Inauguration Day is supposed to be a happy celebration. This one wasn’t. It totally forgot the American Dream, and it ushers in a new wave of WASP bigotry that may well contribute to our country’s demise.
Promising years of revenge, chaos and shameless corruption, it will be an Inauguration Day to remember. Trump isn’t wasting any time. He’s off and running to prove that there’s nothing about our history that promises predictability, and that he’s devoted his life, not to build a greater country, but to make sure history can never forget his face.
There’s a reason why his official portrait bears that special Trump expression. After all, it’s meant to be an enduring picture of America’s No. 1 badass.
The magnificent words enshrined on the Statue of Liberty have entreated the world’s most miserable to find new hope. They’re not just words: The reality is that our country has been the world leader in allowing the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” and the “wretched refuse of their teaming shores” to find unimaginable opportunity in a new land.
It was the greatness of that same American Dream that allowed the likes of Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Elon Musk to gain obscene wealth and power. Together, they are the poster boys of the free capitalism system—and the boundless opportunity that allowed them to amass the largest fortunes in the history of mankind.
It is also the greatness of the American Dream that now allows, under the auspices of free speech and personal freedom, these same hypocrites to become co-traitors with America’s No. 1 domestic terrorist. You may squirm at the use of the word “terrorist,” but what can be more terroristic than fomenting a rebellion, aimed at ending the voice of the voter? We can never forget that that’s exactly what Trump did—and that almost any other country in the world would have “strung him up” for his treason.
When Musk prostituted himself to the Trump Goon Squad, no one was surprised. From a moral and ethical standpoint, no one had expected any better of him. Somewhere, along the way, this privileged brat should have understood that he could just as easily have been trapped in a black man’s body in apartheid Africa, with no outstretched Lady Liberty arms to embrace him.
Let’s face it, it’s all the “luck-of-the-draw.” The reality is that, for every great success, good fortune was part of the equation.
Then there was Zuckerberg, suffering a terrible brain infection—the result of having his nose clogged with poop. I’m sure you know that E. Coli doesn’t just come from dirty chickens; DJT should be designated a national health threat. Brown nosers are everywhere, and Zuckerberg’s failure to hold to some moral foundation was stridently announced in the dismantling of his META fact-checking function.
The loss of META is directly attributable to pressure from Trump; Americans will now have a diminished ability to decide what’s real and what’s utterly false. It was bad enough when people had to plow through numerous articles from diverse sources in order to determine the likely truth. Now, trying to ferret out fact will be a disaster.
Zuckerberg obviously forgot that his family came from Germany, Austria and Poland to escape religious persecution and create new lives. America allowed him to be who he is today.
For Jeff Bezos, the transition from deprivation to privilege and wealth was fairly recent. His mixed ancestry comes from Denmark, Mexico and Cuba, and there’s no question that his own parents had been blessed by America’s dream, allowing them to begin Jeff’s education at a Montessori pre-school.
He was a gifted student and excelled at Princeton. But don’t ever forget: The immigrants mowing his lawn, working in his warehouses and waxing his Mercedes may be just as capable. Greatness often grows from the poorest of circumstances. He just happens to be one who “made it.”
The last of the big-four billionaires to bury his nose in the cesspool of Trump is Bill Gates. Once admired for a higher ethical standard, and much-worshiped for his huge bequests to humanitarian causes, he seems to have forgotten his Irish-English-German-Scots roots. Not many generations back, his family also qualified as the “tired and the poor.”
Somehow Bill, despite his obscene wealth, doesn’t understand how indebted he is to his country. He could have been a standout—showing dignity and decency in the face of Trump’s extortive politics. Instead, he crumbled, just like the rest of them, showing his moral cowardice and kissing the ring.
All four of them—the richest people alive on this planet—can only think of themselves. In succumbing to the threat of DJT, they’re saying, in effect, “We got ours so it’s no longer our fight. Good luck to the rest of you.”
There used to be an expression—I think it’s still used—when something is very unlikely. We’d say, “Yeah, it’ll happen when hell freezes over.” Essentially, that’s exactly what’s happening, as Trump, perhaps the most loathed man in America, begins a reign that will challenge even the most dedicated of his party.
Those who had exclaimed how Trump would never sit in the Oval Office again “until hell freezes over,” have now seen it happen. A place that should be perpetually inundated by fire and brimstone dipped into the 20s for the Trump inauguration.
Some may question my portrayal of D.C. as “hell,” but think of it: That city is the largest collection in the world of the “soul-less,” and it’s easy to understand why it has often been referred to as our nation’s cesspool. It’s the destination city for those who have been seduced by the filthy lucre of this world.
The inauguration was a disgrace to America’s values. Frankly, seeing DJT drawn and quartered on national TV would have been an improvement. Sadly, those with the money and power to stop it were too concerned with the “me” in their lives to stand up and be counted. They’ve proven that extortion politics is highly effective.
The big question is whether our country will ever extricate itself from the death-rolling mouth of an orange crocodile.
The author is a retired businessman, novelist, columnist and former Vietnam-era Army assistant public information officer. He resides in Riverton with his wife, Carol, and their adorable and ferocious dog “Poppy.”
