Trump and His Criminal Trials Are a Perfect Mirror for Today’s United States

News flash: the legal, political, and social insanity in the U.S. continues … and continues … and keeps ramping up.

Or rather — that’s an old news flash. Or rather… we desperately wish it was old news.

Sadly, it’s still ‘the news’ — almost daily, without fail — but by now it’s gotten really old, incredibly repetitious, and incredibly tiresome (to say the very least).

But despite this constant in-your-face repetition, many Americans still don’t seem to ‘get’ what’s going on all around us in the U.S. So once again, as I’ve done so many times over the past few years, I’m going to try to express my take on our current miserable situation.

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Here goes: today I’m going to detail the many ways Trump and the United States mirror each other, with each highlighting the failures, foibles, crimes, and transgressions of the other.

For starters, with Trump we’ve got: endless lies, endless vanity, endless legal delaying tactics, endless grifting, endless misogyny, and sly — and sometimes direct — promotion of White supremacy and right-wing violence.

Turning to the U.S., we’ve also got endless lies, about things as varied as UFOs (now called UAPs — unidentified aerial phenomena), domestic spying on U.S. citizens, and what really happened on 9/11; endless vanity about how wonderful and ‘exceptional’ the U.S. is; endless delaying tactics about crucial issues like climate disruption, vast wealth inequality, and true equality for women and minorities; endless fiscal irresponsibility and an out-of-control, fast-rising national debt; endless attacks on women’s rights and freedom of choice; and far too much ‘wink-wink, nudge-nudge’ tolerance for (White) right-wing violence.

Like I said: Trump and today’s U.S. really do mirror each other — and NOT in complimentary or positive ways.

A perfect representation of America’s ‘dark side’

It’s taken me quite a while to realize the full, ugly truth, but I finally recognized that Donald Trump is a perfect reflection/ representation of the ‘dark’ United States — or should I say, of the dangerous, frightening ‘dark side’ of the U.S.

His aberrant, devious, and destructive behaviors exactly reflect the devious and destructive values and actions which the U.S. has been increasingly ‘stuck’ in for decades — ever since Obama was elected president and the (horrified) right-wing reacted by going totally bonkers.

For several years, I’ve been writing about the intensely disturbing, freakish ‘Twilight Zone’ reality that’s been overtaking and consuming the U.S. This bizarre and frightening ‘upside-down’ reality has been spreading and intensifying in exact parallel with the rise of Trump and MAGA. At this point, that’s simply an undeniable ‘fact of life’ here in the States.

Additionally, over the past nine years, our media and pundits have (quite blindly) spoken and acted as if Trump is a one-off, a totally unique phenomenon.

They act as if he’s just a wild, grotesque aberration of an otherwise-sound system — but many things and events have happened, by now, which put the lie to that idea. Instead, they show — quite definitively — that Trump is a near-perfect embodiment of our horribly distorted and unfair social and economic systems.

In this way, Trump is a true mirror — and is merely revealing us to ourselves. Each and every day, now, he is showing us who we really are, and what we have really been creating in our society.

It’s not a pretty picture.

Abominable character traits that Trump and the ‘dark’ U.S. share

Here’s a short list of some negative, dangerous qualities and characteristics that Trump shares with the ‘dark’ U.S. as a whole:

1. Trump epitomizes the ruthless, greed-driven capitalist and money-hoarder — while the U.S. has increasingly embraced super-capitalism and surging wealth inequality, and supported the rapid growth of the ‘billionaire class.’ Simultaneously, millions of ‘average Americans’ — fully employed Americans — are struggling financially, and unable to afford even vital necessities. Many are maxing out their credit cards — a very bad sign, economically.

2. Trump openly expresses many racist ideas and ‘dogwhistles,’ and directly appeals to Americans’ inherent racism, hate, and intolerance. In this, he mirrors and directly embodies the underlying (often overt!) racism that has infected the U.S. from its inception, and that still powerfully affects our society and politics today.

3. Trump loves to demonize ‘the left,’ and constantly incites his MAGA followers against the ‘libtards’ — all while complaining bitterly about being ‘persecuted’ and ‘canceled’ by the (leftist) ‘fake news media.’ But the truth is, the U.S. is a heavily right-wing nation; right-wing views get much more ‘air time’ here — and if anyone is getting ‘canceled’ in today’s U.S., it’s the liberals and progressives. Both Trump and the U.S. itself keep perpetuating the devious right-wing fantasy that the U.S. is being ‘taken over’ by radical socialists, illegal immigrants, and out-of-control liberals.

4. Trump lies so constantly and prodigiously that he exactly fits the definition of a pathological liar. Likewise, lies, half-truths, and deliberate deception have become just ‘business as usual’ for the U.S. government, especially all its intelligence services. Both Trump and the U.S. engage in willful, endless lying, and both will do anything necessary to obscure or cover up ‘inconvenient truths.’

5. Trump has shown us, again and again, what a vengeful, vicious ‘insult factory’ he is, and how NO moral restraints or guardrails mean anything to him, or are able to contain him. He is a stunningly amoral human being. Likewise, there’s a large faction of politicians in the U.S. — primarily in the GOP — who have, like Trump, adopted the savage ‘No Principles’ principle. Like Trump, they have no problem with insulting other politicians, pulling antisocial stunts, attacking minorities, undermining our society, and allowing the true needs and business of the U.S. and our society to go totally unmet.

6. Trump is very much a ‘man’s man’ — and a total misogynist. He brags about abusing women, and has been successfully sued for sexual assault and defamation by several women. He appeals directly to Americans’ outdated patriarchal and misogynist beliefs, and brags about stacking the Supreme Court with ultra-conservative, ‘pro-life’ justices.

Meanwhile, ‘his’ Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, removed women’s fundamental right to control their own bodies and reproduction, and threw the issue back to the states — many of which have enacted almost total bans on abortion, and stripped women of their right to family planning and bodily autonomy. The U.S. has thus proven itself, once again, to be a deeply unfair and misogynist nation.

7. Trump is infamous for his grandiosity, boundless narcissism, and mob-boss-style threats and manipulations. Similarly, the U.S. is infamous for its vain ‘American exceptionalism’ and grandiosity, its bullying military presence, and its self-serving, bullying foreign policy.

8. Lastly, Trump is known as ‘the king of lawsuits’ because he is incredibly litigious, and has been directly involved in over 4,000 lawsuits so far! He is also known for his cynical ‘obstruct, appeal, delay, and keep delaying’ legal tactics, which have been on full display this past year, as he (mainly successfully) appealed and delayed his upcoming criminal trials.

Meanwhile, the dark underbelly of our dysfunctional legal and justice systems has been revealed: so far, Trump has gotten away with almost everything, largely due to his ability to paralyze our justice system with endless appeals and motions. In the U.S., wealthy White males undoubtedly get preferential ‘kid-glove’ treatment, and wealthy White ex-presidents get incredibly preferential treatment. To say that we have a two-tier justice system is a vast understatement.

The U.S. is locked in mortal combat with itself

So, as Trump’s first criminal trial begins in earnest this week, what we’re witnessing is indeed historic, in several ways.

Yes, we’re seeing the first-ever active criminal prosecution of a U.S. ex-president — and current presidential candidate. But much more importantly, we’re seeing the ‘ideal,’ idealistic, justice-and-equality-promoting Unites States going up against the foremost icon and proponent of the persistent, destructive ‘dark’ U.S.

As I’ve already written about extensively, we Americans have been witnessing the bout of the century in ‘The U.S. vs. Donald Trump.’ And that’s certainly one useful way to look at it.

But it’s equally true to say that the U.S. is now locked in mortal combat with itself.

Today, and for the rest of this year (minimum), we’re all witnessing the U.S. in a deadly-serious, terrifying battle with itself — or as President Biden sometimes puts it, a tremendous ‘battle for the soul of our nation.’

And — news flash — it continues to be frighteningly, horrifically unclear which version of the U.S. will win this final, crucial battle.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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