Could Trump’s disastrous missteps make the world a better place?
It seems the U.S. president is helping Trump resistance more than any other entity
Is it possible there is an upside to Donald Trump?
Even asking this question, I realize, is like pondering the health benefits of arsenic.
The U.S. president is, first and foremost, a toxin. He speaks or tweets and the most common reflex is to gag on the poison. He is thoughtful in the same way a python is cuddly. He is a bucket of venom who, to myopic fans, is worshipped as a fountain of common sense.
Instead of a flag pin in his lapel, his XXL suits should be comprised of a patchwork of skull-and-- bones hazard warnings: Autocracy is dangerous to your health.
But after this weekend, in which Trump somehow managed to add the NFL to the list of individuals and groups repulsed by his moral failures, a silver lining came into view.
Under the sheer weight of his awfulness, pressed down by his divisive rhetoric and demagoguery, Trump is unwittingly allowing the best in America to escape from the margins and, for once, shine in the spotlight. Trump is making America great again by showing how un-American he is.
Until he came along, the masses did not binge on politics the way we do now, which seems to be 16 hours a day in the fetal position while fearing the end of days.
There is no question this presidency is more exhausting than a sprint up Kilimanjaro — and on most days, the terrain is more treacherous while the air is thinner. But if you can endure the panic attacks, Life During Trump is also oddly uplifting.
His contempt for democratic institutions has only made people realize how crucial these institutions are to democracy. The branches of government, once abstractions to be parsed by the wonks and nerds in our midst, now serve a concrete function as a bulwark against a bonkers White House in disarray.
The more Trump rails against all that is decent, the more he contaminates the groundwater of political discourse with his noxious barbs, the more he imparts a valuable lesson: It’s easier to see how government is supposed to work when it simply is not working at all.
By not leading, Trump is showcasing the importance of leadership. By dividing, he’s making us crave unity. In this sense, his raging incompetence — the guy has logged as many wins so far as the 2008 Detroit Lions — is borderline soothing.
Trump keeps vowing to burn things to the ground. Then institutional forces gather into a blowback force and the torch is ripped out of his tiny fingers, and all that remains is a flashpoint of failed ignorance.
There is also comfort in knowing who and what Trump stands against. If once, just once, he landed on the right side of history, it might complicate the arguments of his detractors. But when Joe Arpaio gets a pardon and Colin Kaepernick is deemed a son of a bitch, Trump is leaving no room for ambiguity on what he thinks about human rights and peaceful protest and America’s once trusted position on both. The result is clear: Instead of making them vanish with sneering contempt, Trump keeps raising awareness for long-simmering issues by forcing them further into the mainstream. Trump the magician can’t make any eggs disappear because he always botches his tricks and ends up with yolk on his chin.
When Barack Obama was president, there was one Kaepernick. After this weekend, there are dozens of Kaepernicks and the take-a-knee form of protest has moved swiftly past football fields and into concert stadiums.
At this rate, children will be taking a knee during the national anthem at school.
When the Republicans spent seven years trying to dismantle Obamacare, most late-night comedians did not pay attention to the health of the citizenry. Now someone like Jimmy Kimmel is a one-man wrecking crew, smashing GOP lies and talking points from a stage once reserved for sardonic tomfoolery.
A nexus has formed between entertainment and sport and it is significant.
And so Trump’s blatant assault on democracy is, in the long run, only going to strengthen it. The irony is this president is doing more to help the Trump resistance than any other single entity. While the best argument against Trump was always Trump, the speed in which he is turning usually neutral observers into powerful activists should alarm his base as it relieves everyone else.
By operating with no moral compass, by simply acting in haste in a desperate bid for ego gratification, Trump is like a UV light that is exposing the xenophobic, racist and sexist bedbugs that too many once believed were a progressive myth.
Now it’s all out in the open for everyone to see.
It sure does seem like Donald Trump is hell-bent on destruction. But over time, he is likely to make the world a better place, one disastrous misstep at a time.