Last night’s debate was not a debate at all.
It was an abusive spectacle that demeaned and debased everyone who participated. Including those who tuned in. Thinking that it was their democratic duty. An informed electorate and all.
Yeah, we were informed alright.
And what we learned, turned the stomach of all but the most ardent Trump supporters. For the rest of us, it was like taking an acid bath before bed. Brushing your teeth with a cow pie.
Across the country, people were lying awake in bed staring the shadows crossing their ceiling.
Trump channeled the “whiny rich kid” bully from everyone’s playground nightmare. Taking his ball and going home and trying to take the swings, the slide and everything else too.
Because he was losing and losing badly.
We all knew, watching this spectacle, that the only suitable response to this snotty little rich kid was to punch him in the mouth.
He was asking for it. Begging for it.
Crying out for the boundaries and limitations every mouthy little brat craves. So, he could feel secure. And maybe even loved. Which is what he’s been begging for all his life.
A daddy, a mommy, ANYONE…to love him enough to stop him.
And what makes us all cringe as adults, watching this, is the primal-ness of that childhood wound, crying out on national TV, echoing in us, threatening to pull us back with it. To drag us under the dark blanket of our own childhood wound.
It is a potent force, even when you’re in your 70’s, and that’s what Biden had to avoid. While the screaming banshee from Hell….the needy little rich kid desperate for love and limits, clawed at him to drag him down. Back to the sulphurous pit.
It was grotesques and pitiful. “I’ll break everything, destroy it all, until I get my needs met.”
This is the way Trump has lived his entire life. Wretched and miserable, blessed with an abundance that could never substitute for the love he craved.
Could it be any clearer after last night? That’s part of what made the entire spectacle so cringe worthy.
And all Trump ever got was money to measure himself against. Not love. Not security. Not acceptance.
Money.
And Trump always came up short. About 400 million short according the the NY Times.
That’s what happens when what we need is withheld from us. A hole grows in us where our soul should have been.
So, Trump clutches greedily for wealth, to fill the gaping hole in him, even as he scorns wealth and squanders it. Throws it away in bankruptcy after bankruptcy. Lying. Cheating. Avoiding taxes.
Can anyone miss the self-destructive essence of Trump after last night? Could we miss staring into the gaping hole at the heart of him? Our revulsion at the sight of it? The weariness springing up in us, the hairs standing on the back of our necks.
This hole at the heart of Trump is clearly becoming our national reality too. It wants to devour us all.
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There were other things that came clear last night too.
This election is about re-establishing “white supremacy.” Putting “those people” in their place. That’s it.
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We often hear that slavery is America’s Original Sin. It’s not.
White Supremacy is America’s Original Sin. It is with us even after we formally abolished slavery. The sin remains.
The caste system we built around White supremacy is how we carry that sin forward. Hidden in a bag tucked away in the attic of the nation. In a room we have been taught never to enter. Especially as White people.
Black people, of course, have spent most of their history trying to get out of that very room. But they are locked in and the American racial caste system is the key.
No, slavery is not America’s Original Sin. Slavery was the first bitter fruit of America’s Original Sin, born on White Supremacy’s twisted branch.
The self-evident words of the Bill of Rights, about all men being created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; were in fact written and ratified by men who owned slaves.
How could the Founders own people like they owned slippers or silverware, and still assert that all men (people) are created equal?
It’s simple. Non whites were non human. That’s how. Problem solved.
Except that it wasn’t solved. It grew into the festering wound at the heart of the country. The one burning and stinging us right now. The wound howling like a banshee on the debate stage last night. Demanding limits. Screaming from the streets of our cities.
The wound we continue to deny, just as the founding fathers tried to deny it with a bit of sophistry.
America. We still haven’t learned. And it appears we will do anything and everything to keep it that way. Just like the Founders did.
This was Trump’s bargain, forged with those who elected him. The ones who would indeed look the other way if Trump shot someone on 5th Avenue. Not even Trump realized that they would continue to look away, even if he kept shooting and 200,000 + people died.
The death toll is still growing and not a peep.
They would look the other way, because they valued something greater than the lives of their neighbors and friends. 200,000 deaths strong.
After Obama, they wanted “those people” put back in their place. Who better to do that than a despicable excuse for a human being like Trump. Howling and flinging feces on the debate stage last night. Yep, that’s our boy. Ain’t he great?
They will sacrifice truth for self justifying lies. Sacrifice human life; 200,000. 500,000. 1,000,000.
Strip brown babies and little brown children from their parent’s arms at the border and throw them into cages.
No price is too high.
There is about 40% of the country who don’t want the aspirations of the founding fathers; the “all men created equal” bit.
They want the founding father’s reality. The White supremacy and the racial caste system it fashioned which guaranteed White people the upper hand as long as there was a country.
Now, you’re talking.
So, you can tune out everything else about this year’s election. All the noise and all the clutter. All the self-justifying rationales. All the vehement denials.
This election is about one thing and one thing only.
Will White people vote to preserve the democratic principles and aspirations that created this country?
Or, will Whites vote instead to uphold the twisted vine of White supremacy that shaped this country’s original reality, to our shame and our continuing detriment?
Everything from taxes to the Supreme Court flows from that question.
Everything the Republican Party has come to stand for today emirates from that. Every time you tune into Fox News, this is the subtext of what you are hearing.
What will we choose? Life or death? Blessings or curses?
Those are the stakes. Everything else is just noise. Just a man child hogging a microphone and so no one else can speak.
Charles Oberkehr 