No more, when is enough not enough…

Now when we learned, what he knew, & when he knew it.

When enough isn’t enough…

NO MORE

Forgive me, for I am a Sondheimophile. After listening to the president’s own words taped for Bob Woodward’s book, Rage, Sondheim came to mind, and more precisely, his 1987 effort Into the Woods. The musical is an intensely felt series of cautionary tales that begins with Grimm Brothers’ favorites like Cinderella and Rapunzel. These are the tales that for centuries read to children at bedtime (sometimes) that contain moral, cautionary nuggets of wisdom, written to immunize children from coming anxieties that follow childhood. Sondheim uses the phrase “Be careful what you wish for” as the show’s subtitle, a sentiment more prescient today for those Americans who should be in shock considering they have been followers of Trump. This is for them. Sondheim wrote his cautionary tale during the time of the AIDS virus and its devastating course of death and destruction during the ’80s. Woodward’s tale, written during the time of COVID. Both scourges became further inflamed by the political sideshow. The ignorance and callousness of political class, led by another clueless president, fanned the flames of hate and discrimination among the general populace. To be gay and HIV — positive was an indictment. Woodward has provided us with a cautionary tale of our time as he quotes another clueless president who in a private conversation with the author indicts himself with what may well be the crime of the century. I am specifically reminded of the somber lament in Act II, “No More”:

Trump Agonistes

The stunning revelations by Woodward have illuminated for all times what we always suspected about Trump — — his lies have been both purposeful and lethal. They should once and for all shake his base and his Republican Senate to their core. The vanity of their nuanced positions as they enabled Trump’s lying and corruption is finally laid bare for all to hear in his own words. Trump is shown to be responsible for the deaths of American citizens he was sworn to protect. He killed them as surely as if he injected them with bleach. His weapon was his callow disregard for truth and human life. The base should be even angrier than the rest of us because he didn’t deserve their, however misplaced, loyalty. He not only let them down, he made fools of them.

How do they ignore — — all his lies, his false hopes, the reverses? As we were left wondering “ what even worse is still in store “? They couldn’t get enough of their asinine tinpot despot, so they attended his rallies and proudly disdained masks and distancing. They too died, many of them after having attended one of his “super spreader” events. They didn’t notice the distance between themselves and their leader as they signed away their rights to hold him accountable. They didn’t think to question his motives in rallying them, because he never cared to press theirs. A legion of sycophants, racists, and morons cheered him on, every enthusiastic shout and “amen” a potential release of the fury of the plague they carried in their hearts as well as in their breath. All the while, the external evidence pointed to their own self-delusion:

The Urgency of Now

Trump is now damned by his own damnable words in this book. He deserves a fate far worse than the shallow ignominy of an election loss — — he deserves immediate ouster and imprisonment. What are we waiting for? His own private words have condemned him. His public words are proof of his contempt for us. In the time it takes to remove him, more will die. The longer that removal takes, the children he has condemned to attend unsafe schools will sicken and some will die. He was always an existential threat to our nation, and now we have the proof.

It is time folks to strap on our anger and condemnation and do what we know is the right thing. No more “suckers”, no more “losers” — no more victims. The calls for his immediate resignation should begin. Similar calls for an account should be directed at Republican legislators who now have lost the final shred of the fig leaf their ignorance and tawdry arrogance has to date provided. For Trump, a civil trial should follow, one that finally places him before a jury of peers. Far from our fear that he will not leave the White House, he should be fearful of being dragged out in shackles. He deserves no less.

In fact, he deserves…. No More.

Originally published at https://www.dailykos.com on September 10, 2020.