The term, ”nightmare,” may acceptably be described as a disturbing dream, manifesting itself during Man’s deep period of REM sleep, characterized by the presence of a basic fear, the latter, typically awakening the sleeper. By analogic contrast, our present theme, or “topic du jour,” concerns a nighttime trauma of such disturbing nature that, by its frightening verisimilitude, seems to be ruminatively reprised during waking hours. Our thematic nightmare stars, as its analogous version of the bone-chillingly and terrifying, “Freddie, Kreuger*” a psychopathic protagonist readily identifiable by his grotesquely groomed mop of orange-tinted hair whose starring role, in this horrific, interminable series of angst-ridden, nocturnal episodes, is assisted by a horde of compliant, and malignant disciples.
The conventional, salubrious dreams of the mainstream, democracy-loving Americans were abruptly disturbed by the unexpected intrusion of a sinister and repulsive appearance on the political scene, in the specter of the cognate horror-movie- protagonist, Donald J. Trump. The event soon led to a primal, and existential fear regarding the safety of our Republican Democracy.
In previous writings, we have commented on the immoral, felonious, and incapable persona of the protagonist of our thematic societal nightmare, viz., the multi-indicted, amoral, egomaniac, Donald J. Trump. For practical reasons of effective thematic presentation, his ample record of traitorous acts, such as the perverse relationship with Putin as well as other autocratic tyrants who oppose NATO, Ukraine, and our Democratic style polity. For perceived reasons of effective thematic presentation and contextual space said subjects shall be reserved for another essay. However, there may permissibly exist adequate contextual space for comment on the deleterious impact of his demonic presence, and that of his confederate supporters, on the basic foundational underpinning of our constitutional democracy.
We have, on several relevant occasions, expressed our bewilderment as to the cause of the copious, populist attraction to the bizarre, orange-thatched, non-cinematic version of “Freddie Kreuger” We have found ourselves discombobulated, frustrated, and thus, unsatisfactorily relegated to the speculative theory that the exudations of his singular combination of egocentrism, ignorance, and lack of moral compass, dynamically induced a toxic, air-borne, and inhalable “miasma” (see: # M. 31, “Miasma”) that catalyzed and conglomerated a previously mute and amorphous horde of populists, conjointly evincing a plethora of assorted grievances, in combination with a shortfall of education, to succumb to his quasi- deification.
Assuredly, our Nation has historically survived an abundant history of disturbing nightmares, “The Trail of Tears,” the “Great Depression,” “The Tulsa Klan Outrage,” two World Wars, “McCarthyism,” Father John Coughlin, the Viet Nam travesty and the Covid-19 pandemic, to cite a limited reference to some illustrative examples. Notwithstanding the monumentally significant impact of such historic nightmares, the American Nation, in its singular resilience, and cohesively dedicated efforts, awoke from each such nocturnal trauma to a vastly improved, stronger, and more cohesive Democratic Republic. Our thematic nightmare, contrastingly, evinces fearful signs of a potential democratic apocalypse.
An unforeseen and horrific consequence of the political elevation of our cinematically analogous “Freddie” (Donald J. Trump), has proximately resulted in an existential threat to the basic underpinnings of our Republican Democracy by his overt rejection of the Constitution and existing Law and by his public demonstrations of autocratic inclination.
Trump’s bizarrely cultish, ubiquitous influence on the over-sized National population of unschooled and endemically discontented citizens has disastrously resulted in self-interested and shamefully duty-overriding fears of their voting strength on the part of legislators, governmental officeholders, and worse, on the judiciary (remarkably, including SCOTUS) in compliance, with the anti-democratic, and theocratic policies of Donald Trump. The result has had a malignant impact on our body politic with universal metastasis demonstrated by the total emasculation of the Republican Party, the hapless stagnation of the Federal Legislature, and the dismaying transmogrification of the historically revered, U.S. Supreme Court into a degraded and unprincipled servant of influential political and religious lobbies.
In his former term as President, as well as thereafter, tactically employing his malevolent populist influence, Trump has comported himself in the classic autocratic manner (viz., denigrating the Media, promoting “alternate facts”), and treasonously befriending dictators of Nations antithetical to democracy and classic enemies of the United States and NATO. Our nightmarish protagonist has faithfully followed the autocratic field manual through his exacerbation of National divisiveness and his tactical practice of scapegoating. He has been nominated to run again for the American Presidency, which event has ignited our thematic bone-chilling nightmare. It is to be especially noted, that in a singular instance of truthfulness, Donald Trump has publically declared his intention to be a dictator, (“for one day”?!). This is the appropriate stuff of nightmares.
America’s historic nightmares, as illustrated above, were overcome by a Nation that was unified in its belief in freedom and democracy and its aspiration for universal equality. We will hope that its extant divisiveness, tactically encouraged and exacerbated by our autocratic nightmarish protagonist will not be too formidable a challenge to our happy awakening.
At the time of this writing, Joseph Biden has just completed his democratically inspirational, State of the Union speech, while, simultaneously and instructively, Trump is entertaining the lifetime dictator, the Darth Vader of Hungary. The facts, as they often do, speak for themselves.
*Title: Origin: Wes Craven film, “Nightmare on Elm Street”
-p.
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