I’m the first to admit it: I haven’t Timothy’s stomach for “watch the opposition so they can’t surprise you.” I’ve avoided watching the revisionist history show that is apparently this year’s Republican National Convention. Instead, I read the day-after analysis, and have talked with the few people of my acquaintance willing to tune in. The perspective of the *one referenced in this post’s headline shook me to the core.
That one person is my mother’s wonderful caregiver: kindness personified, and a keen observer of human needs, fears and friendship. She hails from Eastern Europe, left her native country 20+ years ago to make a new life in a country free from fear and welcoming to talented immigrants. (As once America did…)
On days when my mama isn’t up to much conversation, we two chat about current events. Yesterday, this led us to a discussion of the RNC’s festival of Trump. The president is the other one in this post’s headline. And she knew what she was looking at all right.
“I could not believe what I was seeing and hearing. The shouting, the praise, the glorification of this president: it was like what I heard growing up. No one there dared ever say a word against Dear Leader — and we children had to call him ‘Father’ every day in our classroom salutes.
“What has happened to America? I didn’t think government officials here could be ordered to say such things that weren’t true. It was just surreal to watch. Then I heard those people who pointed guns at protesters were supposed to speak — I don’t know if they did. I had to turn it off.”
Dystopia, indeed. For someone who lived under dictatorship to recognize in America’s president the behavior and character of a notorious autocrat. Moreover, she recognized the fawning sycophants, bending the Hatch Act to shore up the president’s inventions. (An opinion piece by Frank Bruni in the New York Times gleefully pointed out some of those inventions. Alternatively, the Annenberg Foundation’s FactCheck.org offers straight-up fact-checking.)
I have no answer to give my mother’s caregiver. Maybe she should do what a friend of mine recommended: just catch up the next morning with Stephen Colbert.