His skin is only a couple of shades lighter than burnt sienna as he takes the stage. I always notice his hair, it looks like dried up yellow cotton candy. His wife follows a few feet behind, pretty but unsure of herself, how disrespectful it seems that he never waits for her. She is always walking behind him as if she’s less important. At one point, he turns to her and says something, the big smile on her face quickly fades and her eyes shift downward, for a moment she looks like she might cry. I wonder what he could have said to change her demeanor so drastically.
He raises a small hand as he begins to speak, his short fingers extended to form an “L”. He speaks of things we’ve all heard before. He speaks of putting America first, of giving the power back to the people. I get a shiver in the soul of my spine. Aren’t these reminiscent of the empty promises of dictators that came before him? Have we learned nothing from our past?
He stands there with a huge microphone stuck in his face, and speaks of power. He tells us how our government, in the past, has had too much too much of it. He says this as the most powerful man in the world. He tells us, his tiny hands raised in the air, of how our government has gotten too rich and helped make other countries rich, he says this as a billionaire who has, seemingly, done nothing to give back to his country.
“A new vision will govern our land.” He says, his bright red tie clashing with the orange hue of his leathery skin. And they applaud him. I get another shiver. These are the notions of someone from one of those science fiction books where America has been taken over by Nazis or power hungry extremists. He promises to “eradicate Islamic terrorism from the face of the earth”, a promise he couldn’t possibly keep. He speaks of “total allegiance” to America. Another spine-tingling statement reminiscent of dictators past. He has built an entire campaign on these types of grand statements and his followers still seem to believe him, no matter how many times he proves himself to be a liar. No matter how many times he has flip-flopped on major issues or denied saying something that there is recorded evidence of, his ardent followers refuse to budge.
It’s easy to see that he revels in the attention he gets. He basks in the applause, he needs it like the rest of us need oxygen. He needs to be seen and heard or else he might as well not even exist. This is not someone that wants to lead, this is someone that wanted to win a popularity contest.
I look at the tiny fingers he holds in the air and I picture them at his home, typing away on the keyboard of his very expensive computer. They move quick and furiously, his revenge in motion. To the latest person that criticizes him, a tweet. To the voters that still outwardly support his opponents, a tweet. To anyone questioning his judgement or his policies, a tweet. I see this in my mind and I see an unstable man now elected to run our country and yet another shiver hits me because I wonder how long it will take him to start a war with a single one of these childish tweets brought on by another infantile temper tantrum.
At this point in his speech, he is criticizing those that came before him. He speaks of how previous leaders have failed us and, in doing so, begins his attempts to turn us against them. He does this the same way he turned us against each other. This is a man that thrives on division, it has gotten him to where he is, after all.
Welcome to The Divided States of America.
True Hope Is Swift 