The anxiety is akin to a low level fever — the 2 year strain so unbroken it is only in its rare absence that I notice its unremitting presence. What will he do today? Will new revelations of corruption emerge? What new abuse of justice will one of his stooges commit? While his 63 million voters* yawn and laugh, will I awaken again at 3 A.M., the catalog replaying — the harm done to thousands of children in ICE Camps, the harm done to animals and wilderness, the harm caused each day by a President compromised by the Russians, the harm done to the idea of Union itself. 
Then there is the anger that never disappears — at Pompeo giggling with the killer in Saudi Arabia, at Bolton urging war with Iran, at the starving in Yemen — a tragedy we have fostered; these only a trifling number of the mountains of abominations he has piled up. The anger at McConnell adding reactionary judge after judge to the right’s plan to retain power through the courts; at Giulini lying, at Sarah Sanders lying, at Mike Pence simpering and reverential in Trump’s presence; at Lindsey Graham, red-faced and screeching. Like some terrible magnet, he draws awful people to him, the sociopathic, the angry, the amoral, the fanatics.
I see no way out of this that does not end in a nation economically and environmentally cratered, its capacity to reinvent itself stymied by oligarchs. How does a polis overcome an enormous population of Trump nihilists and fantasists (climate change is a hoax, the deep state is persecuting Trump)? How does the Union overcome 40 to 45% of the voting public who now identify more with the white race than with the nation and with ideas that are overtly anti-democratic, voter suppression of any one not voting Republican being the most obvious of those?
Our good fortune is that Trump has not cultivated battalions of shock troops. There is no Trumpian equivalent to the Brown Shirts, no secret police, no SS, no NKVD regiments, no Lubyanka cellars.
One runs out of metaphors to describe Trump. His awfulness is exhausting in so many ways, metaphorical fatigue being but one symptom of the CTSD (Constant Trump Stress Disorder) that has seized several hundred million human beings. However, even though I hesitate to compare Trump to stars whose beauty is entrancing … there is one star with whose structure he has an affinity.
A Neutron star, the collapsed core of a dead star, possesses enormous mass at great density. It may rotate at several full circuits per second, throwing off catastrophic jets of magnetized particles and radiation. Its energy is astonishing, as is its violence and capacity for creating chaos all around it. A human being within a thousand miles of one would be disassembled atom by atom by its charge. In many cases, they eventually collapse into a black hole, a celestial object whose gravitational force is so strong even light cannot escape its confines.
I do not think I need to make the parallels more obvious.
When Robert Mueller completes his investigation, and when the Democrats are able to begin bringing this administration’s policy decisions and actions to the light, I fear that the inhumanity, criminal conduct and overall moral corruption of this Presidency will be more than we could imagine. Trump is a destroyer of worlds.
In the crux of this maelstrom, perhaps we have relearned one valuable lesson — that a bogus and deceitful fear is the easiest sin to teach and that it is a simple political trick to create whole classifications of enemies. The examples are legion. Every government has made them. Such lists are uncomplicated in their objects of fear: Jews, Black People, Muslims, Gypsies, the Irish, Mestizos; at any given time and place, Catholics; unwed mothers, women who step outside the boundaries of patriarchal rules, aboriginal peoples most everywhere, journalists, artists, lawyers, especially those who work for the poor. That is the short list. In 20 minutes you can google stories about any group you choose to isolate and package them together into a threat.
The consistent fear called forth by Trump since the day he announced for the Presidency has been of brown people, of ‘illegals’, of the caravans, the invasion, the hordes, the gangs. His ‘Border Speech’ used rhetorical flourishes we have come to expect: the scary immigrants (“vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs”). The gory anecdotes (a veteran “beaten to death with a hammer by an illegal alien”). The decidedly un-Trumpian flourishes (“a crisis of the heart, and a crisis of the soul.”)**
But bless his empty heart, we always have Trump’s son, that minor key Caligula, to set us straight. The utter lie of that ‘crisis’ bit is revealed by Donald Jr. who tweeted out this on January 8, the day before his father’s speech: “You know why you can enjoy a day at the zoo? Because walls work.”
The ‘crisis of the soul’ and heart is an accurate description of what we are enduring, just not in the way Trump meant.
Charlatans and bigots often lead this country, and we produce our own breed of monsters. We are in a very tough spot and have not yet hit bottom. Trump will do worse. However, in spite of the crimes we have committed as a nation, in spite of our continuing rank injustices, I love this country because it has professed ideals toward which it has struggled. Trump has done us this service: those who oppose him have a clearer idea of what is of value in this nation. As President Obama has said, “What you see in America is a country that has steadily worked to address our problems, to make our union more perfect, to bridge the divides that existed at the founding of this nation.”
I love this country because it possesses a set of core beliefs in justice and ethics that it will reassert in moments of trial. Ask Robert Mueller about ethics and justice. Ask all those who voted to send 40 new Democratic Representatives to the House. Ask all those volunteers who gave of their money and time to help those 40 be elected.
My bad dreams will not go away. The 3 A.M. moments are locked in for a while. I know I am not alone in them. That realization also helps. The fight against Trump and Trumpism is worth it. Darkness always calls forth light.
*Trump received 62,979,636 votes in 2016.
