(The following opinion column does not constitute an endorsement of any political party or candidate on the part of Newsmax.)
Donald Trump's legacy within the GOP is forever up in the air. Although he enjoys steadfast support from large swaths of the Republican base, few establishment Republican leaders fully endorse him, with a handful openly wearing the "Never Trumper" badge with more pride than prejudice.
Yet, this is nothing next to the solid wall of pure loathing Democrats have built around Trump, brick by loyal brick.
No Democrat is indifferent to Trump. There's no middle ground, no lukewarm disdain. Whereas some Republicans may betray him at the slightest convenience, Democrats will always remain unwaveringly hostile. They can be trusted to spit on Trump's grave, the absence of flowers a silent testament to Republican embarrassment. They will write frightening verse and prose about the "Bad Orange Man" long after he's dust.
This kind of loyalty can't be bought, not with money nor office. And it's an ironclad reason to believe that Trump's notorious legacy will endure.
To the Democrats, Trump must be stopped at all costs — or else he'll persecute the opposition, throw civil rights activists in jail, make racism public policy, and maybe kick off World War III. Luckily for us, none of that has happened yet, right?
Their impassioned blindness guides the spectacle of Trump's legal battles, blurring the lines between truth and imagination so thoroughly that separating fact from fiction might just break reality.
One might be tempted to call Trump's trials and tribulations "Kafkaesque" — conjuring images of shadowy practices and obscure plots. But, outside the feverish dreams of E. Jean Carroll, there's nothing Kafkaesque about them.
There's no grand mystery to unpack, where assigning purpose, reason, or benefit becomes an impossible task. Everything is laid out plainly.
From public attorneys voted into office with clear mandates to target Trump to judges who can barely conceal their scorn for him, there are no dizzying mazes to get lost in here. The bureaucrats running the show lack even the wicked dignity of remaining faceless. They campaigned for it, they voted for it, plastered it all over the billboards, and made sure everyone paid up.
It speaks to a very cynical perversion of the democratic ideals they ostensibly hold dear.
The title of Franz Kafka's masterpiece on judicial surrealism, "Der Prozess," plays a neat trick — meaning both "the trial" and "the process" in German. That's precisely where Trump's at. It's not just the court cases tearing him up; it's the whole "process" trying to grind him down.
A key distinction exists, though: We are never told the alleged crime for which Josef K., Kafka's protagonist, is persecuted. Trump's crime, on the other hand, is well-known — and of a rather Socratic nature.
Socrates was famously accused of "corrupting the youth" of Athens during a time when pederasty was a high art — a situation strangely similar to today, where the meaning of "corrupting the youth" has once again been completely inverted.
Trump, too, is accused of that type of corruption, though his most flagrant — and successful — offense involves corrupting the blue-collar, working-class Americans.
Like Socrates, Trump is clearly guilty as charged. Yet there are no angry mobs in this witch hunt. Just as the ancient oligarchy believed Athens had to be purified and reaffirmed through the purge of Socrates, so too does the modern oligarchy believe that only by purging Trump can they cleanse their power halls.
In these times, where "guilty" has been subverted, it seems inevitable that the concept of "innocence" will lose any significance.
So what will that mean when a jury is asked if Trump is guilty or innocent in today's context? Perhaps it no longer matters.
As Democrats continue to pile straw men onto a long-broken camel's back, Trump seems to develop an extreme case of antifragility — almost a sort of antimortality. His legend thrives not on the anger of his supporters, as it's been said, but on the relentless hate from his detractors.
Trump is the underdog bully, 100% American pit bull — perhaps sporting a golden retriever toupee, but I digress — battling a pack of yapping Chihuahuas trying to kill him by a thousand bites. He's Rudy. Except in this story Rudy Ruettiger is Bill Romanowski — but d**n if you wouldn't cheer for him to make that one play.
At this point, some might say this is all a bunch of nonsense — and perhaps it is. Yet this kind of nonsense could never be written about Joe Biden or just about anyone else in politics. Trump is cut from the stuff nonsense is made of. And that's irresistible. Unlike Biden, he's not just a man of his time; he is the man for these times — when the masses want their bread cheaper and their circuses, at least, a little entertaining.
Cauf Skiviers writes about philosophy, economics, politics, and things that lie between the inconceivable and the undesirable. His reports also appear at: https://cauf.substack.com. Read more of Cauf Skiviers' reports here.
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