30 pieces none the richer

This is what makes me laugh about Donald Trump.

We had eight years of calm, thoughtful, and articulate governance by an educated well-intentioned man.

And for eight years we’ve had to put up with the blithering idiocy from people who swore up and down this man was going to do everything from allowing the U.N to take over the country to setting up FEMA camps for those who were ‘patriotic.’

When Barack Obama was elected president these people feared one thing.

Karma.

That’s it. Karma. They were afraid of what Barack COULD have done to them. They feared something that THEY felt guilty about. Something in the social consciousness of the body politic that knew AND UNDERSTANDS that racism exists.

That knows when an unarmed black man is gunned down by police – that man’s civil liberties were violated.
That his rights as a U.S. Citizen were arbitrarily dismissed. Because the color of his or her skin made them less in their eyes.

Essentially, like AIDS, the cops were ‘killing all the right ones.’

Barack was a threat to that mind set. To the continuance of that minds set taught to their children and grandchildren through the years. He stood in contrast to what they believed a black man was capable of.

Educated, articulate, successful, and they hated him for it. They hated his wife, for it. They hated their political impotence in ridding the country of him. He served eight years. If his polling data is to believed, he’d serve another four and perhaps another four after that if our laws didn’t prevent it.

The world is changing. And these people are afraid of that. They are afraid that in a couple generations the average American will look a lot different than the one today. They’ll have brown skin. Dark eyes.

The only constant in the universe is change. Something President Obama promised in his campaign eight years ago. Change.

And change did occur.

America is freer that once it was. 20 Million more Americans are receiving healthcare than once they were. Our economy is making record gains. And the world is safer now that Osama Bin Laden is out of the picture.

But over the past eight years, there has been a festering. Like a wound or a boil left growing. The bitterness and fear and animosity became infected. The hate that showed up in 2010 with the emergence of The Tea Party, turned vile.

And that nastiness found a replacement for Barack to mirror the infection. To bring it to head so to speak. Donald Trump is a joke that isn’t really funny. Right now there is a lot crass humor making its rounds but it’s a form of stress relief called Gallows Humour. Laughing, essentially, because if you don’t you’ll start screaming.

The feelings of anger and resentment were so strong, that it caused the children of the Greatest generation to betray their parents and everything their parents stood against. When Hillary Clinton mistakenly yet accurately, described these people as ‘ a basket of deplorables’ she wasn’t lying. ((But let’s be honest here, she had no way of winning anyway. Because while racism is the depths of the ocean, sexism in this country is the Mariana Trench)) These people are deplorable and so is their president. We need to start calling it, and them, for what they are.

Judas Iscariot betrayed Christ for 30 silver. But Judas’ greatest sin wasn’t because he betrayed Christ but because he gave up hope. He lost hope in redemption, he lost hope in forgiveness, he lost hope in the idea that tomorrow could be a better day. And he never got a chance to use that money. When Christ was led away to his inevitable demise, Judas realized what he did and hung himself.

I think over the next several days, maybe weeks, America will realize what it did. It will realize that change is inevitable, it is the only constant in the universe. But it will also realize that while the change was inevitable, the change COULD have happened on its terms. It could have reached higher than the wickedness of its own heart, it could have banished the fear of the ghosts of times passed, it could have abandoned the superstition and did what it SHOULD have done. Instead, it will realize just what kind of change they bought for thirty pieces of silver.

I just hope – for all our sakes- that the noose, that symbol of utter hopelessness and despair, that was for so long a threatening symbol of racism, that while not held in the hands of those who hated our former president’s skin colour, certainly held it in their hearts, will not be pulled taut by a madman who is, quite simply, yet profoundly, unAmerican.

We have all been betrayed.