote about maintaining an attitude of resistance. At this point, I’m not sure if we’re the resistance or the opposition. But these distinctions don’t concern me. What matters is that the spirit of resistance stay at the fore every single day. Shaming the enablers is another weapon in our collective arsenal. Remember, he can’t do what he’s doing without them.
