In that every-so-often assessment one makes about what life is all about and the determinations we make about what’s essential to be satisfied, my latest focus is on how I need to be more loving. In fact, being loving is a key to happiness. It’s more important than being loved. Keeping your heart open, being loving regardless of the object in focus at the time, brings you the goods.
I’m thinking about Trump and how unthinkable he is. However, I can pity this misguided person rather than being infuriated with him. That poor guy has to be who he is. Hatred is justifiable, but, when you look at the goods in life, feeling sorry for Trump trumps loathing him.
That can apply to everyone you hold grudges on. You are justified. They did it. Now what? Do whatever to deal, but bear compassion in mind. They were doing the best they could when they did you dirt.
HOW TO TRUMP TRUMP!
To understand Trump and the art of dealing with him, look back. There are three core influences that have formed the miasma of his mindset. (Fyi…these do not include his own family upbringing).
First, Trump’s pastor, Norman Vincent Peale (“Power of Positive Thinking”) preached, “Never think of yourself as failing. Summon up a positive thought for every negative. Deprecate every so-called obstacle. And raise your own self-estimate.” Sounds like the ever-optimistic “new age” gone drunk on the “kool-aid.”
Second, Trump learned from his infamous attorney Roy Cohn that “say anything at any time to serve your needs in the moment.” It’s no wonder that this is a man who has openly, joyfully, gleefully, and proudly said… “the truth is irrelevant.” This is why the Oxford Dictionary word of the year is “post truth.”
Thirdly, his first wife, Ivanna, has said that Trump kept one of Hitler’s book on his bed-stand. Hitler’s greatest propaganda secret was the “big lie.” Tell it over and over again and people will believe. It must be true, people think.
Once we partly get why he is who he is, we know why trump is called “trump” – it’s a word that goes way back in time to its original meaning of “flatulence.”
What to do with the stink? With love, praise his amazing ability to lie and keep lying, admire how great he is at smearing others with such colorful language, extol how magical he is at never ever making a mistake, and adore him for how he always believe in himself for his continuous and great flatulence. What a guy! Let’s just keep up congratulating him. Pour on the love. Belove the bastard with his fabulous, extraordinary, awesome, spectacular, beautiful, miraculous truth. Hatred only inflames and hardens his “malignant narcissistic” gospel of me. Love is poison for him.
For sure, one reason for loving this stench is the universal rule of life and law of motion that “for every action, there is an equal opposite reaction.” America is being kicked out of its complacency and beginning to re-understand that freedom and democracy demand responsibility and participation. We have let that slide because all in all, life’s been pretty damn good for us here. We have trusted that the political process will work as it always has. It is apparent now that this is not necessarily so. The more Trump aspires to be king, citizenship, the reinforcement and reinvigoration of the genius of democracy, separation of powers, and rule of law are on the march.
So, thank you Donald. We love you! Though we want to expose you with kisses and flowers, like the “Emperor without clothes,” please don’t bare yourself and come clean. The horror. That’s too frightening.
I am 100% on board with you that love and compassion will always trump anger and hatred! Thank you for sharing your wisdom Sue.
I don’t know about love, Victoria, which of course trumps hate, but I don’t even aspire to be saintlike in some beatific way that doesn’t react in negative ways. With forgiveness being the standard alternative, that I always have a hard time with, I just got a hit of another way to relieve myself of how destructive negative emotions are in substituting understanding for what otherwise would tear me up.
I was schooled in Gandhian philosophy from a young age and I still believe in the tremendous impact of satyagraha, truth power. I personally believe we are dealing with great selfishness and greed in our government right now, and I don’t think that using the word “evil” goes too far. I am heartened today that even Trump supporters are decrying the parent/child separation horror. Maybe this is so abhorrent that we really will come together as a country.
That, to me, is the hopeful track — that, in his seemingly infinite capacity to keep outdoing how loathsome he is, he will do something abhorrent enough to turn his supporters off. Mitigating against that possibility is what I realized listening to a Republican panel after the State of the Union Address — they all would vote for him again because he was good for the economy. His base couldn’t care less about his morals. What a world.
Surviving Trump
It is common among the liberal elite, now revealed as a minority, to support each other by finding ever new ways to condemn our offensive and wild president. An astonishing number have sought therapy.
I found it too painful to be fixed in this position.
Forgiveness is a truly noble solution to any of life’s grievances, and, if one is adept at it, having the capacity to forgive both the near and dear and the large and powerful, and indeed existence itself — such a one is truly blessed.
However, I have found another useful tool for coping with the knot of distress in my heart.
On observation, I notice that I have numerous sub-perspectives that compete in me and contribute to the difficulty in coping with Trump.
Among these are:
The Trump Reality Show addict
The outraged citizen
The Doomsayer
The activist strategizing to affect the next elections
The observer of political process and the swing of the giant pendulum between liberal and conservative
The lover of our great constitution observing the stresses and praying that the structure will hold
The objective questioner, much suppressed, who observes Trump’s actual policies and strategies and how they might creatively address current events.
The curious political scientist who observes how a businessman might approach governance and expose the excesses and weaknesses of the purely political class
The anthropologist who observes the Trump phenomenon and a greater dialectical cycle between thesis and antithesis tending towards a higher synthesis
There are others that I cannot identify at the moment.
All of these were bound up in a knot in my heart that made it difficult to survive Trump. Separating them out has relieved me of that knot, and I find great relief in honoring each of these different perspectives in myself, allowing each its own separate view and basically just watching this extraordinary phenomenon unfold.
Watching may be the key to survival.
As they were leaving their White House to the Trump invasion, Obama calmed his children by saying, “It ain’t over until it’s over.”
I respect your intellectual prowess in being able to tease out the different tracks on which you react to Tramp, but don’t understand why you don’t come out of all of them mad as hell. And, I presume you’re mentioning forgiveness to follow up on what I talk about, but I wasn’t dealing with forgiveness which I always have found to be a spurious concept. I totally understand how anger and all the other negative emotions in reaction to what is intolerable takes a toll on oneself that forgiveness relieves one of, but how do you forgive people who do things that otherwise would be infuriating? The point of my post was to offer a stand for what you could call understanding – a bigger box in which empathy for a perpetrator being misguided relieves me of the hatred that otherwise would consume me. Perhaps you could say more about how carving up your reactions takes the sting out of them?????
Also, what about that Obama quote as a response to what I said? Someday Trump won’t be in office so they won’t need to be outraged forever, but how does Obama’s remark help his children not be outraged until that happens?
The exercise puts you in the witness so that you disidentify from the different strands of your feelings and reactions. You can also play between these different sub-perspectives. Each of them is interesting in its own way. But there is always the distance of the Witness. It is a much more peaceful way to be. Then you can just observe, detached, the cycle we are in, as Obama’s comment suggests.
For me, It might be easier to pity him if he were only tearing down himself and those who surround and support him. That he is taking this COUNTRY down fills me with sadness and despair. Some days I think that historically this country has survived dark times, so we’ll survive this one too and eventually there will be a course correction to a more enlightened path. But in light of recent events, I’m just not sure that’s true.
Despair over the world is a pall I always can feel that fills me with sadness, too. I don’t know that there is any antidote for that, and maybe there shouldn’t be so we’re motivated to do what we can to change things. Can you see hatred for Trump being something else, where it wouldn’t take such a toll on you if you think of him as I’ve suggested?
You’re right. Constantly harboring ill will is like taking poison and hoping the other guy dies. Channeling those feelings into something more effective is the healthier approach. Getting more involved in championing causes and candidates and other ways to curb him would be a positive use of my time and energy. And, as another commenter noted, acknowledging your feelings while creating some distance and watching this circus unfold might be helpful as well.
Well said. He’s activated us to do better. Fingers crossed we can move fast enough cause what we’re grappling with is alarming. Who would ever have thought that American malevolence would be the enemy of the good?