3/7/24

Whether Hoping for a Laugh, or
Venting Political Angst, Armchair
Assassins Abound In An Age of Trump

THE SNEAKER SALESMAN bestrides America. ILLUSTRATION by Frank Gerardi

AMONG THE MANY DREADFUL THINGS Donald Trump has done to America is turn a fraction of the citizenry into armchair assassins.
     “I wish Trump would just drop dead,” a friend told me recently.
     I told him I occasionally had similar thoughts, and that I have heard the same from others.
    Should the NSA, FBI, FDIC or the FSB be listening in with AI powered algorithms, let me say I am unaware of any  active plots to neutralize politicians or anyone else, and if I did, I’d be the first to play the rat.
     The folks who are imagining Trump’s timely passing are no latter day Lee Harvey Oswalds.
     Their flights of fancy don’t involve bullets, bombs, or bazookas, or any other kind of direct action. Instead, they envision second- or third-hand mechanisms, the kind of arms-length finales known as “natural causes.”
     But some Democrats are so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump presidency, and frustrated that the forces that usually end the careers of errant politicians don’t apply in the Age of Trump, that only a sudden passing could be their last, best hope.

SO, DEADLY DAYDREAMS ABOUND.
     I found a bunch of such "ideas" in the Comments section that followed and online publication of an opinion column in the March 5 Washington Post.
     The author was Charlie Sykes, a conservative never-Trumper, who was musing at length about Trump’s serial escapes from legal and political accountability.  Sykes’ column was headlined:
DONALD TRUMP, THE LUCKIEST POLITICIAN WHO EVER LIVED
      He wrote:

 For almost a decade (though it feels even longer), we’ve watched him trip through minefields, totter on the edge of sinkholes and step on trapdoors, each time thinking: This is it. Now he’s going down. It has become a mantra of dashed hopes: The walls are (once again) closing in on Donald Trump. He’s on the brink, desperate. This time, surely this time. And yet, somehow, he escapes.

     Sykes’ column set off an avalanche of angry reader comments, some debating whether “lucky” was an appropriate term, others blaming the courts, or indicting rich mega-donors, insincere media outlets and an indifferent electorate for the current situation.
     When I last looked, there were 3,446 comments, with a smattering – but far from a majority – wishing the ex-president the very worst.
     One reader wrote:
     If only he would cease breathing.
     That was one of the gentler responses, perhaps suggesting that not breathing is isn’t murder, only something that happens.
     Some appealed to nature:
     Mother Nature has a ticking time bomb for him. I’m rooting for Mother Nature.
     A couple of writers hoped an even more powerful Mother would intervene:
     Obviously we're incapable of saving ourselves from the devil incarnate, so Lord, it's up to you.
     * * *
     There is only one way we are going to get rid of this plague on our country; the Grim Reaper. No one can cheat death; no matter how lucky.
       Some singled out  poor lifestyle choices, resulting in predictably dismal health outcomes:
     Come on greasy hamburgers, do your thing!!
     * * *
     Luck for the rest of us would come in the form of a massive stroke or heart attack.
        But another writer seemed let down by  the medical option:
     So it's all going to come down to Trump's clogged arteries?
     A few readers were in such despair that they wondered - since it was Trump  - whether death itself would be enough.
     Even if trump dies, which I truly hope he does (today would be acceptable), he will still get millions of write-in votes. His base might truly believe that, if elected after his death, he will be resurrected to "save" America.
      Another was both philosophical and wishful:
     All lucky streaks end. May I wake up tomorrow and read his obituary.

AS I SCROLLED through hundreds of comments, then thousands more, I was sad about the damage that Donald Trump already has done to our national psyche.
     The challenge Trump has posed for the past decade is that, whatever else, the majority of Americans must avoid the temptation to try to out-trump Trump.
     Political process, the justice system, protest and debate are the corrective tools prescribed by the Constitution and democracy to cure our collective ills.
     To wish for Trump’s unscheduled passing hands him an undeserved victory, and speaking only for myself, I repent.
     A militia of death-dreamers assembled in America’s living rooms and kitchens – whether hoping for a good laugh or expressing sincere frustration – only advances Donald Trump’s campaign of cynicism, conspiracy and contempt.
    * * *
NOTE: The original ending was unfunny and stupid, and counter to the point of the posting. So,  I knocked off the last two lines, to be unambiguous about always rejecting Trump's way of doing business. Apologies. - Brian C. Jones