The Face In The Mirror (American Revelation IV, Part Twelve.)

Gonna make a change,
For once I'm my life
It's gonna feel real good,
Gonna make a difference
Gonna make it right

As I, turn up the collar on
My favorite winter coat
This wind is blowing my mind
I see the kids in the street,
Without enough to eat
Who am I to be blind
Pretending not to see their need?

A summer's disregard, a broken bottle top
And one man's soul
They follow each other on the wind ya know
'Cause they got nowhere to go
That's why I want you to know

I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you want to make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself, and make a change.

~Michael Jackson, Man In The Mirror.

Trump had his first big rally since March. In spite of the fact that anybody who knows anything begged him not to, in spite of having to move it back a day because of massive public backlash over originally scheduling the thing on Juneteenth.

Just over 6,200 people showed up. Seriously?

Bad poll numbers, K-Pop Stans and Tik Tok kids, the fucking virus, the vast, yawning Abyss of shit-headed incompetence that is Brad Parscale? There's a fair number of contributing factors and theories as to why this is so. If this can be considered insurgent warfare, the party in power is losing, and deep down, these fucking people have to know it by now.

But that's 6,200 goddamn people anyway, in a relatively red area of the reddest of red states and Trump couldn't fill a third of the goddamned arena, and that's not even what stuck out to me about this fucking shit.

"The Degenerate Left claimed Trump had health issues after drinking water with 2 hands, today he drank with one and tossed the glass to the side. GREATEST PRESIDENT EVER! TRUMP DRINKS WATER WITH ONE HAND!"

First of all, Deanna Lorraine is a goddamned conspiracy theorist nut who ran in the Republican primary in Nancy Pelosi's district, and she's already out.

Second, if she thinks drinking water with one hand makes Trump the greatest President ever, just wait until she finds out about Barack Obama, or Bill Clinton, or either George Bush, or Ronald Reagan, or Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford or even Richard Fucking Nixon. Ya know, all of these guys, even Shrub, had some kind of higher-order accomplishment besides drinking water from a glass...

Some unknown calamity could have reduced Oklahoma to a huge, glass-sided crater overnight and this dumb fucking bitch would still call it a win for Trump. I'm fucking serious.

It's like Trump Mad Libs. "Trump is Great Because ____________________"

No, it's more like "Trump is Great and most of these fucking people can't even tell you why they think that." I'm serious. Since this whole mess started I've heard all type of talk about how Trump managed to hack the Conservative Amygdala or the Collective Unconscious or Dopamine blah blah blah, or "The Cruelty Is The Point." This last seems to be true, but why wasn't this also true for, ya know, Truman, who actually nuked people, or Nixon, who is probably the ultimate personal embodiment of Republicanism as it is vs. what it pretends to be?

Fuck all that, I think it's because Trump says racist shit.

Yeah, you could make the argument that they like the fact that Trump acts like he's a swaggering bully except that the greatest argument against that fucking bullshit is, well, Trump. When faced with the least bit of opposition, he turns into a simpering coward. Being a bully, or a dictator, or some kind of a strongman requires a degree of physical courage. It's not like being a cop, or a soldier, or a member of a mob. You cannot draw strength from or camouflage yourself among those around you. You're the dude. The Buck Stops Here all the more in a dictatorial regime, and such countries often live or die by the personal fortunes of their authoritarian leadership. See Also; Muammar Gaddafi.

And Gaddafi is at least well remembered throughout Africa, especially for his massive foreign aid programs, personal philanthropy, and promotion of Islam...despite the fact that he himself was never an observant Muslim. When he was killed, hundreds of thousands mourned his death.

Who is going to remember Trump in a positive light, besides boot-lickers and racists, the feeble-minded, those who want to steal, and wannabe fascists?

Who will cry for Donald Trump?

Perhaps there's a better question to ask here:

What has Donald Trump ever done for anybody but Donald Trump?

During this whole time, I've never actually met a Trump Supporter who could or would tell me why they supported Trump, except in the most vague sort of way like "I like what he says" which of course means they're fine with Trump saying racist shit. Is the racism really worth it, though, when it could be your life?

It's like I keep saying, some people would rather hate than eat. Some people would rather kill and steal than be alive. I find it telling that these same fucking people tried to weaponize a deadly virus against all the rest of us, and were thwarted by such an easy thing as people wearing masks.

And consider how Trump politicized that, basic health stuff, basic life and self-preservation type of shit.

Look in the mirror, America, because this is the motherfucker one hell of a lot of us see staring back at us right now.

What's next on his list of accomplishments? "Trump wipes own ass, film at 11?"

The big argument going on right now in America isn't over political ideology or social programs, hell it's not even over religion...which is what I always thought it would come down to. No, it's about racism and ultimately, how racism ultimately affects everything else. It really is the Original Sin from which most of our other evils flow.

And, fundamentally, one of the main reasons we're having this debate is...well, Donald Trump.

And if America fell tomorrow, we wouldn't be remembered for being the first major nation to be a democracy. We wouldn't be remembered for our bloody Civil War, or for technological innovations, or defeating the Nazis, or developing nuclear weapons, or putting a man on the moon. We'd be remembered for Donald Fucking Trump, because yes, he does represent a substantial minority of Americans, people who, fundamentally, don't care what that face in the bathroom mirror when they're brushing their teeth looks like, or says about them.

We don't have a shared, single culture, we don't have a common language, we don't have a thousand years of history. We're America, all we have is what we want to be.

And that's what this moment is about. What are we? Who are we? What is the character of the United States of America? I don't have some pithy answer here, I'm asking you.

Fundamentally, Donald Trump is American Revelation.

He is, like it or not, serving as the Revelator of what is true, of who really believes what, even of who simply possesses basic humanity and leadership qualities.

Who do you want to be? Which side are you on?

The Bible states in the Book of Revelation that there are only two sides. The first is those who wish to participate in the divine conversation and have their names written in the Book of Life held in the hands of a carpenter and itinerant Rabbi who rejected earthly power and wealth and was crucified between two thieves. Then there are those who reject the divine in favor of the false systems of this world of which the Beast is the apotheosis...and it's telling that the Christians themselves have, in their own religious fiction stories, often written the Beast as someone very like Donald Trump.

Personally, I don't think it's quite a binary choice in that way, not every person who accepts Life (in a spiritual sense) will be Christian. I no longer identify as religious, to me "Allah Akbar" and "Jesus Is Lord" simply signify different understandings of the same things. On the other hand, not every person who rejects the divine in favor of the World will not be one, in fact many if not most of those people will probably be privileged white Christians. I suspect a great many of them will reject Christ for Trump, if they have not already.

And to my knowledge, in our American context, far more Atheists or Agnostics or simple non-religious people have chosen the side of life than have chosen the side of death, so there's that, too.

It's...complicated, but where one stands can still be determined in simple ways; for example, simply say "Black Lives Matter" on your Facebook feed and see what comes out the woodwork.

And as regards that subject in particular...race...there really are only two sides. Two sides that inform every other side we take on everything else in America.

As regards American Revelation, there are...can be...only two sides.

Look yourself in the face in the mirror, and you make your choice.

America, or Trump.

Part Eleven.
End Of Line.