In the howling storm of the COVID-19 epidemic, it’s all-too-easy to forget that Donald Trump cannot bring himself to leave the campaign trail. Not even for the deaths of thousands of innocent victims, not even at a time when the entire country is seeking leadership, or any form of concrete, specific direction from their not-so-grand potentate. You can take away his precious rallies, force his otherwise idle press secretary to call for daily conferences on a subject he clearly knows nothing - and cares even less - about, and his first and only thought will concern getting himself re-elected by any means necessary. For our 45th president, it’s all about getting renewed for another season in front of the camera. He will, like any serious geek, bite the heads off as many chickens as possible in order to stay in the tent.

In their latest move, the crew that brought our current nightmare to zombie life has given us a new slogan in the form of, what else, a tweet:

“WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.”
- Donald Trump, March 22, 2020

Ostensibly, the Trump campaign is offering an infantile argument against the measures taken to prevent the spread of a disease that will surely kill a significant number of our citizens, many of them elderly and already parked in his lot of shame. In Texas, they are currently trying on the martyr’s robes, willing to trade life itself for some measure of wealth they may pass down to their own. If the line was just a light jab to the superego, an attempt to push a button that would let the under-qualified off the hook for their latest round of colossal blunders, it would be easy to dismiss. But it’s more than that, and we as a nation have to confront that.

The problem that we can all see, feel and smell, the proverbial elephant in the room, is Mr. Trump himself. The cure, in this context, is any other person the American people might choose to place in the Oval office. This slogan operates at a second level of meaning, and exploits the ambiguity of human language to skew the electoral playing field in a fairly subtle manner. As we move toward the next election, the Trump campaign has planted a seed, or question, in the mind of each voter: is any given candidate likely to inflict even more damage on the nation than Donald Trump?

It’s a loaded question, and invites voters to allow their fears make a choice for them. This is, of course, the same device used to place Trump in office in the last election. Other candidates cannot, of course, prove a negative – I will not do more damage than a complete novice – and so Mr. Trump can simply goad and taunt with juvenile names and non-sequiturs instead of advancing any kind of platform or coherent argument (see, I’m a total novice). As is the custom, Trump’s opponents are compelled to make a case, define political positions, and offer plans for effecting proposed changes. Trump has no intention of defending his actions, beyond describing them in emotionally descriptive language (the most beautiful program, a tremendous gain); Trump is only interested in talking about how any other candidate (or cure) will be worse than the current problem (himself).

The original axiom refers to a disease that is cured, not a problem. It’s an important distinction: Trump would never refer to himself as a disease, although he is clearly a malignant tumor in a bad weave. Now, the line may have a pretty short half-life, as many in the media (and within his own party) use the original turn of phrase when repeating the argument or attempting to quote him. This thought must have occurred to his handlers, as he has returned to his usual campaign trigger phrases in public messages (i.e., in those press conferences about the Coronavirus). The term “problem” just doesn’t provoke the right response in his base of support: problems are solved, and solutions for real-world problems are not in Mr. Trump’s wheelhouse. He works exclusively within his own map, and does a very good job of avoiding the complicated territory we all must live in. Despite the wild irrelevance of it all, he is once again talking about “a big, beautiful wall” and “fake news” and “the deep state department” and all the other points of acupressure he likes to apply to our collective unconscious. He does it because it works: his groomed base salivates on command, just as Pavlov and Skinner predicted.

And so, we must ask ourselves: will we stay on the leash Trump’s handlers have placed on us? Brad Parscale and his crew are pretty good at their jobs, even if they have traded their souls for some small piece of the action. Without breaking any new ground, Parscale and his team have used the innovations created by others over the last twenty years to serve the needs of a false prophet, and the technical community must not forget, or forgive what he has done. Whatever they may offer with their profiles, data points and targeted messaging, it’s just not worth it. Democracy relies on honest communication for its survival, and Facebook, Twitter and others have shown they are not interested in protecting it.

As with any cult, Trump’s campaign offers a manifestation of the Freudian death drive, with its signature forms of aggression and repetition compulsion. Four years ago, I described the race between Trump and Clinton as “a referendum on the value of the reality principal” – as we know, the pleasure principal won that contest, and we wound up with the wealthy step-father who promised a fun spring break. This time around, we have to decide if we want to follow Trump’s cult over the cliff, or if we want to take back the wheel and set a new course for a higher purpose, a better future, and a brighter destiny.

— Steven Peterson, 2020  

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