By: Jon Terry
Published: October 24, 2024
Our latest binge is a horror science fiction show, “From.”
The unlucky characters in “From” are trapped in a town in which vampiric creatures roam at night, ravaging those unlucky enough to be outside, but also, always trying to tempt their way inside … in this nightmare, these creatures only get inside if you let them.
In an early episode, a young family is ravaged as dad sleeps off a drunk at the improvised local tavern. In another, a blissful hippie commune is turned into a buffet because one lusty dude falls for temptation, and lets his crush in. She promptly devours him after a single kiss, and leaves the window open for her buddies, whom promptly eat a lot of hippies, thankfully most of them annoying characters.
Alcohol and Lust are common demons that many of us think we can handle. It’s only after we see the awful outcomes that we learn that these common demons we let in, thinking we could handle them, grew bigger than us.
As we compare candidate credentials, capabilties, style, policies, and ultimately, competence, we must also face the fact that if and as we consider Donald Trump, we are considering letting in a whole lot of Demons.
Let’s quickly dispense with the false equivalents.
Yes, Kamala’s resume is rapier thin. She speaks in euphemisms and generalities, even when pressed and practically begged not to. She’s better suited to prosecute than to govern, and would be a wonderful Attorney General.
But she’s not a blatant liar. She’s not generating anger. She’s not misportraying wide bands of immigrants, conflating Haitians with Venezuelans with Mexican drug gangs into one big, scary false threat that exploits the worst of us. She’s not decrying how awful we’ve become and are going to be if she doesn’t win, she’s trying her level best to deal in optimism and positive energy and compassion.
Trump, on the other hand, is mean and crass and threatening. He demonstrates no grace or class, easily resorts to personal insults and ethnic generalities. He takes no accountabilty for his actions, shows no real compassion, and for all his riches, his charitable contributions wouldn’t fill a Christmas stocking in the houses of great givers like Bill Gates.
He sells riches to all of us, retribution to those of us that need it, and whatever you’re buying to everyone else. His self-proclaimed powers do not include bravery and generosity and goodness, rather, he touts deal-making and relationships.
And the thing is, I am not telling a single Trump voter one thing they don’t already know, and see. But they think that the Demons Trump brings can be contained, and maybe even leveraged for their self-interests.
But they’re wrong. These demons can, will, and already have had a macro impact on our political behaviors and conduct, and tolerance for mendacity, indecency and cruelty.
And that didn’t start with Trump. It started with every surreptiious bit of misconduct we tolerated from the Oval Office, than officially sanctioned with Bill Clinton. Democrates used their majority clout to reward a liar and cheater instead of doing the right thing.
We valued Bubba’s political skills, and Hillary’s perceived future, over honesty, and doing the thing.
We let Demons in, and they have now proliferated to the cynical, transactional, ethics-less ethos many voters ascribe to now: we don’t care about the Demons, just get the job done. Say anything to win. Attack anyone, even great men like Obama, through every means necessary – including dusting off Confederate hatred – to assert your will.
Because you can handle the Demons.
But you can’t. We can’t. Trump’s very power as a Candidate – a guy who invokes Hitler, easily insults anyone, lies, lies, and lies again – is testament to how we’ve NOT handled the Demons. The power of everyday bold-faced liars like Matt Goetz and Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Lauren Boebert and Paul Gosar, horrible, me-first “leaders” not even trying to be anything other than angry and ruthless.
Republicans will raise false equivalent Demons, attacking the good intent behind abortion protection, diversity and merciful asylum, even while they know better: that’s another Demon streamlng through the open window they think they can handle.
In “From”, I keep waiting for the characters to get mad. Leave a booby trap. Find the monsters during the day and bash their damn heads in. Burn the whole place in the light of day to fry them out.
Instead, the townspeople hide in safe houses at night, accepting the wierd incidental bounties like weed, alcohol, weed and electricity that shouldn’t be possible, while the Demons roam, harvest, and sometimes get in.
Those writers are onto something.
But that’s a TV show. This is an election. And the outcome is existential in ways that supersede your portfolio and competence evaluation.
Goodness matters. Exposing, fighting, and keeping the Demons out matters, long before a candidate qualifies for a competence and skill evaluation. If the very values we stand on, the things we define as good and right, are eroded, we’re groundless.
The benefits of a Donald Trump presidency do not offset the Demons he brings, that is exactly the type of tinged perception of a trade-off that leads to moral and ethical decay at a macro level, exactly the type of con Trump is selling.
We do have a political soul. To preserve it, we must keep Donald Trump and the Demons he brings out of the White House, now, and forever.