Today is our NATIONAL DAY OF SHAME. The inauguration of Donald J Trump as POTUS takes place today. Millions of us have organized a national blackout. By avoiding live videos of the inauguration, especially on social media like Meta and X (Twitter) and YouTube and corporate news sites like MSNBC and FOX, we hope to demonstrate how much Americans dislike -- loathe, hate, disrespect, wish they would all go to Moscow from whence they get their orders -- trump and the Republican party. A blackout, even if widely enacted, will not change what unfolds today. However, it is a first step after the 2024 election in obstructing everything Republican.
We as resisters were first guided by this: Do Not Obey In Advance. The Republican win last November was barely 24 hours old before the wealthiest and most powerful Americans were grovelling at MarALago and trump's posterior. Obviously, because 99.99% of us who voted against the fascism we see in the GOP do not own global corporations or influence, we were indicating publicly that Obedience to the new trump administration was both pathetic and dangerous. But that time is over. Those who wanted to queue in advance of the official inauguration have done so. We know who they are, people like the Mellons, Musk, Bezos...and of course, fellow criminal conspirators, the white Christian Nationalists. Most of the grovellers are exactly who we expected. There are no real surprises. The Oligarchy shaped up at least two decades ago under the George W Bush administration. We are surprised only that millions of our fellow Americans are feeling good about this.
Decades ago, we watched as white evangelical/fundamentalist Christians threw themselves -- as passionately as they had knelt at their church altars and been baptized in the name of Christ Jesus -- at the Republican party. Although we knew that bigotry and racial discrimination binded the political party and the religious absolutists together, we did not understand then in the 1970s and 1980s their full agreement. With the formation of a Christian Nationalist movement, Republican leaders and religious leaders agreed: You guarantee loyal GOP voters in your churches; we will give you national political influence. Thereafter, the self-proclaimed Followers of Jesus became the Republican party's most trustworthy voters and were empowered to fulfill their Christian Nationalist agenda. Without these hypocrites who neither follow Jesus' teachings nor love our constitutional democratic republic, the Republican party might have righted itself before the 21st century rolled in. The party might still today be a trustworthy conservative party that honors and defends the Constitution.
Ah...if stars were wishes and hope in America's conservatism did not get swallowed by a Black Hole.
A conversation yesterday has me asking this question today: Why are some cult leaders, cruel politicians, and nefarious religious leaders successful while others seem to flounder and remain unacknowledged ?
The answers are worth exploring. Today, a demented old criminal with low intelligence and sociopathic behaviors is being crowned in the nation's Capitol. Adolf Hitler was as maniacal and unlikeable and unintelligent as Mussolini; they with Japan's Emporor formed an alliance of power that engulfed the world in war and death. Jerry Falwell Sr was among the creators of the Christian Nationalist movement and political agenda. He helped Ronald Reagan win the White House. He started a Christian university that remains among the most popular of Christian learning centers today. He believed that homosexuality is a sin against his God and should be punished in criminal courts. His influence on Reagan was to blame for the HIV epidemic that killed thousands of good men and women before the US government took notice. Former President George W Bush is unintelligent but thoroughly likeable. He is predictable. His administration is responsible for ushering in the oligarchy and the endless wars inside Afghanistan and Iraq. His administration approved the military intelligence' use of torture that was illegal since the second World War. Joel Osteen is among the wealthiest of all religious leaders worldwide. He owns mansions and yachts and has political influence in the Texas Republican party.
What is obvious is that none of these particular men achieved their successes on their own. Donald J Trump starred in a television series (I watched one episode and was too disgusted by it to ever watch again.) called The Apprentice that branded him and his organization, was picked up in 2015-1016 as a major GOP nominee because White Christian conservatives rallied behind him, Republican leaders who wanted the party to be fascist and knew they couldn't win local elections without MAGA empowered him, and America's billionaires funded him. His message is Putin's message: Power belongs in the hands of a few white wealthy men. Period.
Hitler and Mussolini and Hirohito had the same endorsement as Trump does now...God chose the man to rule the empire. Each of them relied on religious people's gullibility; each of them created enemies for the willfully ignorant masses to hate -- Jews, immigrants, atheists, elitists, socialists, the poor, the LGBTQ , the free press and journalists, Black people and all people of color; each of them demanded unquestioning loyalty; each of them designed society's hyerarchy around powerful men with all women in subservience and all other ethnic groups as subhuman. They seized the judiciary and used the courts to imprison political enemies. All of this requires intelligent minds, people who are creative and logical and brilliant organizers. Although these brilliant minds could have been better used to help all mankind, they were used to catapult demagogues and autocrats into power. And hold them there. What was their chief benefit? Power is just as sweet when it is shared, especially if the personal profit is great enough.
Ronald Reagan and George W Bush were brought to power because people warmed to their personalities. Charisma is a perplexing trait. Is a person innately charismatic? Is charisma something that any person can possess if practiced and learned? I do not know the answers to these questions but, I know that millions of voters go to the polls, voting for the unintelligent and ambiguously-moral man "because I just like how he walks and talks." The same thing can be said of Jerry Falwell, Sr (now deceased) and Joel Osteen and most cult/movement leaders. Voters and followers will jump hoops around the man's obvious lack of empathy and integrity, intelligence and job qualifications -- if they like the guy.
However, some people who aspire to greater power/influence just cannot seem to catch a break. And, for that we can be thankful. Often, these men and women face consequences in their lives for bad behaviors. Justice is served. And although they persist in their quest for fame and influence, they have yielded to secrecy or to mediocre achievments. They thrive where they are on a minimal diet of fame.
Frederick Drummond is one of these. He is lead pastor of Church of the New Creation in Weston, Florida. He controls Destiny Ministries. Since the 1970s in Missouri and Pennsylvania, Drummond has preached his special dispensation from God. He is -- or was when I knew him -- an intelligent person, mostly self-educated, charismatic, willing to wrest power from anyone who shows dissent, apathetic about others' feelings or needs, cruel, selfish, ambitious, and greedy. In five decades of declaring that God promises him a special purpose, he has floundered more than most. Osteen in Texas has everything that Drummond in south Florida ever wanted. Did God finally abandon Drummond?
First, anyone who believes that God would place all His hope for mankind in one or only a few humans is more lost in fantasy than the mothers who parade their five year old daughters on stage in sexy outfits to win tiaras and money. God did not abandon Drummond. God is a religious/political construct. God is whatever a society wants him or her to be.
Which makes the fantasy doubly ridiculous and dangerous. Today, Drummond is what he deserves. He is a selfish man who shares his personal life and power with fewer than a handful of people. He is secretive. He does not aspire to political influence. He merely wants fame and fortune. People in his church have borrowed money and run up overwhelming debts so that Drummond has what he wants. He does not care that others suffer. With his firstborn son and Grace Bellingham by his side, he has learned to be satisfied with a fraction of the fame and fortune he sought for several decades. He has no outside support system. Men like Trump, Musk, Osteen and DeSantis have a strong national support system. Drummond threw away his chances a long time ago when he eschewed Falwell and others. He is a User. A grifter. He is not capable of collaborating well with others.
Conclusion: I do not know. But, I see something that I've missed in conversations and books. No one person can achieve extraordinary success without others. Just as the Knight who jousts for the King's honor has helpers who fit him into his metal shields, seat him on the steed, and hand him the proper jousting tools, people who want to win need helpers. Unfortunately, helpers are as drawn to bad men as they are to good men. However, men who continuously berate helpers, harm their families and friends, and quell dissent by any means necessary are vulnerable and weak men. This is why I have some hope on this National Day of Shame. Trump is not the movement leader because he is intelligent or innovative or a Born Leader; he fell into it when his bigotry and racism pleased the Christian Nationalists. He sits tenuously and precariously at the helm with multitudes of people who despise what he has done to them -- watching and waiting. He sits there with multitudes of more intelligent, more creative, crueller people waiting for their chances to grab power. He won't last. Because he cannot.