The Sooner, the Better

My post title plays off of that of Rob Crisell's American Spectator piece, titled, "The Impending Divorce of Trump and the GOP." Within, Crisell summarizes the disgraceful behavior of Donald Trump over the past few weeks, including his recent incitement of a mob of supporters in the nation's capitol.

Crisell sums up as follows:

Mount Doom comes to mind, too. (Image by PublicDomainPictures, via Pixabay, license.)

The violence and chaos that ensued seemed to validate the worst accusations of demagoguery and selfishness that Never Trumpers and Democrats have heaved at the president over the last four years. Worse, the nation was forced to endure the nauseating spectacle of Democrats suddenly becoming staunch defenders of law and order after months of condoning the violent BLM and Antifa riots. Dissent was suddenly unpatriotic and resistance was treason. [link omitted, bold added]

Well put, but for the bit about Trump exemplifying "selfishness:" He doesn't.

I don't recall who it was or where I heard it, but I believe at least one Objectivist has likened Donald Trump to that popular misconception of selfishness that Ayn Rand called the "tribal lone wolf" in her essay, "Selfishness Without a Self." Within that essay, Rand describes the predatory amoralist in part as follows:

The clearest symptom by which one can recognize this type of person, is his total inability to judge himself, his actions, or his work by any sort of standard. The normal pattern of self-appraisal requires a reference to some abstract value or virtue -- e.g., "I am good because I am rational," "I am good because I am honest," even the second-hander's notion of "I am good because people like me." Regardless of whether the value-standards involved are true or false, these examples imply the recognition of an essential moral principle: that one's own value has to be earned.

The amoralist's implicit pattern of self-appraisal (which he seldom identifies or admits) is: "I am good because it's me."

Much later, Rand adds:

With all of his emphasis on "himself" (and on being "loved for himself"), the tribal lone wolf has no self and no personal interests, only momentary whims. He is aware of his own immediate sensations and of very little else. Observe that whenever he ventures to speak of spiritual (i.e., intellectual) values -- of the things he personally loves or admires -- one is shocked by the triteness, the vulgarity, the borrowed trashiness of what comes out of him.

Consider this in light of Trump's prolonged fit of destruction, which includes actions regarding Georgia any sane person would have realized risked Republican control of the Senate, and in his pandering to a crowd of thugs:

We will not take it anymore and that's what this is all about ... We fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore.

"Take" what? The results of an election? Our country's best institutions and political practices? "Fight" whom or for what? The courts have spoken regarding electoral irregularities: The way to fix anything that needs repair is within our existing political system, not by trashing it entirely.

This -- like Trump's apparent attempt to buy votes with $2000 checks and his blatant attempt to pressure election officials -- exemplifies the very things our nation was created to protect her citizens from. Crisell is correct to note that Trump did not "know what would happen next." That is because, on the evidence, he has no grasp of the principles of America's founding and so can not know -- or care.

Trump's senseless crudity has left us with the the executive and legislative branches of government in the hands of a party that is hardly more civilized or concerned with limited government than he is.

We desperately need an opposition party now. Hell, we needed one at least four years ago -- and this is probably why so many people were hoping against hope that Trump wasn't really that bad.

If Trump is doing us any favors now, they are by accident: He has blundered into making it easy for the GOP to repudiate him.

Many years ago, near the end of an unhappy marriage, my then-spouse inadvertently gave me the perfect excuse to do what I was already thinking about. My thought then seems quite timely for the GOP now: This is your chance. Take it.

-- CAV