The American Left is nonplussed, cornered by the possibility of the return of Donald Trump. For four years they have vilified and immolated the former President to no effect. He is more popular now than ever despite the witch trials, hysteria, and righteous indignation. For every fevered sermon, every beartrap and wolf snare; for every word written about his lies, distortions, and manipulative errors; his insurrectionism, bald-faced capitalist greed, misogyny and homophobia, his supporters cheer all the louder.
'He's our man!', they shout. A man for all seasons, a man of the times, a man to roll back the tide of queer woke socialism and make America great again.
A recent op-ed article in the Washington Post noted that Biden had not yet found a chink in Trump's armor. The old man's roasting of old chestnuts, harping on imagined insults to national sovereignty, and floundering in political waters he can barely understand, has no resonance. Trump supporters want no more faux compassion, conciliation, and compromise; no more gender freaks; no more bowing and scraping to big men and religious zealots; no more putting Jesus on the back shelf.
Trump supporters in fact see the former President riding into Jerusalem on an ass to save us all. He will the last prophet, Islam's acolyte, and Christianity's savior, a man who has already suffered the same passion, crown of thorns, and humiliation of Our Lord.
Of course the New York Times had a field day with these neo-resurrectionist sensibilities. 'THE SECOND COMING' announced the Times in a banner headline just the other day with the accompanying editorial:
Donald Trump, disgraced January 6th insurrectionist, unreconstructed plantation grandee, racist oppressor, apologist for white European colonialism, is now celebrated as the long-awaited messiah, an emissary of God himself. The deep-state Right, the MAGA simians have come down from the trees in a show of Pleistocene ignorance and intellectual thuggery...
The Left is simply befuddled by Trump's popularity, nonplussed and bewildered by the man's attraction. How could they? say progressives, gobsmacked by polls which show their man behind Trump in the key swing states, and find themselves with no retort, no plausible response. There is no way that they can prop up their man to come out swinging when half the time he doesn't know where he is.
'Give it a go, Joe', said an old Wilmington friend, colleague, and supporter. 'Illigitimi non carborundum est', he counselled, 'go after the buggers'; but poor Joe, obsessed with Nancy Blythe, his first love, his only love, kneeling in white veil and flowered tiara at her First Communion, couldn't make heads or tails of the Latin reference and sat quietly while his black and brown Congressional claques banged on about women and the climate.
In his confusion he wondered, listening to the increasing references to Trump entering Jerusalem, if he was a latter-day Pilate. 'Give us Barabbas' the Jews shouted, and Pilate was silent as Jesus was left to die, hanging on the cross. What if there really was something to the cheers? Could this possibly be an early Last Judgement with him, Joe, as the villain and Trump the savior?
He shook his head, cleared the cobwebs, and righted himself. 'Don't be silly', he said to no one in particular.
But of course Donald Trump even in his late middle age was a mensch, a macho man, squire of beauty queens, consort of the world's most desirable women, high-roller, high-flyer, a wealthy man of power, allure, and charisma. While Joe was just a has-been, an end-of-life cipher who had been a political lackey for decades and now, as President, was still beholden to The Squad, Palestinian shills, and gender-queer wannabees.
'What can I do', he asked his wife in the Presidential bedroom before they turned in.
'Whatever you think best, dear', said Jill, always supportive of her husband, and content to take a back seat to his Presidency, although her husband's Chief of Staff had come to her and begged her intercession. The President was becoming unmoored, the advisor said, and once he hits rough waters, he might founder.
Miffed at the aide's clumsy metaphors and wishing that he would man up and face facts - the President was simply not up to another round - she smiled and went back to her affairs. Yet....And there she hesitated, as stopped up as an old drain, hoping things would become more clear but afraid of what the overflow would turn up.
Meanwhile Joe, now almost completely around the bend, sought the advice of a priest. He had taken to heart the Biblical references to Trump waiting outside the city walls about to enter to cheers and a heroic welcome and wondered if he was fulfilling prophecy. Was he Judas or Pilate or the rabbinical Jews who shouted the loudest for Christ's death? More importantly, were the crowds, the cheers, the adulation, and the mindless, absolute belief in Donald Trump signs of a spiritual renewal? As much as he and his claques had dismissed the man as an evil reprobate, hadn't the Jews done the same thing to Jesus?
The priest of course was of no help. He was asked to do an exegesis of an impossible spiritual conundrum. Better a shrink than a Jesuit; but the President kept seeing Trump as Jesus, riding into Jerusalem in obedience to his Father, a God’s son about to do the world's work, to forgive all the sins of mankind through his own sacrifice. He saw Jesus/Trump in the reflections of the windows of the Oval Office, in his bedroom mirror, and in the clouds.
'God forgive me', the President said; but by this point he had no idea what he was guilty of, what sin he had committed, or what apostasy he was about, and so it was that his sworn enemy, former spawn of the Devil, Beelzebub incarnate, was transformed into the long-awaited one. As irony and fate would have it, Donald Trump did ride into Jerusalem/Washington in November.
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