Yesterday morning, cold and wet and dark, I woke up in the unfinished stanza of the great poem called America. A new poet had taken over the manuscript: Donald J. Trump. His stanza was full of powerful words and imagery. It began on June 16, 2015 with an escalator descent from heaven, a golden crowned savior, a mouth of silver words, and a foreign Aphrodite at his side. In July this gold-leaf warrior appeared through a red, white, and blue patriotic haze onto the stage of the Republican convention, an orange Julius Caesar preparing to manifest the victor’s Latin cry: veni, vidi, vici, I came, I saw, I conquered.
The name, TRUMP, is a single syllable pugilistic punch in the establishments’ face with overtones of besting an opponent and undertones of trumpet and triumph. The feel good four word backward glance to America’s mythic glory was a stroke of genius. The imposing body language exhibited in the town hall posturing portrayed power. The constant orchestration of anger raised the temperature of both sides of the body politic. Through the alchemy of words, he could transmute a scandal [Greek:. skandalon = stumbling block] into a stepping stone. With both shoes full of self-inflicted holes, he stood even stronger after each wound.
Through the skillful manipulation of image and word Donald Trump has been telling us who he is and how he thinks. He has been very plainspoken in introducing himself. For over a year he has persuaded me to take him at his words and deeds. I have not been attracted to the who or the how revealed. I didn’t vote for him because I didn’t like the narcissistic product he was selling. Up to now he has convinced me to believe him.
Evidently that was his rough draft. Now I must believe the revision. Now he must convince me I was wrong to believe the campaigner. Now he must persuade me to believe the president-elect.
I hope a better Donald Trump was lurking behind the candidate, waiting for the opportune time to make a public appearance. Now is the time. His strategy of dividing must now be reversed into a strategy of unifying. Even though he has given me little reason to doubt what I have seen and heard from him over the last sixteen months, I will begin by giving him the benefit of the doubt.