Tin Soldiers, Puppets, and Criminals

“He may be the most politically consequential president in my lifetime, but that does not make him a great American person.” That’s what I said to Dolores last time we talked. She didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. “But he was elected in a landslide!” she said. I gritted my teeth and forgot to count to ten, but I managed to avoid a vulgarism or two. “Like heck he was,” I replied. “Do I have to look it up for you?”

I knew it was a mistake the moment I said it. It wouldn’t matter what the numbers were. He said it was a landslide, and that was enough for her to believe it. The fact is that neither candidate managed to attract even 50 percent of the popular vote. To me, that’s a squeaker, but it doesn’t take much to turn the country upside-down.

“Where would you look it up?” Dolores asked. “Even you must know that you cannot trust the media. It’s all fake.”

By the time I was six or seven, I was being told that one of the greatest things about America was that anyone could grow up to be president. I was not sure what to make of it at the time. I had almost no idea what a president was, but it sounded important, and I didn’t think that I was up for the job. Still, it sounded like I should be inspired by the idea that I could grow up to be one.

Now, decades later, I have come to realize that it was not an inspiring thought. It was a warning: anyone could grow up to be president. Ours is, indeed, a land of opportunity. We have long taken it on faith that American voters will always elect people of intelligence, integrity and good character to hold the office of president and other positions of public trust. We did not count on opportunity and possibility being abused.

What we are now learning, to our chagrin, is that we should not hand the presidency to just anyone. We are learning that anyone can include any half-baked, shallow-minded weird specimen of a human.

Imagine if we accidentally elected some wealthy, well-connected septuagenarian who didn’t think much of the Constitution despite vowing to preserve, protect and defend it? Or suppose we elected someone with authoritarian tendencies and a warped, egocentric worldview?

I tried explaining to Dolores that what’s “fake” to him is anything that contradicts his view of the world. She told me that I spent too much time listening to the “radical left lunatics” on MSNBC.

I think we have all spent too much time listening to him, but sometimes I just can’t help it. I can’t reach for the mute button quickly enough. Consequently, after hearing way too much from him, I now may have cracked the code of how he relates to other people.

He deployed California National Guard troops ostensibly to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Los Angeles, and as if 4,000 federalized Guard troops were not sufficiently powerful to protect ICE, he called in 700 U.S. Marines to protect the Guard from being overwhelmed by a few hundred protesters. It may not have been legal, and the deployments were made without the consent of California’s governor. Soon, no doubt, the Supreme Court Justices will have another opportunity to show they are not a bunch of partisan hacks (to use Justice Barrett’s phase).

ICE was in LA sweeping up undocumented migrants—well, really, anyone who fit the profile of who might be an undocumented migrant. I pity the poor ICE agents, who are desperately trying to meet their quota of 3,000 migrant arrests per day. With an incentive like that, there are bound to be mistakes made. People are upset and have taken to the streets to protest. He doesn’t like protesters. He imagines that they will soon burn LA to the ground, and so he has sent in the troops to rescue the city.

This behavior resembles nothing so much as a 10-year-old boy lining up his set of tin soldiers to fend off an imaginary enemy. He views the Guard, the Marines, and all the other military forces at his disposal as nothing but tin soldiers for him to play with to show “strength.” His tin soldiers serve as a backdrop. He is excited by the sheer number of tin soldiers that he has.

If you are not one of his tin soldiers, then by his code, you must either be a puppet or a criminal. He broadly defines “criminals” to include, certainly, protesters and Democrats. If you think he lies, you must be a criminal. Migrants with or without documents are criminals who are invading the country. Most of the press are enemies of the people, in other words, criminals. Those reporters who are not criminals are puppets. Puppets exist for him to manipulate. Puppets populate the MAGAverse. Puppets funnel money to him in a multitude of ways, and the best puppets send him the most. Puppets amplify his worldview. Congressional Republicans are puppets. He has a Cabinet filled with puppets. He sees foreign leaders as puppets (though some of them see him the same way).

I could try to explain his code to Dolores, but alas, she is a puppet.

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Some other stuff for later,